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As we look around at life we pretty much have to acknowledge several things.
We must acknowledge:
The general sinfulness of humanity
And the existence of all kinds of suffering.
We need to acknowledge the existence of Satan and demons.
And the history of the human race for around 6000 some years.
And of course, we need to acknowledge the existence of God.
Many throw up their hands in wonder and ask the question -
What in the world is goin' on?
In this episode I will try to answer that question.
And the place to start is an
ORIENTATION TO GOD'S CHARACTER
We know that God is sovereign.
His sovereignty is the absolute authority to think, determine and bring to
pass anything He wants.
Psalm 115:3, "but our God is in the heavens. He does whatever he wants."
He is also Righteous: That means He is perfectly right and good in
everything He thinks and does.
God is Truth: There is no deception with God; no tricks; no games.
He is Omnipotent: he has the POWER to do anything He wants.
He is Omniscient: His knowledge is everywhere present. It is intricate,
intimate and prescient.
God is also perfect love. Love by its very nature always does what is
beneficial to its object.
Furthermore, by its nature, love wants someone to bless - to do good to.
And God wants that object to love and worship Him in return. Principle of
John 4:23.
"But a time is coming, and even now has arrived, when the true worshipers
will worship the Father in spirit and truth;
for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers."
This requires that God not only create beings to love Him -
BUT
it also requires that that being have FREE WILL or volition.
There is a lot of misunderstanding about free will -
Basically, a creature with free will has the ability to THINK anything it
wants. God does not control the thoughts.
Usually free will includes the choice to put into action what it wants to
do.
And usually, God allows creatures to do the things they want to do.
The issue here is that a creature without free will - that is, a creature
with programmed robotic responses does not satisfy the nature of divine
love.
But this means that there is the possibility that a creature with free will
might THINK and even DO
that which violates God's standards of righteousness.
So in order to fulfill His perfect love God instituted what I call: the
divine love initiative.
Why the word INITIATIVE: it means the action of taking the first step or
move.
God in His sovereignty, obviously took the first step.
Stage one of THE DIVINE LOVE INITIATIVE is THE CREATION OF ANGELS
As an expression of His perfect essence, God chose to create beings who
would live in the universe with free will.
He wanted them to express themselves toward Him in a positive attitude from
choice and not as a programmed robot.
But in God's foreknowledge, He anticipated that the opposite of His perfect
righteousness would manifest itself through a volitional creature.
So in order to allow for existence of volitional creatures throughout
eternity, God chose to permit the manifestation of unrighteousness.
He would then deal with that unrighteousness according to His perfect
justice once and for all time.
There is an interesting principle at Psalm 92:6-7.
A stupid person has no knowledge, Nor does a foolish person understand this:
Prov. 28:5 amplifies this - "evil ones do not understand justice."
The psalm continues - When the wicked sprouted up like grass, And all who
did injustice flourished,
It was only that they might be destroyed forevermore.
The verb is shAmad with the preposition Le - to indicate PURPOSE.
Unrighteousness cannot be tolerated by perfect righteousness. It must be
judged by God's perfect justice.
Once exposed and judged perfectly and absolutely, it will no longer be an
issue throughout the universe.
And so, volitional creatures will be able to exist with their volition in
tact, but without the threat of expressing anything contrary to
God's righteousness.
That course of action will simply not be available to them.
Sin and unrighteousness will have been totally exposed and evaluated.
And through that process it will be demonstrated to all the creation that it
is undesirable and unacceptable and non-beneficial.
For all of God's creatures, there just won't be any temptation to do the
opposite.
It will be on display as it were - in an everlasting museum of history.
An Illustration - perhaps imperfect: touching a hot burner.
So in His wisdom, timing and LOVE.
And being fully aware of what would happen, God chose to create beings who
could choose to love, worship and serve Him.
They were created with free will so that worship and fellowship would be a
matter of choice and not some kind of robotic programming.
In the beginning they were called sons or offspring of God. Later they were
called angels or messengers.
The angels existed as God's sons and worshippers for an indefinite amount of
time.
Job 38:4-7, "at the creation of the physical universe, all the sons of God
shouted for joy."
At that time, the expression of all the angels was as is described at Psalm
103:19-22.
Yahweh has established His throne in the heavens, And His sovereignty rules
over all.
Praise Yahweh, you His angels, Mighty in strength, who perform His word,
Obeying the voice of His word!
Praise Yahweh, all you His hosts, You who serve Him, doing His will.
Praise Yahweh, all you works of His, In all places of His dominion; Praise
Yahweh, O my soul!
There was a rank and order among these angels of God but everything still
functioned smoothly without competition or dissatisfaction during this
indefinite period of time.
As you probably know -
The greatest and most beautiful of God's angels was called the shining one.
The word in the Hebrew is Halel and is represented in the Latin by the word
Lucifer.
It is a good name. There is nothing wrong with it at all.
It communicates the beauty and magnificence of this angel who also had the
highest rank and function among all the angels.
Now, eventually, what God had foreknown came about and Halel expressed an
attitude that rejected the authority and character of God.
We learn about this revolt among the angels from Isaiah 14 and Ezek 28.
Not everyone believes that these passages refer to the fall of Lucifer, but
I'm going to teach about them from the perspective that they do in fact tell
us about that event.
Isaiah 14:12 proclaims the fact: "How you have fallen from heaven, Halel,
son of the dawn!"
Ezek 28:15-18 explains how it happened.
"You were blameless in your ways From the day you were created
Until unrighteousness was found in you.
By the greatness of your duty, You were internally filled with aggression,
And you sinned;
Therefore I have cast you out in disgrace From the mountain of God.
And I have removed you, you covering cherub, From the midst of the stones of
fire.
Your heart was haughty because of your beauty; You corrupted your wisdom by
reason of your splendor."
The corruption of his wisdom (intellect and knowledge) refers to the
distortion of his nature.
It is now flawed with distorted thinking and viewpoint.
Because of Lucifer's sin, a judgment of everlasting separation from God was
placed upon him.
Ii is stated at verse 19, "and you will be no more." It does not mean
annihilation.
It refers to everlasting ruin in the lake of fire. Mat. 25:41, "the
everlasting fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels."
But at this time, Satan is still in the universe promoting his own viewpoint
that is contrary to God's righteousness.
This can only mean that after God pronounced judgment upon him, Satan
protested and argued against God's verdict.
He presented what he thought was a "God-proof" escape plan. We can call it
SATAN’S DOC OF LOVE AND FAIRNESS.
God is unfair and unloving
Basically -
1. It is impossible for a loving God to cast His creatures whom He loves
into the lake of fire.
2. It is unfair to judge a creature for failing when God put into him the
capacity to fail. Free will.
But this viewpoint is expressed from the perspective of Satan's distorted
mentality.
Ezek. 28:17, "you corrupted your wisdom."
In his corruption, he failed to consider the absolute nature of God's
righteousness and justice
in conjunction with the "impartiality" of His perfect love.
God's love is perfect. But justice trumps love.
This understanding of Satan's "protest" is based on three factors.
1. The expression of this very viewpoint by a demon (fallen angel) who
visited Eliphaz at Job 4:12-21.
"Can mankind be righteous before God? Can a man be pure before his Maker?
He puts no trust even in His servants; And He accuses His angels of error.
How much more those who live in houses of clay, Whose foundation is in the
dust."
2. The "fact" that Satan is not NOW in the lake of fire requires a
"reasonable" explanation as to "why?"
3. The expression of this very viewpoint throughout the history of the human
race under the influence of Satan's revolution.
When Satan rebelled against God, God must have established some kind of
"confrontation" or "test period" for the other angels to determine for all
time, which angels were devoted to God and which ones wanted to follow in
Satan's revolt.
After this "test period" which could have been quickly concluded, the lines
were drawn,
decisions made and two types of angels were now in existence in the
universe.
1. The elect or un-fallen angels who remained faithful to God.
Hebrews 1:6, angels of God . 1 Tim. 5:21, the elect angels.
2. The fallen angels, now in active and perpetual rebellion against God and
aligned under the ruling authority of Satan to promote his cause.
Satan's angels, Rev. 12:7; Mat. 25:41
At this time, God formally kicked Satan out of heaven so he had to find
another location from where to launch his platform for overthrowing God.
He found that location on the earth.
This was before the creation of Adam.
Ezek. 28:16, Therefore I have cast you out in disgrace From the mountain of
God.
And I have removed you, you covering cherub, From the midst of the stones of
fire.
And so, based on those factors, it can be determined that God has delayed
execution of sentence on Satan
in order to demonstrate to him and to all of creation that He is indeed
perfectly fair, righteous and loving.
During this "delay of sentence" period, Satan is constantly attempting to
overthrow God's sovereignty, challenge His justice,
and challenge the sentence of fire that was placed upon him.
1. Only when the absolute sovereignty of God is neutralized can Satan be
independent and unrestricted by God and His character.
2. In order to do this, Satan need only "prove" that God is really unjust
and unloving.
If he can discredit God it will make the divine verdict toward him to be
invalid.
And he really thinks he can succeed. But that "optimism" comes from his
distorted, twisted, self-centered mentality which was corrupted when he
initially sinned. Again, as is indicated at Ezek. 28:17, "you corrupted your
wisdom."
But God is perfectly fair and in His divine wisdom He chose to demonstrate
or prove to Satan that He is perfectly just and loving.
Stage two of THE DIVINE LOVE INITIATIVE is the creation of humanity.
In order to prove to satan that God is righteous, just and loving, He
created mankind.
God's vindication of His justice began with the creation of the human race
on the very planet that Satan claimed for himself. The earth.
Man was created with the same capacity of volition and given the clear
choice between acceptance or rejection of God's policy for living in His
universe. Gen. 2:16-17
Adam and Ishah became the "test case" for the perfect character of God.
As they remain faithful to divine policy, God's righteousness, justice and
love are vindicated.
If they reject divine policy, God's justice is restated and affirmed. You
shall surely die.
Now, after Satan was removed from his heavenly authority, and before Adam
was created, he laid claim to the planet earth and made it his
"headquarters". Isaiah 14:12-14, tells us that he was "cut down to the
earth."
This claim on the earth was unofficial and unrecognized by God since he had
other plans for the earth.
So the planet surface was laid waste and made empty, and Satan was driven
away.
The details of that event require a separate study, but afterwards, God then
made the earth beautiful again and gave it to Adam and Ishah.
Man was created with the same capacity of volition and given the clear
choice between acceptance or rejection of Divine policy. Gen. 2:16-17
Man was created on the earth and was given full dominion over the entire
realm. At Gen. 1:28, rule over it. and at Ps. 8:6,
"You made him to rule over the works of your hands; You have put all things
under his feet."
However, Satan, continued his attempt to discredit the justice and love of
God and decided to throw a wrench in God's plan to use Adam and Ishah
as examples of righteousness.
And we all know the story of the fall of Adam.
Basically:
Perfect happiness was provided for Adam and Ishah in the garden of Eden.
But in the garden was also the test of love; the test for free will. The
tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
The fruit on that tree was not bad. It was the act of taking the fruit; the
act of disobedience that was bad.
It was a test of choice to be devoted to God or to choose a different path.
If they sinned by disobeying God and taking the fruit of the tree, they
would surely die.
That is, in that moment of time they would become dead to God; they would
lose relationship with Him and become aliented or separated from His
blessings. The usual term for this is spiritual death.
Satan attacked Ishah first. He accused God of being a liar; of being selfish
and even afraid.
And then he showed her that the tree was beautiful to look at and was good
to eat.
Through that deception Ishah disobeyed God and ate the fruit. In that moment
of time, she died to God, lost relationship with God,
and her very nature became corrupted.
Ishah then brought the fruit to Adam.
Adam then had to choose between the woman whom he loved and God whom he
loved.
Whether he could discern something different about Ishah we can only
surmise.
But he chose fellowship with her instead of fellowship with God, and he ate
the fruit.
And in that moment of time, Adam came under the penalty of sin. He died to
God, lost his relationship with God and his very nature became corrupted. He
died spiritually.
And all of Adam's progeny would be born with a sin nature and already
spiritually dead.
Satan's defeat of Adam also usurped authority over the earth from him and
Satan became the ruler of the world.
Jesus called him the ruler of this world at Jn. 14:30.
And since the fall of Adam, mankind is NOT viewed as in a place of
authority, but in slavery to Satan and under his rulership; under his
kingdom of darkness. 1 Jn. 5:19 states, "the whole world lies under the
power of the evil one."
So it would seem that Satan had successfully countered God's plan and he
would escape the sentence of fire placed upon him.
However, God had one more test for free will and one more opportunity for
man to choose love and devotion to God.
Stage 3 of the divine love initiative is the provision of a savior.
That provision was given in the seed promise of Gen. 3:15 and the
institution of the teaching aid of animal sacrifices.
And I will put enmity between you and the woman,
And between your offspring and her Descendant;
He shall bruise you on the head, (a fatal head blow)
And you shall bruise Him on the heel. (a minor, non-fatal blow)
Although the curse of spiritual death and the curse of physical death was
passed on to all of Adam's progeny
anyone could be redeemed from that curse by trusting in the promised Savior.
And anytime that someone trusts in the salvation promise, God's love and
justice is vindicated.
Every passage that talks about bringing glory to God refers to the
vindication of His character.
God says of Israel: "whom I have created for my glory." Isaiah 43:7
Eph. 3:8-11 tells us that Paul's ministry was to proclaim to the Gentiles
the unfathomable riches of Christ, 9 and to bring to light the
administration of the mystery which for ages has been hidden in God, who
created all things; so that the multifaceted wisdom of God might now be made
known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly
places. This was in accordance with the eternal purpose which He
accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.
And whenever any aspect of God's plan and character is glorified (that is,
vindicated) Satan is reminded once again that his destiny in the lake of
fire is certain.
So Jesus could say at John 16:11, that the Holy Spirit will convict the
world of judgment because the ruler of this world has been judged.
But in the meantime, Satan's whole purpose in this realm is to fulfill his 5
paragraph plan of Isaiah 14.
During this "delay of sentence" period, Satan is constantly attempting to
overthrow God's sovereignty.
Satan’s theory
1. Only when the absolute sovereignty of God is neutralized can Satan's
freewill be independent and unrestricted by God and His character.
2. In order to do this, Satan need only "prove" that God is really unjust
and unloving.
If he can discredit God it will make the divine verdict toward him to be
invalid.
3. The plan of Satan is outlined at Isaiah 14:13-14 with the 5 "I wills."
I believe that these five tenets of Satan's goal were devised by him after
his fall, beginning before the creation of man and being finalized when he
became aware of God's purpose for the chosen Messianic people, the Jews.
Satan states: I WILL -
Get back to heaven
Rule over the angels (stars of God)
Rule over the human race: Mount of the assembly in the recesses of the North
Transcend the Messianic glory: The heights of the cloud (singular)
Become like God
To accomplish his plans Satan has a huge array of offensive weapons.
He has his schemes as mentioned at 2Cor. 2:11, "we are not ignorant of his
schemes."
And he has a huge army as mentioned at Eph. 6:12.
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers,
against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness,
against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.
He wages a specialized attack on individual believers trying to get them to
sin as stated at 1 Pet. 5:8,
"Be in control, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around
like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour."
He seeks to distract people from hearing and believing the gospel of
salvation. 2Cor. 4:3-4
And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing,
in whose case the god of this world
has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the
light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
And in the future he has a plan to proclaim himself to be God during the
tribulation.
Through these schemes and many others, he really thinks he can succeed.
But that "optimism" comes from his distorted, twisted, self-centered
mentality which was corrupted when he initially sinned.
But of course he will not and cannot prevail.
At the present time, God uses the church to reveal and proclaim the
vindication of His character and plan as seen at Eph 3:10.
"so that the multifaceted wisdom of God might now be made known through the
church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places."
The success of the divine love initiative is seen through the victorious
career of Jesus the Messiah.
There is the victory of Jesus during His life:
Heb. 4:15, He was tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.
John 8:29, "And He who sent Me is with Me; He has not left Me alone, for I
always do the things that are pleasing to Him."
There is the victory on the cross: Col. 2:14-15
Jesus canceled the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us,
which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed
it to the cross. When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a
public display of them, having triumphed over them through the cross.
At 1Peter 2:24
"Jesus Himself carried our sins in His body on the cross, so that we having
died to sin will live in righteousness.
And the result is shown at Heb. 2:10, bringing many sons into glory.
There is the victory of resurrection: The resurrection is proof that His
victory on the cross was real.
Acts 17:31, "God has set a day on which He will judge the world in
righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed,
having furnished proof to all people by raising Him from the dead."
There is the victory of His second coming:
Is 26:21-27.1
For behold, the Lord is about to come out from His place To punish the
inhabitants of the earth for their wrongdoing;
And the earth will reveal her bloodshed And will no longer cover her slain.
On that day the Lord will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, With His
fierce and great and mighty sword,
Even Leviathan the twisted serpent; And He will kill the dragon who lives in
the sea
Rev. 20:1-3
Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding the key of the abyss
and a great chain in his hand. 2 And he took hold of the dragon, the serpent
of old, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years; 3
and he threw him into the abyss and shut it and sealed it over him, so that
he would not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were
completed; after these things he must be released for a short time."
And then at the end of the earthly kingdom there is the final administration
of the sentence of fire. Rev. 20:10
And the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and
brimstone,
where the beast and the false prophet are also; and they will be tormented
day and night forever and ever.
The summary of the success of the divine love initiative is stated at Phil
2:9-11.
For this reason also God highly exalted Jesus, and bestowed on Him the name
which is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will
bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and
that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of
God the Father.
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