Focus Point # 17

The angelic conflict is what it is and it will never be anything else. It is the greatest battle of all time and all eternity. It is the conflict between God and Satan. God is the essence of love, light and truth. Satan is the exact opposite. He is the essence of hate, darkness and deceit. God is infinite and He is without limits regarding any and all of His attributes. Satan, on the other hand, possesses none of God's attributes. Not one! He is a limited, created being.

God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are one in essence and three in personality. God the Father and God the Holy Spirit love the Son far beyond any and all comprehension. God the Holy Spirit, during Jesus Christ's human journey, found no greater purpose than to glorify the Son. In the Gospel of John 16:14, Jesus said, "He (the Holy Spirit) shall glorify Me in that He will show you who I Am." And remember, it was God the Holy Spirit who led the Apostle Paul to write in the Book of Philippians 2:9-11 - "The Father gave Jesus a name which is above every name" (V.9) and in V. 12 He said, "The Father will receive the ultimate glory when every tongue confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord!" That means that every angel was created by God to glorify the Son. That's why Lucifer was created in the first place. He and every other angel. Angels, in their un-fallen state, had a volition, a capacity to choose, given them by the Creator. Why? I think the answer is obvious: What glory comes from a heart that has no choice? So the Eternal God created angels with the capacity to choose to love and honor the Son. Lucifer chose not to obey God. He wanted the glory for himself.

Obviously, God did not and could not, by virtue of His own nature, allow Lucifer, the angel of light, to stay in His presence and to continually not love and glorify His Son. So the "angel of light" was cast out of the presence of the Father, The Son and the Holy Spirit. He then became the prince of darkness! He, along with those angels who chose to follow him.

Okay. Then why Adam and Eve? Why Abraham, Isaac and Jacob? Why Pharaoh? Why Hitler? Why Saddam Hussein? Why Matthew, Mark, Luke and John? Why Paul? and why Billy Graham? Why was Billy created? And Mother Theresa, she was about as humble and sweet as they come. Why was she born? Why did God give her life? Why you? Why me? Why the human race? One answer fits all! To believe in Jesus Christ as our only substitute, dying to pay the penalty of our inherited sin nature and all of our sinful deeds and to give us eternal life. And....here's the biggie: To give glory, praise and love to JESUS CHRIST, confessing Him to be the Lord of our life, all as a result of our hearing the Good News and of our own free will, believing in what He did for us, He did out of love!

Does Jesus Christ really deserve all of the love and glory that God says He deserves? Of course He does. But that's a choice every soul must make. Some say "Yes, He does" and some say "No, He doesn't."

Still looking at the big picture, how do we humans know when we're doing the right thing in this angelic conflict issue? Well, it varies. It depends upon who you are and at what point in time we're talking about. Take the Old Testament Jewish people. God singled them out from all the other people in the world. He gave them a set of laws and rules whereby they could know when they were obedient and when they were disobedient. (What about the rest of the human race? We'll get to that in a moment.) Along with those laws, God gave to the Jewish people phenomenal, marvelous, awe inspiring miracles to verify His own existence and His love for His people. Did God give those laws to other people? No, He didn't. Did He do those miracles for other people? No, He didn't. He gave the Law (Mosaic) to the Jews only. (Deuteronomy 4:8 and Romans 2:12-14) Did other people, did Gentile people see those miracles? Yes, the saw many of them, but not all. So, suffice to say, the Jewish people knew, they were told what to do to honor God. If they, the Jews, obeyed the Law, honor would come to the Son of God, the One to Whom the Law pointed and spoke of. Amazing!

The other group, the vast amount of people that God has given explicit instructions to as to what they should be and do to love and honor the Son, is the Church, those who believe and obey the Bible record as to why it was that Jesus was born of the virgin Mary, grew up and lived the perfect life and died on the Cross for the sin of the world. To those people, the Church, who make up "The Body of Christ," God has given another set of instructions as to how they should love, worship and give honor to the Son. Those instructions are found in the Bible from the Book of Romans to the last Book, the Book of the Revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ.

To the hundreds of millions of people in the world who do not believe in or love the Lord Jesus Christ, those 22 Books, from Romans to The Revelation, are a complete and total mystery. Included in this group are those Jews who do not believe in, they do not love and trust the Lord Jesus Christ to be their Messiah. In this group there are some great, moral, good, fine people, but not believers. Not "Christian." And also in this group there are some very bad, evil people.

Now the question I want to lay on the table is: Has God given to these hundreds of millions of people any instructions, any so called laws or standards of behavior whereby they could know what God, down through the years, has expected of them? Yes!

DIVINE ESTABLISHMENT, or LAW #1 is the establishment of VOLITION. Every soul born into this world, unless, of course, they are retarded or mentally handicapped, every soul, every person is capable of making choices. Some believe in God and some don't. Every soul born into the world is born with a GOD CONSCIOUSNESS. That is, in their soul there is an awareness that there IS a God. If they choose to continue to believe, I believe God will continue to give them additional information which will someday lead them to the message of the Gospel. Unfortunately, some, many take that inbred knowledge of God with which they are born and hide it in their own unbelief and thus never worship God or come to the knowledge of the truth - the Gospel. They do not love and glorify the Son. And God has given to them other rules and laws to obey. The one law that stands out is - No one is to murder another. When that happens, the perpetrator denies the VOLITION and the life God has given to the victim.

The next DIVINE INSTITUTION is MARRIAGE. The third is FAMILY and the fourth is NATIONAL ENTITY. All these we will take up the next time. In the meantime, fight the good fight of faith and honor the Son.

Blessings,
Bro. Bob