“You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by My Father in heaven.” Matthew 16:16-17.

It is Christ…who also makes intercession for us…the Spirit…makes intercession for the saints. Romans 8:34, 27.

Our bodies have many parts, and God has put each part just where He wants it. 1 Corinthians 12:18.

And our chapter, Revelation 16: Then I heard a loud voice from the temple, saying to the seven angels, “Go and pour out on the earth the seven bowls of the wrath of God.” So the first angel went and poured out his bowl on the earth; and it became a loathsome and malignant sore on the people who had the mark of the beast and who worshiped his image. The second angel poured out his bowl into the sea, and it became blood like that of a dead man; and every living thing in the sea died. Then the third angel poured out his bowl into the rivers and the springs of waters; and they became blood. And I heard the angel of the waters saying, “Righteous are You, who are and who were, O Holy One, because You judged these things; for they poured out the blood of saints and prophets, and You have given them blood to drink. They deserve it.” And I heard the altar saying, “Yes, O Lord God, the Almighty, true and righteous are Your judgments.” The fourth angel poured out his bowl upon the sun, and it was given to it to scorch men with fire. Men were scorched with fierce heat; and they blasphemed the name of God who has the power over these plagues, and they did not repent so as to give Him glory. Then the fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and his kingdom became darkened; and they gnawed their tongues because of pain, and they blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores; and they did not repent of their deeds. The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river, the Euphrates; and its water was dried up, so that the way would be prepared for the kings from the east. And I saw coming out of the mouth of the dragon and out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet, three unclean spirits like frogs; for they are spirits of demons, performing signs, which go out to the kings of the whole world, to gather them together for the war of the great day of God, the Almighty. (“Behold, I am coming like a thief. Blessed is the one who stays awake and keeps his clothes, so that he will not walk about naked and men will not see his shame.”) And they gathered them together to the place which in Hebrew is called Har-Magedon. Then the seventh angel poured out his bowl upon the air, and a loud voice came out of the temple from the throne, saying, “It is done.” And there were flashes of lightning and sounds and peals of thunder; and there was a great earthquake, such as there had not been since man came to be upon the earth, so great an earthquake was it, and so mighty. The great city was split into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell. Babylon the great was remembered before God, to give her the cup of the wine of His fierce wrath. And every island fled away, and the mountains were not found. And huge hailstones, about one hundred pounds each, came down from heaven upon men; and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail, because its plague was extremely severe.

Reading this, how can we not see the unclean spirits of demons coming forth out of violence and lies and blaspheming so evident in our world today? And this is so like the time of Pharaoh and the plagues of Egypt except it will be against all Pharaohs whose hearts are hardened and turned away from the living Creator God – Father, Son, Spirit. There will be a time when all the evil in this fallen world will be done. And if we think we don’t deserve to be shaken then we do not see or hear the cries of child victims of rape, of the darkness of false religion – idolatry – enslaving people, of the cruelty of war and greed and power turned against the helpless, of people turning against one another. If we do not finally understand that we are all of us helpless against the evil of sin and that we need to be saved. I love the book that I am reading now by Tom Wright titled, What St Paul Really Said. We so need to pull things together and Wright wrote that beautifully in this paragraph: “Paul, Jesus and God: It should be clear by now that when Paul went out into the Gentile world with his ‘gospel’, he went as a Jew to Gentiles, to tell the Gentile world what Jews had always believed: that ‘the gods of the nations are idols, but our God made the heavens’ (Psalm 96:5). But he had now been grasped by a new vision of God, which meant that the traditional statement could never be made casually or dismissively, with a sense of effortless racial superiority. The one God, the creator, had now been made known in and as Jesus of Nazareth, the crucified and risen Messiah, the Lord of the world. The face that called the world into existence was turned at last towards the world in self-revelation, in rescue, in love. The wind that swept over the waters of creation was blowing again, to bring to life things that were dead, to call into existence things that did not exist. This was a message, a thoroughly Jewish message, that the Gentile world urgently needed to hear. Paul believed himself called to be the means of bringing this about.” That wind is the Holy Spirit, Creator God. He was sent to dwell with us and bring understanding. It is Christ who also makes intercession for us…the Spirit makes intercession for the saints. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be a holder for unclean spirits, demons, who pour forth rage, hate, lies. This battle ground we live in is spiritual warfare. We need God and His love guiding us and indwelling our hearts, minds and spirits. He is the One who rescues us. It is God who saves.