Angelic Conflict part 90: Human history – Mat 13:24-30; Gen 3:1-3.

Title: Angelic Conflict part 90: Human history - MAT 13:24-30; GEN 3:1-3.

 

Arrogance, pride, and self-centeredness are a violation of the original design of finite beings who were created to be dependent on their Creator.

 

PRO 8:13

"The fear of the Lord is to hate evil;

Pride and arrogance and the evil way,

And the perverted mouth, I [wisdom] hate.

 

God’s original creation is declared to be good in His own holy eyes.

 

GEN 1:31

And God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good.

 

God being omniscient knew they would fall or lapse, but He never the less brought them into being knowing there would be a complete and utter failure.

 

And everywhere God predicates the moral failure of the creature completely on the creature and never on Himself. People want to blame God for all kinds of things and God never takes that blame, rather He puts it squarely on the shoulders of the creature.

 

Sin and evil in God’s universe therefore can never be explained, but it also can never be explained away and had to be dealt with. God hates it. It is never justified and is irrational and exceeding sinful and yet each member of the human race does plenty of it. Hence our adoration of TLJC should grow and grow.

 

Sin is not in God as it is not in any part of His original creation. Therefore sin is not in some way inherent in the creature but a matter of choice and the human race and a third of the angelic race made that choice.

 

Ego asserts itself against its own fundamental law of dependence on the Creator.

 

Augustine makes one of the best explanations I have ever seen.

 

“If we ask the cause of the misery of the bad angels it occurs to us, and not unreasonably, that they are miserable because they have forsaken Him who supremely is, and have turned to themselves who have no such essence.

 

And this vice, what else is it called than pride? . . . If the further question be asked, What was the efficient cause of their evil will? There is none. For what is it which makes the will bad, when it is the will itself which makes the action bad?

 

And consequently the bad will is the cause of the bad action, but nothing is the efficient cause of the bad will. . . . When the will abandons what is above itself, and turns to what is lower, it becomes evil, not because that is evil to which it turns, but because the turning itself is wicked.

 

Therefore it is not an inferior thing which has made the will evil, but it is itself which has become so by wickedly desiring an inferior thing” [Augustine, City of God, Book XII].

 

Sin is self-centered living and action on the part of a creature who is by creation designed to be wholly centred in God. And so, though it is impossible for us to avoid sin, it is stupidity to remain in sin without recovery.

 

One course is present anguish and leads to ruin; the other is present tranquillity and leads to eternal glory.

 

Evil in the world is not an accident or a thing unforeseen by God, else He could not predict, as He does, its course and end.

 

The conflict of the ages is compressed into the few words of:

 

GEN 3:15

And I will put enmity

Between you and the woman,

And between your seed and her seed;

He shall bruise you on the head,

And you shall bruise him on the heel."

 

Evil must run its course and make its full demonstration that it may be judged, not as a theory, but as a concrete actuality.

 

GEN 15:16

Then in the fourth generation they shall return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete.

 

MAT 13:24 He presented another parable to them, saying, "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field.

 

MAT 13:25 "But while men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed tares also among the wheat, and went away.

 

MAT 13:26 "But when the wheat sprang up and bore grain, then the tares became evident also.

 

MAT 13:27 "And the slaves of the landowner came and said to him, 'Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?'

 

MAT 13:28 "And he said to them, 'An enemy has done this!' And the slaves  said to him, 'Do you want us, then, to go and gather them up?'

 

MAT 13:29 "But he said, 'No; lest while you are gathering up the tares, you may root up the wheat with them.

 

MAT 13:30 'Allow both to grow together until the harvest; and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, "First gather up the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them up; but gather the wheat into my barn."' "

 

REV 16:17

And 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." [the final act of God before the second coming of Christ]

 

ACT 17:31

because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead."

 

As a believer you should keep adoring your Lord when you see such points as you will never be judged for sin, not one sin, not ever!

 

Thus it is disclosed that evil must continue along with good until each shall reach its determined end. That the evil will be judged and dismissed forever is the assuring testimony of the Scriptures.

 

REV 21:23 And the city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine upon it, for the glory of God has illumined it, and its lamp is the Lamb.

 

REV 21:24 And the nations shall walk by its light, and the kings of the earth shall bring their glory into it.

 

REV 21:25 And in the daytime (for there shall be no night there) its gates shall never be closed;

 

REV 21:26 and they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it;

 

REV 21:27 and nothing unclean and no one who practices abomination and lying, shall ever come into it, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life.

 

REV 22:1 And he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb,

 

REV 22:2 in the middle of its street. And on either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

 

REV 22:3 And there shall no longer be any curse; and the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and His bond-servants shall serve Him;

 

REV 22:4 and they shall see His face, and His name shall be on their foreheads.

 

REV 22:5 And there shall no longer be any night; and they shall not have need of the light of a lamp nor the light of the sun, because the Lord God shall illumine them; and they shall reign forever and ever.

 

We have studied the outline of the trial of angels, the essence of God and the essence of angels. It is now time for human history and the impotent actions of satan and the fallen angels.

 

We concluded that we are in an appeal trial to the sentence of God to the fallen angels.

 

MAT 25:41

"Then He will also say to those on His left, 'Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels;

 

The original trial occurred before Gen 3, satan’s five I wills of Isa 14 sealed his fate, and this sentence was passed down, but since this sentence will not be executed until the end of human history we conclude that the sentence was appealed and God allowed that appeal.

 

God has stated that He will vanquish all opposition and that is why He makes statements like:

 

PSA 46:10

"Cease striving and know that I am God;

I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth."

 

Now in the appellate case, which is human history, we could say that Jesus Christ is the prosecuting attorney and satan the defense. The prosecuting attorney rested His case at the end of the OT and then became Himself the star witness guaranteeing victory through His cross.

 

Satan presented his case throughout the OT, as we see with the cross examination of Job and more actions that we will study. When both sides are finished presenting then the prosecution has the right to a rebuttal, and that rebuttal is the First Advent of Christ followed by the Church age. Not surprisingly both times in human history, or dispensations are Christocentric, or the Son of God indwelling a man or men.

 

This phase would be completed by the closing arguments of both parties. For Christ this matches the Millennium and for satan this matches the Magog revolution at the close of the Millennium.

 

So we begin with the opening of the appeal case in the Garden of Eden in Gen 3.

 

GEN 3:1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, "Indeed, has God said, 'You shall not eat from any tree of the garden'?"

 

GEN 3:2 And the woman said to the serpent, "From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat;

 

GEN 3:3 but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, 'You shall not eat from it or touch it, lest you die.'"

 

GEN 3:4 And the serpent said to the woman, "You surely shall not die!

 

GEN 3:5 "For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

 

GEN 3:6 When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.

 

GEN 3:7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.

 

GEN 3:8 And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

 

GEN 3:9 Then the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, "Where are you?"

 

GEN 3:10 And he said, "I heard the sound of Thee in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid myself."

 

GEN 3:11 And He said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?"

 

GEN 3:12 And the man said, "The woman whom Thou gavest to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate."

 

GEN 3:13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?" And the woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate."

 

Within this chapter almost all of the great doctrines which appear in the remaining portions of scripture are found in embryo.

 

Here commences the great drama which is being enacted on the stage of human history, and which continues to this very day, thousands of years later.

 

Here we find the divine explanation of the present fallen and ruined condition of our race.

 

Here we learn of the subtle devices of our enemy, the devil.

 

Here we behold the utter powerlessness of man to walk in the path of righteousness without the umbrella of divine grace.

 

Here we discover the spiritual effects of sin - man seeking to flee from God.

 

Here we discern the attitude of God towards the guilty sinner.

 

Here we mark the universal tendency of human nature to cover its own moral shame by a device of man’s own handiwork.

 

Here we are taught of the gracious provision which God has made to meet our great need.

 

Here begins that marvelous stream of prophecy which runs all through the Holy Scripture.

 

Here we learn that fallen man cannot approach God except through a mediator or Savior.

 

When satan appears he is already a malignant being who is hateful and deceiving. There are but two wills in the universe. God’s will and the devils will. Man’s will is still in harmony with the will of his Creator.

 

Satan’s desire is to get man over to his side in rebellion and to regain his own authority that God had graciously given him before his fall, at least to the point of ruling the earth.

 

The enemy’s objective in Eden was to detach man from God and to attach man to himself. He succeeded in the first and failed in the second.

 

Man is dependent on God and if that dependence is destroyed something must take its place; the devil hoped that it would be dependence on himself. Satan could have never dreamed that man would choose independence from him as well and attempt to go it alone. Satan also could have never dreamed what God’s solution would be.