Angelic Conflict part 91: Human history – Gen 3:1-13, 15; Psa 2:2; Mat 13:18-23.

Title: Angelic Conflict part 91: Human history – Gen 3:1-13, 15; Psa 2:2; Mat 13:18-23.

 

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.

 

It may be that satan also didn’t anticipate the willfulness of fallen man to attempt independence from both God and him and attempt dependence on himself alone.

 

I can see why satan would have thought that man would attach himself to him since he was puffed up on his own press. He saw himself as brilliant and most beautiful and in his fall his arrogance blinded him to the fact that fallen man is just as stubborn and unimpressed with anything outside of himself, even when it is greater than himself.

 

Isa 53:6

All of us like sheep have gone astray,

Each of us has turned to his own way;

 

We didn’t turn to satan’s way but our own. And just because members of the human race may do some of the things that satan does, like reject God’s goodness and righteousness, it doesn’t mean that they did so through homage to satan. Independence of the angel and the man will reject God independently.

 

This is exactly why satan and his demons are locked up for the thousand years during the Millennial Reign of Christ. It shows conclusively that man will reject God, even after seeing Him, living in His perfect environment, and experiencing His great prosperity.

 

And this is how it’s been in all human history. Man didn’t exactly pay homage to satan, and though influenced by satan after the fall, man sought more for his own independence. There is no such thing as selling your soul to the devil. This is why the world has seen such chaos.

 

Chaos is not the will of satan, for he wants to be like God.

 

Isa 14:14

'I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;

I will make myself like the Most High.'

 

Some do attach themselves to satan:

Joh 8:44

"You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father.

 

These religious attached themselves so much to satan that it was impossible for them to believe Christ until they dropped that attachment.

 

Joh 5:44

"How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another, and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God?

 

However, this was a small portion of the Jewish population. An unbeliever, so far, has made the same decision as satan to reject God’s gift, but that doesn’t mean that he is a student of satan, but from his own free will he has chosen to reject Christ. If a man commits murder he doesn’t necessarily do it because of another murderer. Doing the same thing as another does not make one a slave of another.

 

Satan can’t control man and man often doesn’t do what he desires and so the planet, the governments, the people are often in chaos. History is full of these examples. In every communist, fascist, or tyrannical takeover of a country there is always a resistance and ultimately a rebellion and none of them last or gain the utopian peace they promise, but all [all!!!] have fallen into ruin.

 

The same is true in a noble government, whether it be a monarchy, oligarchy, or republic. In good there is evil resistance and in evil there is good resistance.

 

There is an enmity between man and satan:

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."

 

There is a two-fold meaning here. The Seed is the Lord Jesus Christ who would bruise him on the head, but her seed is also the human race who would war with satan and God.

 

Satan has not capacity for love and so he cannot love mankind. His world hates positive believers. He hates believers because they are children of God, whom he hates. And of the unbelievers, he cannot control them. They don’t do his bidding as he would like and so he hates them.

 

There is enmity between man and God:

Psa 2:2

The kings of the earth take their stand,

And the rulers take counsel together

Against the Lord and against His

Anointed:

 

God does not hate the creature, but He hates the sin and opposing thoughts of the creature:

Zec 8:17

'Also let none of you devise evil in your heart against another, and do not love perjury; for all these are what I hate,' declares the Lord."

 

God is very capable of righteous hatred, but it is never directed towards the creature, for God so loved the world, but against opposing thought. God cannot be flexible or compromise when it comes to righteousness and justice. It is for this reason that we studied His essence prior to developing the stage.

 

And, there is enmity between the HS and the OSN within the believer:

Gal 5:17

For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another

 

We have documented God’s enmity with satan and vice versa.

 

So the war is not as simple as satan vs. God with man caught in the middle. It’s a bit more complex than that.

 

 

We would not conclude that God is a combatant in all of this for that would suggest that He could possibly lose or have something overrule His will. Satan and mankind are the combatants and within the ranks of mankind some have returned to God through faith in Christ and have received what was lost and added to that, much, much more, however, the status of their souls are still up for grabs, no longer eternally, but in time. Will they learn and think with the mind of Christ under the policy of grace or will they live carnal lives in the flesh or in false religion?

 

Of the unbeliever there is still the shelter of divine establishment thought which frees him from overruling influence of satan.

 

As the conflict goes on through history alliances are made and some are made and broken, the chaos of the world and the human soul continues until God says it’s done, and no matter what happens, God is glorified. Chose your alliances wisely!

 

WW II serves as a great example. America and Britain were allied with their potential enemy to fight Nazism and Fascism in line with the policy of meeting the nearest menace first, even at the cost of strengthening our greater enemy with goods and supplies that might later be used against us.

 

 

In WWII there was an ideological triangle: Russia against Germany, Russia against capitalism; Britain and America against Germany, Britain and America against Communism. The lines were so fluid that some nations switched sides in the midst of the war. Italy began the war as an ally of America and Britain and then allied with Germany. Russia made a peace treaty with Germany early and then Germany invaded. When satan is thrown out of heaven half-way through the Tribulation and his old destroyer appolyon is released with his army they murder millions of men who had served them.

 

Since satan can’t control things on earth he has only one recourse and that is to keep deceiving and to keep influencing until he can create his one world system and even that is doomed to utter failure. After he conquers a great part of the world in Rev 6 war breaks out as cantankerous man will not be ruled.

 

However, this independence didn’t become a “hurrah” for man either. Man would quickly discover how difficult independence really was.

 

So then we have God’s will, satan’s will, and the independent free will of every man and it would be that free will that would ultimately set the stage for satan’s own destruction.

 

2Co 13:8

For we can do nothing against the truth, but only for the truth.

 

By tempting man and succeeding to give him independence, satan sealed his own fate, for certain men would choose to return to God through faith in the work of Christ, by means of grace, and each person who makes that choice is another nail in satan’s coffin.

 

It’s like winning a battle at tremendous cost. One more victory like that and you will have no army left – your victories were the cause of your ultimate defeat. [Pyrrhus – pyrrhic victory]

 

A temporary hold on the rulership of the earth is not a victory. History is filled with examples of this. Hitler gobbled up huge amounts of land in his eastern war against Russia only to overstretch his supply lines and idiotically trap himself in the Russian winter. Temporary victory is not ultimate victory. Hitler’s eastern front army was decimated. [4 million German soldiers dead and 3 million captured]

 

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.

 

Satan desired to attach man to himself and he desired this so badly that he did not trust any of his minions with the task, but decided to accomplish it himself.

 

His first strategy was easily accomplished and man fell, but man did not make satan his master.

 

Man was not dependent and each human soul would choose God’s salvation or reject it. Since satan could not control man he went right on deceiving man attempting to bring man to destruction and share his own fate.

 

If satan could really control man then the world would not be the chaotic place that it is.

 

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'?"

 

It is interesting that all mankind initially at least find serpents repulsive. But it is not so at this time. Before this deception and the subsequent curse that God will pronounce on the serpent it was a beautiful creature, perhaps God’s most beautiful.

 

Adam named all of God’s creatures…

 

Gen 2:19 And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name.

 

The name he gave to this creature was:

 “serpent” – nachash = serpent. Preceded linguistically by two root words – to whisper or hiss and to shine. “Whispering shinning one.”

 

Lucifer means “light bearer” which is latin and not found in the scripture but it comes from Isa 14 where he is called the bright morning star. This title would be taken by the humanity of Christ after His victory.

 

Isa 14:12

"How you have fallen from heaven, O star of the morning [origin of Latin “Lucifer” – light bearer], son of the dawn!

 

Whatever satan took from man, Christ by means of becoming true humanity took back, and as God can only do. He in fact gave to man much, much more.

 

This is why all faith is in Him and all things are for Him, and by Him and through Him. He even took his title.

 

Rev 22:16

 "I, Jesus, have sent My angel to testify to you these things for the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, the bright morning star."

 

Satan’s tactics here in the garden are easy to see. He begins with a frontal attack on the word of God and not an attack on her or her husband. He uses words only that are designed to deceive and confuse the woman’s own knowledge of God’s word that has been revealed to her so far.

 

Our introduction to him includes his questioning of the authenticity and validity of God’s word, “Indeed, has God said …?”

 

The woman should not have answered this question.

 

Why defend the words of the Almighty to an antagonist? The Word stands on itself.

 

Pro 18:10

The name of the Lord is a strong tower;

The righteous runs into it and is safe.

 

Hence we see one of the future problems of man, born again and saved man, entertaining thoughts that test the validity of God’s word.

 

Today, as there have always been, there are liberal ministers who teach that God’s word contains myth and folklore and that many parts of it cannot be taken literally. They would never drink or smoke or swear but they do teach that prophecy and historical accounts in the scripture are all allegorical – that they mean something else… “Indeed, has God said … ?”