Kendall Lankford Jun 14
In the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth. The Earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters.
– Genesis 1:1-2
ORDER AND CREATION
Just moments before the “in the beginning,” nothing existed. And for limitless eternities, our God was perfectly thrilled to dwell enraptured within the inner trinitarian love of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And then, oh, about six to ten thousand years ago, God caused time to start ticking and space to bubble into being. The text says God first created the heavens and the Earth, which before the issuance of light, was just a collection of dark, formless, voided proto-matter that had yet to be organized into something meaningful. All of that changes in verse 2.
Once the darkened, watery building blocks of primordial mass were sung into being, the first thing our triune God does is hover over it. This action signifies His absolute sovereignty and dominion over the matter that He will henceforth be organizing. To hover over the disordered waters of pre-cosmological substances demonstrates that Yahweh is the one who will be taming the chaos, shaping it into a cosmos, and specifying it into something orderly and useful for His purposes. Thus, in six sequential twenty-four-hour days, Yahweh calls forth light out of the darkness and then heaven and Earth out of the waters, filling everything He made with life, beauty, and peace.
THE ORIGINAL MELKOR (1)
When God sings the universe into existence, He infuses it with purpose, life, beauty, and order. Like a master composer, He does not allow His celestial symphony to disintegrate into chaos or to lapse into an ear-jarring cacophony. He sang existential and intrinsic order into the masterpiece He fashioned and invited all of heaven’s newly created hosts to join the cosmic ballad with Him, which was very good.
At some point in the song, and no one quite knows how long, the simple harmonies were mixed with a most bitter discord. A rival song was being sung by Earth’s original Melkor. And among the divergent notes, a contingent of heavenly beings defected from their God and followed the dragony piper’s song like rats running to their doom. At this point, the God of order damned the archangel of chaos to slither shamefully upon his belly, dragging himself across the barren Earth, until the lake of fiery chaos could be prepared for him and his minions forever.
Unlike God, this miserable creature hated beauty, life, and order. He reveled in chaos, destruction, and disorder. He hated everything God made, especially the human beings God was so fond to sing about. From that moment on, the serpent of old would become man’s mortal enemy, seeking to extinguish his life, rob his people of beauty and joy, and fill his neighborhoods, societies, and cultures with pure unadulterated confusion and disorder.
SATAN’S DISCORDANT SYMPHONY
This campaign of mayhem began amid the beauty and tranquility of Eden’s orderly gardens. It was there the cunning serpent sewed division between the first man and his wife, which caused discord within their marriage, division with their God, and enmity among the creation, who now lived in fear and dread of man. This, however, would not be the end of Satan’s meddlings.
Throughout the centuries, the dragon has sewn discord, disunity, chaos, and open rebellion against God into one society after another. From a spirit of pure malevolence, this menacing entity still foments his sinister plans to topple the race of man. Lucifer, the master of discord, finds solace when unity is fractured, and harmony collapses among people. Like a twisted artist, he revels in the macabre he orchestrates, relishing the scent of bitterness, rejoicing in the notes of animosity that lingers in the air. Division is his chief weapon, his carefully hewn masterpiece, crafted to purposefully erode trust, foster disintegration, and extinguish the sweet harmonies of the Father’s song wherever it is found. With meticulous precision, he exploits the deepest fears and insecurities within the human race, manipulating the fragile strands that bind us all together, causing us to turn on our God, which causes us to turn on one another.
Satan knows that where godlessness takes hold, division thrives. And where division thrives, love crumbles, compassion wanes, and the very essence of humanity grows sick, despondent, and crippled in his schemes. In this wasteland of fractured souls, he seeks to reign as a malignant despot, gloatingly atop a pile of ever-growing human bodies. He is the architect of despair, perpetuating a cycle of anguish and suffering on everyone and everything he can catch up in his snare. That is his modus operandi, and he has done this over and over and over again.
THE MARKS OF MELKOR IN ‘MURICA
Welcome to modern-day America. After a dramatic origination founded upon the knowledge of God and a good constitution, we find ourselves once again sick with the devil’s lullaby. A little more than a half-century ago, rampant sexual immorality became the norm among teens and young adults. For the first time in human history, people in this country were legally allowed to have their babies chopped up in agony inside their wombs, discarded like human vermin in medical-grade trash bags, and donated to universities that would perform experiments on the dead babies in the name of “the science.”
A generation later, homosexuality and lesbianism became the rampant satanic leaven injected into society’s rotting lump. Forty years later, this has festered into an insidious rainbow-colored mold that is morally calcifying this country. Today, men no longer understand what it means to be men. Society has no answer for what a woman is. Colleges doll out gender studies degrees, so that a generation of delusional deviants can foment intellectual absurdities and outright lies. The media is gaslighting everyone. The government and our leaders are bereft of any moral decency or character to lead anyone. Our children are being perverted in indoctrination camps called public schools. And amid all of this chaos and confusion reverberating in this land, the love of God grows ever cold, and the lampstand that once shone brightly to the nations and did beat back the darkness is now in danger of being swallowed by the void as its embers flickers.
When you look around and see a nation more divided than ever, that is undoubtedly the point. Our enemy never sleeps and is constantly roaming about like a roaring lion seeking whomever he may devour (1 Peter 5:8). We did not get here by accident; this was the point all along, transforming us from a harmonious society into a people who give hearty approval to every kind of wickedness and evil under heaven (Romans 1:32). And while this was clearly the point, there most certainly is a cure.
THE GOSPEL THAT KILLS DIVISION
Our God has not left us to face the serpent on our own. He did not leave us in our chains and miseries to be eternally accosted by the enemy of our soul. No!
Two thousand years ago, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ came to overturn the devil’s treachery, to heal man’s virulent soul, and to reunite God’s people with their God and fellow man. The chaos of sin was silenced through the sacrificial death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the deep chasm of division between humanity and God was permanently healed. In a single act of the most profound love, Christ embraced the weight of our transgressions and bore the agony of our iniquities. With each agonizing breath, He conquered the chaos that held us captive, disarming the powers of darkness and offering us a pathway to redemption. Through His blood, shed in perfect atonement, He washed away the stains of our iniquities and reconciled us with our Heavenly Father. In the glorious triumph of His resurrection, Christ shattered the chains of division, restoring unity between God and man and granting us the promise of eternal life, a resounding declaration of hope. In Christ, the chaos of sin is forever vanquished, and the division is forever mended.
This has occurred powerfully and ultimately between God and us since there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1). Everything that once separated us spiritually from God has been abated so that there is nothing that can separate our soul from His love (Romans 8:35-28). Absolutely nothing!
But this is not just a reality for the soul. This is not just a truth vouchsafed for us in heaven, as true as that is. In Christ, the devilish poison of division is daily being put to death by the power of the Spirit. Through the paraclete’s relentless conviction, our hearts are being stirred, and all division is being laid bare. Our minds are being rewoven with the threads of the Gospel, casting off the shackles of animosity and embracing the mind of Christ (Romans 12:1-2). Oh, the glorious fruit the Spirit has wrought already and is working now within us! Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control are trickling forth in purest droplets from the soul of spiritual babes and gushing forth like a mighty river from the long in love with Christ.
Empowered now by the Spirit of grace, we extend grace, forgiveness, and reconciliation, bridging the chasms of severed relationships with the unwavering love of Christ. Guided by the Spirit’s wisdom, we discern truth and dismantle falsehoods that breed discord in our homes, neighborhoods, and society. O, let us yield to the Holy Spirit’s sanctifying fire, for under His mastery and care, all division withers and all unity begins to thrive, birthing for Christ’s Church a testimony of God’s transformative power within us.
While the enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy, the Church, in the name of Jesus Christ, comes to seal, heal, and spread joy. Our country is in a mess right now. The fingerprints of Satan’s sadistic schemes are everywhere. And if something does not happen quickly, this nation will be torn asunder, collapsing into the same rubble as Rome before her. But, this need not be her fate!
If the Church would pray for revival, if we would speak the truth in love, proclaim the Gospel of peace, interject ourselves like salt into the rot, and shine forth like Christ in a crooked and perverse generation, then we may yet see this nation spared from the coming wrath of God. Perhaps if we would preach like Jonah, weep like Jeremiah, if we would repent like Nebuchadnezzar, or stand firm against God’s enemies like Samson; If we would worship as ardently as David, or employ wisdom like his son Solomon; If we would be as industrious in our society as Daniel and Joseph; if we would chase after the whoring gentiles like Hosea; and if we, who are filled with the same Spirit that raised Christ Jesus from the dead, would live like the apostles – going from town to town declaring freedom in the risen Christ – then I believe we will see this nation turning back to God.
Division, chaos, discord, and disunity are all symptoms of walking away from God. They are hallmark attacks of the enemy who hates humanity with a passion and wants to see us destroyed. As Christians, we know the answer. We have the remedy. We have the antidote to the serpent’s venom; the only loving thing now to do is apply it liberally wherever chaos and division are still found.
We do not have time to hide or blend in. If we do nothing, this country will collapse. It may already be too late, which God alone knows. But while we have breath in our lungs and see the truth, let us proclaim it. Let us pray the pagans will be converted to Christ. Let us petition heaven that this nation will repent and bow again unto Christ. And let us labor with everything we have to see His Kingdom advancing in this place.
For Christendom,
Kendall Lankfordrd
NOTES
(1) WHO IS MELKOR? – Melkor, also known as Morgoth, is a prominent character in J.R.R. Tolkien’s legendarium, specifically in “The Silmarillion.” He is a fictional character representing the embodiment of evil and the primary antagonist of the narrative. In Tolkien’s cosmology, the world, known as Arda, was created through the music of the Ainur, powerful beings who are subordinate to Ilúvatar, the supreme deity. Melkor was one of the Ainur who participated in the creation of the world. Initially, he was one of the mightiest and most talented of the Ainur, possessing great power and knowledge. However, Melkor developed a strong desire for dominion and control, which eventually led him astray from Ilúvatar’s original intentions. During the “Music of the Ainur,” a symphony performed by the Ainur under Ilúvatar’s guidance, Melkor introduced discord into the harmony. He sought to introduce his own themes and overpower the music of the others, desiring to shape the world according to his will rather than following the divine plan. This act of discord caused disharmony and tension within the music. Melkor’s primary goal was to dominate and control the world of Arda. He sought power, control, and the subjugation of all other creatures. Overall, Melkor’s modus operandi was centered around spreading chaos, corrupting others, and disrupting the harmony and order intended by Ilúvatar. His actions led to a long history of suffering and heroic struggles against his reign, making him one of the most significant and compelling villains in Tolkien’s mythology, and an apropos type of Lucifer in the Scriptures.
