Rediscovering The Truth About Creation

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The first two were just presented in the previous chapter, namely the conflict in Heaven when Satan was cast to the earth and also the instance in the Garden of Eden when the devil came to and tempted Eve. From each of those cases, it should be obvious that God and the devil know each other very well! They were at one time together in Heaven, and they also saw each other again in the Garden. The next three head-to-head confrontations which have occurred were, first, in the days of Noah with the Great Flood, then at the Tower of Babel, and lastly, at Calvary. The final two, which are numbers six and seven, have not yet happened! Therefore, the discussions about them will be treated later.

Before getting underway a special word of caution must be extended concerning these confrontations. A popular, but wrong view about the spiritual world, called dualism, is that God and the devil are two eternal forces, one good, the other bad, and that they are somehow locked in a never-ending struggle for supremacy. If God wins, then good will prevail. If Satan wins, then evil will prevail. Many people throughout the history of the Age have tried to treat good and evil, God and Satan in this fashion, not so much as real beings, but rather as respective representatives for the dual concepts of good and evil, right and wrong.

But the fallacies of this view are simple and to the point. First, God and the devil are NOT both eternal beings. God is eternal, but Satan was created by God. Second, God and the devil are NOT locked in any kind of battle for supremacy. Without question, when the time comes, God will easily prevail over the devil. These seven confrontations, which will be discussed in more detail in this chapter, have occurred only because God has not intervened and kept the devil from exercising a measure of power over humanity. The devil's power is not absolute, and it is not unlimited. He can only do what his Creator allows him to do. In the end, God will prevail, and the devil with his legion of followers will be overcome.

As we look at each of the middle three head-to-head confrontations and combine all this new information with that of the previous two, several significant truths about the devil should become obvious. First, we should be able to learn more about Satan's motivation for trying to overthrow God and also why he is so intent on being number one.

The reason is different than just not liking the Lord or of disapproving of His style of leadership. Second, we should be able to see the tremendous power which can be unleashed by the devil, as he is literally able to persuade people like you and me to do wrong, plus he, at times, seems even able to cause us to perform some acts which go directly against the Lord. Third, we should be able to see how the devil has on a few occasions even gone so far as to provoke a direct, specific response from God. For instance, the previous two confrontations are clear examples of this, since the Lord was moved to the point of forcing the devil out of Heaven and also of removing Adam and Eve from the Garden. We shall observe similar actions in each of the next five confrontations, as well, and even see why God has, at times, been required to act. Lastly, we shall see how all these situations with the devil have led to or have directly caused much of the pain and evil which exists in the world. In most cases, the devil has been largely responsible, either directly or indirectly, and his participation in such works of mischief and wrongdoing will be clearly seen. In the process of uncovering these points, one Observation and six new Facts shall be added to the list.

Confrontation Number Three, which was in the days of Noah, is recorded in Genesis, Chapter Six, and shows the intense wickedness which had consumed the land. Concerning those days of evil, Moses wrote: The Lord saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. The Lord was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. So the Lord said, "I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth - men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air - for I am grieved that I have made them." But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord [1].

Several points stand out in this account. First, the people were very wicked, and God saw their wickedness. Next, their thoughts were continually evil, so the Lord regretted His original decision to create humanity. Finally, with the single exception of Noah, He had decided to do away with the whole lot! According to Verse Seven of the above reference, the Lord's plan was to get rid of everything which moved! One might be prompted to ask whatever happened during that time to cause such a reaction from above.

The answer is the devil, and Facts 28G-2 and 28G-3 tell the whole story! To get the real flavor of what had happened then and what is happening now in our everyday life, one must return in time to the very first confrontation, to those early days of when the devil was in Heaven. The two passages cited earlier, the first from Ezekiel and the second from Isaiah, complemented each other. Both reported that Satan had been the most favored and fairest angel created by God, and both accounts showed that he had been considered very special!

However, both accounts also indicated that the devil was not satisfied with that distinction. He had wanted more. He had wanted to be God or at least to be as God! It was not that he disapproved of the Lord or of His leadership style. It was that he was envious or jealous of the Lord's position. He tried to overthrow the Creator of the universe and the Maker of mankind. He tried to overthrow God, but of course, his efforts had failed! When he had assembled his cast of supporting angels, they were simply not able to bring down the Lord. The creation proved not to be greater than the creator, and one more Fact and one more Observation get added to the list.

Following his first attempted coup, which was Confrontation Number One, the accounts in the Books of Ezekiel and Isaiah say that the devil was then cast from Heaven down to earth. Once there, he became a hindrance to Adam and Eve! Why? First, because he is inherently evil, and he cannot change his natural behavior, but second and more importantly, he was then and still is trying to get at God! As was just stated, the devil tried to overthrow the Lord once, but he failed! Now, he is doing the next best thing. He is using his tremendous powers to go after God's creation, which means that his objective is to go after people like you and me. And just like Fact 28G-3 just emphasized, he is often very successful!

In the days of Adam and Eve, he was successful. He did not try to get them to do anything which would have been bad to each other. He was not interested in splitting them apart or in making them fight and argue. Those tactics would have perhaps been too obvious! Yet, what he did seek to accomplish, he did accomplish! His only purpose for being in the garden that day was to entice Eve, knowing that she would entice Adam and that he would then end up doing the very thing that he had been specifically instructed not to do. The devil was trying to get at Adam through Eve, but really so that he could ultimately get at God! To the devil, we are merely the pawns in his warfare against God. He often causes us to feel pain, grief, and sorrow, but it is always so that he can, either directly or indirectly, get back at the Lord!

This warfare between God and the devil began in Heaven. It continued into the Garden of Eden and then to the days of Noah, which brings us back to the third confrontation. During Noah's time on earth, the Lord looked at His creation with great sorrow because He could see that the devil had once again succeeded. Because Satan had succeeded with Adam and Eve, those two were thrown out of the Garden and, as one might say, into the real world. Because Satan had succeeded in corrupting a whole civilization during the days of Noah, God was again forced to deal with the basic disobedience and evil of mankind.

On this latter occasion, He caused it to rain and used the Great Flood to destroy all life from the earth. But notice the similarity between His actions in each of these two cases and consider the accuracy and truthfulness of Fact 9C-2! God truly does set the criteria for His judgment, and this is why Fact 9C-1 is so important. As the rains began to pour, the devil's laughter could probably be heard symbolically echoing throughout the universe, since the falling of those drops meant another victory for the devil and another setback for the Lord. Perhaps Satan did fail to overthrow God in Heaven, but he has enjoyed a pretty good track record here on earth, which leads to the next Fact.

The fourth head-to-head confrontation is recorded in Genesis, Chapter Eleven, and tells the story about the Tower of Babel. According to Josephus, the time frame for this event would have been about one hundred years after the Great Flood, when a man named Nimrod was the leader of the people [2]. In Genesis 9:7, God had told Noah and his family to spread out across the earth and multiply so that life could begin anew. One hundred years later, the new civilization was still huddled relatively close to where the Ark had come to rest. Hence, the people were not doing as God had instructed! They were being directly disobedient to His command, and they were clearly in the wrong.

Nevertheless, their failure to obey the Lord was only one of the problems. The other was their leader, a man named Nimrod. Josephus indicated that this man had incited the people against God and that he was charging them up for a full-scale revolt. By leading in the building of the Tower at Babel, Nimrod and the people were basically telling God three things. First and most obvious, they were saying that they did not want to spread out and multiply. That point was just inferred. Second, their actions signaled that they were more interested in making a name for themselves than in serving the Lord. And third, their behavior showed a clear intent to be rebellious! From the start, these people were not interested in being obedient to the commandment of the Lord.

Their motivation for building such a giant structure was, itself, even an act of rebellion because the people were openly trying to prepare themselves for another flood. According to Josephus, they wanted to build the Tower right into Heaven . Then, if God ever tried to destroy "their" civilization by flood again, He would also have to literally flood and destroy Heaven to get at them. Their intent rather than to obey God was to be prepared just in case another flood threatened. However, this open disobedience was more than the Lord would allow. To break up their rebellion, He used a simple and convenient method to undo their revolt. He confounded their language so that they could no longer communicate. Then, He drove them from Babel so that they would be forced to spread and multiply.

If one examines this account of Babel carefully, it is not difficult to see that the devil is in the background pulling the strings. In the early stages leading up to the Confrontation Number Two, God had told Adam to not eat the fruit of a certain tree. The devil then approached Eve and challenged God's command! After the Flood, this time in working up to the fourth confrontation, God had instructed Noah and his family to spread out and multiply. Yet, in the first one hundred years after the giving of that clear, specific instruction, the people had only gone a relatively short distance. In this occasion, just like the others, the devil was again right there in the middle of everything to question and challenge God's orders.

At Babel, the devil was using a man named Nimrod, and his persistence leads to an important point. Every time the Lord leads in a particular direction, Satan is there to challenge that direction! He always has a simple agenda. He still wants to overthrow God, he still wants to be on top, and he still wants to be number one! If he cannot accomplish those impossible tasks, and obviously he cannot, then his backup plan is to get at the Lord by getting at the Lord's creation, which in all of these cases has been people like you and me! This discovery brings us to the next Fact to be added to the list.

Before moving on to the fifth confrontation, a final point must be made about Nimrod and the incident at Babel. Concerning the Tower and the potential for another flood, one might try to justify the actions of those people by saying that being prepared in life is important, that being prepared for another flood just in case one were to happen is being somewhat prudent. However, for those people, such an excuse for building the Tower will not suffice. Had they known what God had told Noah, then they would also have known that the Lord is not going to flood the whole earth again.

God had already made a promise about no more floods, and this promise was even known to Moses as he recorded such words in Genesis 8:20-21 and again in Genesis 9:11-16. Their disobedience was not the result of a failed communication, at least not on God's part. The very fact that Moses had known of the promise many centuries later is reason enough, under normal circumstances, to assume that these people would have known about it, too. At least, they should have! Trying to be prepared for an uncertain future, while good in most instances, was clearly not good for these people in this case.

Now, we come to the fifth head-to-head confrontation, and the setting again was exactly to the devil's liking. God had sent His only begotten Son to earth. Why that was so will be discussed in Chapter Thirty-Five. His name was Jesus, and whereas the people in each of the situations presented above had turned from God, this was clearly not the case with Him. Jesus had resisted the devil and all the devil's many forms of temptation. During His time on earth, He had faithfully obeyed God in all points of the Mosaic Law. According to II Corinthians 5:21, Jesus had never faltered, not even once! Yet, when He claimed to be the Son of God, the religious leaders of that day were furious! After much was said and done, the eventual result for Jesus was a cruel scourging and death by crucifixion on a Roman cross, and once again, it looked as though Satan had come out on top. God's only Begotten Son had been defeated and murdered, and it looked like the devil and his crowd had finally won!

But not so fast! Three days after His brutal scourging and crucifixion, Jesus, the one and only Christ of humanity, overcame that death and arose from His bloody grave. Death could not keep the One Who had been without sin! Victory was His, and based on this whole happening, another Fact becomes disturbingly obvious.

With all these confrontations between God and the devil, it is little wonder that the Lord has ensured the survival of a clear, historical path all the way back to the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Christ's Resurrection from the grave represented a resounding defeat over the devil. Satan may possess some ability to pull down humanity, but he clearly has no such powers over the Lord Jesus Christ!

After the fifth confrontation with Christ's dying on the cross and being resurrected, we now consider the sixth head-to-head confrontation between God and the devil. This one, like the seventh, is set in the future. The Bible speaks in the Book of Revelation about one who will rise up against the Lord in the last days. This being will perform mighty works and attract many followers, but according to Scriptures, he will not be of or from God. He will be of the devil! Seven years after his appearing, he and the Lord Jesus will do battle. This time, the outcome will not even be close! Jesus will thoroughly and resoundingly defeat Satan and cast him into a pit for one thousand years, a point which leads to the next Fact to be added to the list.

The seventh and final confrontation will take place at the end of the one thousand years mentioned with the sixth confrontation. At that time, the devil will be defeated for the final time and cast into Hell for all eternity. Between now and then, he is still on the prowl. He still seeks to devour all, and especially those who would follow the Lord. Satan is a worthy adversary and clearly more than any human can handle! Only the Lord Jesus Christ is able to outdo this powerful, very wicked enemy. With the additional Facts and Observations that have been developed in this chapter, the analysis can now proceed to the next chapter with the idea of seeing what is really happening in all of this.