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Researched by Pastor Gary Boyd

As we reach the end of 2016 we certainly are seeing events in the world becoming more violent, unstable, chaotic, and confusing as though something may be quickening as in coming to a head soon. In the physical world more earthquakes and volcanoes erupting in the ring of fire than ever before. In the spiritual world there are more people being possessed by demons than ever before, so intense that the Vatican has been asked to increase exorcism classes. There is ongoing war with terrorists worldwide that is intensifying and has now spread to 68 countries with no end in sight. Add to this the increase in violence, murder, and crime in all major cities worldwide, it makes you wonder what in the world is going on!

The Explanation

I recently had a conversation with a close friend concerning this subject and the recent election. As a result I decided to try to gather from Scripture all that I could in order to write a biblically based explanation as to why things are happening as they are. What follows is what I come up with, please follow closely, your survival may depend on it.

I try to look at things through the lens of Scripture and adhere to a strict biblical worldview because I believe that God is the ultimate authority behind what goes on in His creation. Our world is in a general state of war, especially in the Middle East where close to half a million have died in Syria and rumors of war have spread into Europe. The problems in the world brought on by conflict are numerous and complex to comprehend but if broken down a bit, things become a bit easier to understand. There are basically three major players in all conflict that takes place.There is God, the devil and sinful man.

God - The Devil - Man

GOD: When we consider God and understand that He is Lord, we realize that there is no contest here for Him. He made the world and everything in it. As the Creator of all that there is, that also makes Him the owner of it all including us. So, as an example, when we get uptight over our personal possessions or begin to feel proud over what we have or what we have done, we have to remember that everything is a gift from God and we are only stewards of what He has given us Psalm 24: 1-2, “The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein. For he hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods.”

He’s the first cause of all things, He has no beginning or ending, he is outside of time and has always been. As it says in Hebrews 1: 10-12, “And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth; and the heavens are the works of thine hands:They shall perish; but thou remainest; and they all shall wax old as doth a garment; And as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail.

He’s all knowing, creator of all things, all powerful and everywhere all at once as in omnipresent = present in all places at all times. Because He operates and lives in the spiritual realm, the only way we can know about Him is through the special revelation of His Word which He has given to us in John 1:1-5; “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” In 1 John 1:1-4; “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us; That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ. And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.”
He created the angels to be His ministering spirits and messengers. They were made eternal right from their inception and He has given them supernatural power to do His bidding in the earth as it says in Hebrews 1: 13-14; “But to which of the angels said he at any time, Sit on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool? Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?”

SATAN: The name “Satan” means “accuser of the brethren” also known as the devil. Satan began his existence as God’s greatest angelic creation as it states in Ezekiel 28: 11-19; “Moreover the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord God; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created. Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee. By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee.Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffick; therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee. All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more.”

Because of the great beauty, enormous abilities and lofty position in heaven that God appointed for him, Satan became proud and rebelled against God and God threw him down as the word says in Isaiah 14: 12-23; “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit. They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms; That made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof; that opened not the house of his prisoners? All the kings of the nations, even all of them, lie in glory, every one in his own house. But thou art cast out of thy grave like an abominable branch, and as the raiment of those that are slain, thrust through with a sword, that go down to the stones of the pit; as a carcase trodden under feet. Thou shalt not be joined with them in burial, because thou hast destroyed thy land, and slain thy people: the seed of evildoers shall never be renowned. Prepare slaughter for his children for the iniquity of their fathers; that they do not rise, nor possess the land, nor fill the face of the world with cities. For I will rise up against them, saith the Lord of hosts, and cut off from Babylon the name, and remnant, and son, and nephew, saith the Lord. I will also make it a possession for the bittern, and pools of water: and I will sweep it with the besom of destruction, saith the Lord of hosts.”

Although Scripture doesn’t make it positively known when Satan’s rebellion took place, many think this must have occurred sometime after the creation of the world and before the fall of mankind. At any rate, Satan became God’s arch enemy and led one third of the angelic host with Him in rebellion against God (Revelation 12:3-4). Those fallen angels became Satan’s force of demons that help him sweep over the earth looking for helpless victims to swallow up (1 Peter 5: 8; Ephesians 6:10-12). His major goal has been to be worshipped as God, in place of God in God’s place of worship (2 Thessalonians 2:1-12; Daniel 7:21-25).

MAN: Finally there is sinful fallen mankind who by our very nature is in rebellion against God and blind to the fact thereof. Of course in regards to mankind in general, it didn’t start out that way. Our ancestors in the garden were made perfect like the rest of God’s creation after it was completed. While surveying His finished work at the end of the sixth day, God declared it ALL to be very good, including us (Genesis 1:31). Well, we know that this condition wouldn’t last for too long because God made a change to the protocol.

To the east according to the account, God planted a garden where He placed the new man He had just made. He put two trees in the garden, the name of one was the “tree of life” and the other was the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” Then God placed on Man his first prohibition, He commanded that Man not to eat of the “knowledge tree” or he would die (Genesis 2: 8-9, 16-17).

You know the rest of the story in Genesis chapter 3. They were deceived by the serpent, they ate and inherited death and were kicked out of the garden away from the tree of life. The woman, the man and Satan all received verbal curses handed down by God which we all have also inherited just by being born into the fallen world. So we are the recipients of this terrible curse and our condition is grave (Romans 3: 9-20). As a result, sinful man became in need of a savior, someone who could pay an eternal price for the eternal life we no longer had since the fall (John 3:16-21; Ephesians 2: 8-10) .

WHY?

The glaring question is WHY? Why did this whole chain of events have to take place and why has the world been subjected to such a long trail of misery and death especially if God is all He claims to be (all knowing, all mighty and a God of love)? One simple explanation could be this: God didn’t create mankind to be robots which simply act on a command when summoned to do so.

We were created to give God our worship, praise and love and express our thankfulness to Him for His loving kindness and mercy. Psalm 119, the longest chapter in the Bible, is dedicated to showing what it looks like when a person fully loves and depends on God for all aspects of life. I could almost imagine that the very first man and woman in God’s garden probably didn’t have a great deal of opinion one way or another concerning God or their surroundings.

Not that this is good or bad, they were innocent and just plain didn’t know any better. It’s like you don’t know what you have until you lose it. God didn’t make us to be robots. We really can’t love and accept God or anyone else unless we have the equal and opposite capacity to hate and reject Him. So then God presents humanity with His commands (which are only given for our own good anyway) and we’re left with the choice to follow Him or reject Him.

When we, with the knowledge of God reject Him and decide to follow our own path in life we are actually following the devil and the devil’s fate is the lake of fire Revelation 20:10, 14; “And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.” That’s what is known as rebellion against God with a man centered world view. Because of man’s selfish and sinful nature war is in the world as stated in James 4: 1-4; “From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts. Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.”

Groundwork & Players

So that’s the basic groundwork and players that are at work in our world and every generation since the creation of man has had to face these conditions and decide where he’s going to place his allegiance. When God created Man in His own image, He originally gave man dominion over the world and all that was created in it. Read Genesis 1: 26-28; :And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.”

Through his deceitful trickery, Satan actually stole this role and caused man to fall from the position God had originally intended man to have. Because of this Satan gained a somewhat limited domination over the world as the master tempter and corruptor.

The first mention of this Savior of mankind to come is found in the curse that God called down on the devil that went like this in Genesis 3:14-15; “And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.”

This is a very important Scripture and lays down the basic nature of the battle between God and the devil which is still playing out today. In verse 15, the offspring of the woman is Jesus who will crush the serpent’s head but the only thing that the serpent (Satan) will be able to do is nip at His heel.