Lucifer was perhaps the greatest of all angelic creatures.  He was created by God to be beautiful and perfect in many ways.  The problem began when he began to notice his beauty.  Pride seeped into his heart.  Pride led to self-will in that he wanted to be like God and self-will to rebellion.  Lucifer became known as the Adversary, or more commonly referred to as “Satan” which is the Hebrew word for adversary.  Satan apparently led other angels (now referred to as demons) into rebellion sometime before the creation of man.

The Bible tells us that God created man in his own image to love and be loved.  Because of Satan’s hatred toward God and his consuming desire to be worshipped, he successfully tempted God’s original creation, Adam and Eve, to fall into sin and condemnation.  This act of rebellion became a curse for all mankind which Christians refer to as “original sin”.  Satan continues his unrelenting, world-wide struggle against God and all goodness.  His ultimate goal is to defeat the divine plans of God’s grace by seducing people to reject God and worship him (the world) instead.  His primary method is through lies and deception — about himself, his purpose (man’s eternal ruin), his activities, and his coming defeat.

God had the power to destroy Satan at the moment he became the Adversary.  Instead, in his divine wisdom, God has chosen to tolerate Satan and uses him to test man until that final day of judgment.  On that day, Satan and all the other enemies of God will be cast into the “lake of burning sulfur” called hell. 

In the ongoing conflict between good and evil, it certainly seem as though God has given Satan every advantage.  Yet, we can be assured that God’s victory is certain.  The world will try and tell us something completely different.  We get easily distracted by what Satan has contrived to focus our attention away from eternal truths.  The most important truth there to know is the absolute assurance of God’s victory over the world and Satan.  The symbol of assurance and God’s victory is the cross.

To help understand how a cross can be a symbol of victory is to recall that God created us perfectly.  However, we can’t on our own make ourselves what God intended us to be because of original sin.  Our bodies have become corrupted and imperfect.  What we need is a new start, a new creation, a clean slate.  God became man and died on the cross to reconcile us with God and to give us a new life in Christ.  He became our perfect substitute and took the eternal punishment of hell in our place.  By faith, Christ becomes our substitute so we can be declared perfect through Jesus Christ.  It is only through Christ that we enter a personal relationship with God and are declared holy and perfect; just like God originally intended us to be.  This is the certain victory that God gives us through faith in Jesus.

 

 For more information, check out www.gregboyd.org.

 

Questions like these become very difficult, especially when they become so personal.  How do you comfort a grieving mother with the words “God is in control” when she has just lost a young daughter in a car crash or worse, a victim of a violent crime?  How can you give hope to a father with young children at home with the words “God has a plan” when he loses his job or diagnosed with a serious illness?  When the emotional wounds are especially deep, well-meaning phrases to offer hope can come across as being hollow – even inappropriate.  We can only offer words based on the faith and hope that all will be resolved and understood when a person who has placed their trust in Christ finally gets to heaven.

We are all sinful people who live in a sinful world.  So much pain and suffering is a result of sinful behavior.  Political strife often causes famine.  Economics create unsafe living conditions and even faulty equipment.  Idealism spawns fanaticism and acts of evil terror.  A tumultuous world brings pain and suffering into our lives.  But what about those times when it wasn’t our fault?  A company in debt.  A drunk driver at the wheel.  It is during those times that we need to dig deeper spiritually – not just within ourselves, but within the spiritual realm.

The Bible also indicates that our world contains a spiritual dimension made up of angels and demons.  These evil spiritual forces are in a state of war against God and everything good.  Our earth is the battlefield.  One well-known Christian theologian appropriately calls it the “problem of evil” as it has a direct influence on everything.  All people, including Christians, are potential victims.  Like Job in the Old Testament, we become innocent casualties of a spiritual war by getting caught between a cross-fire of good and evil.  We don’t know exactly how these forces work.  We do know, however, that God preserves and protects us according to his will, because God is stronger than evil.  He has already conquered evil and the victory is ours who call upon his name.  God, who is in control of the universe, works out all things (even evil) for their own good.  We are not called upon to understand the wisdom of God, but simply accept circumstances in our lives – no matter how difficult they may be.  Like a small child, we simply place our trust in our Heavenly Father knowing he cares for us, loves us and will provide.

 

 

 For more information, go to www.gregboyd.org.

 

 

Bombs blowing up in Baghdad and hundreds are killed.  Political strife creates bedlam and innocent people are hurt.  Stalkers preying upon the innocent.  The stories are numerous of bad people doing bad things causing us to wonder, “Where is God in all of this?”

The Bible states that God knows all things.  He knows the beginning and the end.  He is omniscient — knowing everything there is to know, including our past and our future.  Yet, the question still lingers, “Why does God still create humans who turn out evil and do evil things?”  To tackle this difficult question, we need to go back to our original foundation of using God’s Word to construct our answer, because our human minds simply cannot comprehend on its own the wisdom of God.

Let’s start by remembering that evil (sin) entered into the world through Adam, the first man.  This is very important because we have now inherited a sinful nature from this one act of disobedience.  By nature, we are all anti-God.  All we can do and hope to do is sin.  In fact, even people whom we respect and adore the most on earth have the capacity to do the greatest type of evil.

So, why does God allow this world to continue in its present sinful condition?  The answer is love.   God’s greatest desire is for all people to come into a personal relationship of trust and faith in him.  The greatest display of God’s love is found in the sacrifice of his one and only son.  Jesus became our substitute on the cross so we may be proclaimed sinless before God.  It took the sacrifice of his Son to bring all sinners, including you and me, back home to him.  Yes, our sins cause bad things to happen.  And the consequences of some sins are far worse than others.  Yet, since God is omniscient, he can use instances of evil for his good purpose. 

In the Bible, Jesus teaches us that evil will be planted among the good and it is not up to us to pass judgment.  Why?  Because we are all weeds.  It is only God who can transform us to be wheat.  Most people will choose to reject Him and God allows this to happen, but he alone will make the final judgment.  The question before us is simple: Is Jesus Lord of our lives or is he not?  Faith alone causes us to believe and accept God’s love for us.  In the meantime, we live out our lives in a fallen world with the opportunity given us to place our hope that through faith in Christ alone, our eternity in heaven will be far greater than our present reality.

 

For more info, check out www.gregboyd.org.