A much overlooked part of the Christian life is the complete "Biblical Worldview".   Dr. Ed Murphey, in his book "The Handbook for Spiritual Warfare" speaks of a Biblical world view based on what God has revealed about Himself, including His names.  He also uses James Sire's works in this.  Sire, in his writings on World View gave definitions of the various types of theology.  To boil this down, there are three parts to the proper Christian World View:  The "Spiritual World View", the "Middle View", and the "Physical World View".  For an in-depth study of Sire's views, you should consider reading "The Universe Next Door: A Basic Worldview Catalog". 

Sire states, basically, that there is a Satanic plan that slowly replaces Godly Theism with other types of belief.  This replacement is progressive in each society, and is thought of as progress in those societies thus afflicted.  We can see this in the United States, where we were founded on a Theistic belief, that being the belief in a single Almighty God that created all that is, and is concerned and participating in the daily life of people.  This is the line that Evangelical Christians hold; there are no other gods, there are no other paths to enlightenment and righteousness, and God is interested in you as a person, and actively participates in your life.  This is the Christianity of the Bible.

From Theism societies move to Deism, where individuals believe, based on evidence, that God exists and created everything, but He does not interact with mankind.  This is the first step away from Biblical Christianity and towards a faulty view of God.

Next is a move to Naturalism.  Naturalism states that everthing arose from a natural source, and God is excluded from all of Creation.  This accounts for everthing that is called "scientific" (I call it psuedo-science since it leaves God out) such as "The Big Bang Theory", "The Theory of Evolution", Alien Life, and all of the other explanations that leave God out and attempt a "natural" explanation.  Some people will stop here in this spiritual downward spiral, and believe there may be a "Great Spirit" out there, but all of life is a cosmic accident.  Some may even attempt to combine Naturalism with Deism and say that God set it all in motion, then let evolution take over.

From Naturalism to the next phase, Nihilism, is but a short step.  When a person does not believe that God has anything to do with anything, and life is just a big accident, it becomes easy to begin to feel that life has no meaning.  In the Nihilistic World View all spiritualism is rejected, life is considered to be meaningless, and and the human being is considered worthless rather than God's crowning achievent in Creation, that is a being created in His Image.  Most Atheists are at this step, but some realize that life has to have meaning, so human meaning is substituted for Godly meaning.  Human love is substituted for God's Love.  Human sacrifice is substituted for Christ Sacrificial Work.

The next phase in the downfall is Existentialism. Existentialism states that you are free to develop in your own way.  Since God is not interested in you and probably does not exist, you get to choose how you will develop.  According to this doctrine (of devils) you are a free individual inhabiting the universe and you get to determine your path.  There is no "right" or "wrong", just the illusion we are creating for our own life.

The next phase is Pantheistic Monism where the individual decides that the Universe and all that is in it is the over-arching mentality of existence.  Since the universe provides all we need, we are to simply develop ourselves and use these resources.  God is completely eliminated and replaced by the creation.  It is a perfect example of what the Apostle Paul said in Romans 1:25 that they worshipped and served the created things over the Creator.  Whether one speaks of worshipping and idol or the universe, it is all worshipping what God created, rather than worshipping God.

The final step, that brings us to the lowest depths of this Satanic maelstrom is what is called the "New Age" or "New Consciousness" movements.  This movement includes many things band-aided together to attempt to make everything work as one.  You get to choose if you want to develop a "Buddha Consciousness", a "Native American Consciousness", or a "Christ Consciousness" for example.  According to this, all things are one and share one mind.  All of creation is one large hegemony of shared experience, and we each can develop our own salvation through attempting to mimic some great person's consciousness.  I know, this is an over-simplification of the concept, but the ridiculousness of a belief that you can somehow save yourself makes me state it this way.  This is about as far from the Biblical Wold View as it is possible to get!  In this belief system Christ has been demoted from the Son of God whose Name is above all names, to a wise person equal to Mohammet, Moses, Buddha, or the local Shaman.

Before any of this takes root there is one neccessity:  Satan must first wreak havoc on the true Christian World View.

As I said at the beginning, the Christian should see three worlds:  the Spiritual World, the Physical World, and the Middle World.  Some people think of the Spiritual World and the Physical World as two separate deminsions, and that is okay, if you do not go off into some kind of la-la land beliefs.  The Middle World is where these two worlds come together.

Remember, this is a world view, not the way the worlds are made.  The World View with the middle world in it, let's the person see that the Spiritual World is interacting with the Physical World.

This is important!  Satan has blinded most Christians to this view of the Middle World!  And without it, we don't know what the enemy is up to, and what our God is doing for us!

In his writing Dr. Murphy put it this way, and I am paraphrasing, not quoting.  Most Christians today know there is a Spiritual World where God is, and Jesus sits at His right hand, and Angles live.  They also know that there is a Physical World where we live, work, and all the things associated with our lives.  What they are missing is their view of that Middle World where the other two worlds mix together.  He explained it this way; if we get sick we pray that God will heal us, and we go to the doctor and get treated.  The very most we will do is thank God that He gave the doctors the ability and knowledge to heal us.

But what about a native somewhere that a missionary doctor goes to help?  The tribe is suffering horribly from disease, and they have had their witch doctor try to drive off the evil spirits and invoke help from their gods.  They see the disease as a meeting of the Spiritual and Physical Worlds - this is the Middle World.  When the missionary doctor shows up and gives them medicine and tells them about Jesus Christ, and the natives see their people getting better, what do they do?  Do they go "Wow, medicine is a great thing!"  No!  They admit that the missionary's God was greater than their god that could not help them.  The drugs were nothing more than something God gave them to help.

This view of the Middle World is missing from most Christian's lives.  Paul tells us in Ephesians 6:12 that we don't fight against flesh and blood (humans) but against principalities, powers, rulers of the darkness of this world, and spiritual wickedness in high places.  With the two world view, leaving out the Middle World, we get one of two things:  either Christians who think they are fighting to help God up in Heaven, or movies where humans fight demons on earth.  God is perfectly capable of keeping Heaven clean and under His control without our help; He is also completely capable of keeping Hell where it is and not letting anything out that He doesn't want out.  Nor has God told us to fight spiritual forces that are hanging out in the Andromeda Galaxy.  What He has tasked us with is fighting against spiritual forces that are interacting with earth and are working in Heavenly places to undermine Christ's authority and message on earth.  We fight in the Spiritual and Worldly realm to limit Satan's work against the Church.

What many Christians are missing is the view of how these forces are affecting the world around us.  To recapture this view we need to give God the glory for every good thing.  We need to blame all the bad things on Satan.

Stop mixing Christianity with other belief systems!

If you, as a Christian want to fight against the things that Paul speaks of, you are going to have to look at how the Spiritual World is affecting the Physical World.  You are going to be called "crazy" by many people.  People are going to try to tell you that evil is brought on by ourselves.  Most people are so convinced they know about evil spirits from movies and books that they don't want to admit that could be their problem.  If evil spirits are constantly attacking a Christian, you must be doing something they don't like!  Every evil spirit out there is looking for a chance to cause harm to the Church in any way they can.  Quit blaming President Biden for giving our country to the Chi-Coms and start blaming the devil and his cohorts.  Stop blaming lawmakers for passing abortion and start blaming the the spiritual powers that influence them.  Quit blaming the school teachers for "Story Time with a Trannie" and start blaming the rulers of darkness and the wickedness in the heavens for this influence.  Doesn't mean you have to accept these things and just pray about it, but it does mean that you need to realize that the root of these issues is spritual not physical. 

As we move into this study of  the occult, remember that you have to fight against these spiritual issues, and to know where to fight you must see the Middle World where the Spiritual and the Physical are colliding.  Don't let Satan convince you that these are two separate worlds that don't interact with each other.  Don't let yourself begin to see the Physical World as a place of physics, medicine, and farming, but see it as God's way of providing transportation, health, and food.

Next time, unless the Lord tells me different, we will write about one of the most common sins that God hates, but many Christians just don't take seriously:  Horoscopes.