Blind to Blindness

This is the predicament of our world: a competing cacophony of kingdoms and power-mongering, all ruled over by Satan himself, the evil old king whose end goal is death and decay. Humanity is trapped under an oppressive ruler, blind to his control, and blind to its own spiritual blindness. We jockey for power, we bicker and fight, we wage war politically and economically, and we watch with hope for someone who can set us free.

--Daniel Montgomery & Mike Cosper, Faithmapping: A Gospel Atlas for Your Spiritual Journey (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), 34.

Blind Slaves

It's the kingdom of Satan, hell-bent on spreading lies, disease, and death, and it's all around us.

Of all the established kingdoms, this is the one at the root of evil in all the others. The evil king of that kingdom staked a claim in the human heart with Adam and Eve, and that curse has been passed down generation after generation. It's the reason we all are petty tyrants, and it's the reason we see bodies stacked like cordwood in Auschwitz and Rwanda. It has a death-grip on the world, simultaneously enslaving us and blinding us to our enslavement. We think we're free. We're not.

--Daniel Montgomery & Mike Cosper, Faithmapping: A Gospel Atlas for Your Spiritual Journey (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), 32-33.

If God Still Has Work for Me Here, I Cannot Die

Our death is just as meticulously planned as the death of Christ. There is no combination of evil men, disease, or accident that can kill us as long as God still has work for us to do.

--Erwin W. Lutzer, One Minute After You Die (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 1997), 168.