MID-WEEK MANNA FROM PASTOR NAT’S DESK:
September 27, 2023
God’s Saving Enmity
Part 37
ABSOLUTE UNRELENTING HATRED, NOT TOLERANCE OR COMPROMISE SHOULD EXIST BETWEEN MAN AND SATAN
God declared to Satan, disguised as the serpent and to Eve and Adam, after their fall in Eden: (all emphasis, bracketed words, and notes mine):
“‘I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it [the Seed of the woman] shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise His heel’(Gen. 3:15, KJV).
“The divine sentence pronounced against Satan after the fall of man, was also a PROPHECY, embracing all the ages to the close of time, and foreshadowing the GREAT CONFLICT TO ENGAGE ALL THE RACES OF MEN who should live upon the earth.
“God declares, ‘I will put enmity.’ This enmity is NOT NATURALLY ENTERTAINED. When man [beginning with Eve and Adam] transgressed the divine law, HIS NATURE [instantly] BECAME EVIL [he then ‘knew evil’ aside from ‘good’], and he was IN HARMONY, and NOT IN VARIANCE, with Satan. There exists naturally no enmity between sinful man and the originator of sin. BOTH BECAME EVIL THROUGH APOSTASY. The apostate [whether Satan and his seed or apostate man and his seed] IS NEVER AT REST, except as he OBTAINS SYMPATHY AND SUPPORT by inducing others to follow his example. For this reason, FALLEN ANGELS AND WICKED MEN unite in desperate [not loving or harmonious] companionship. NOTE: As ‘Misery loves company,’ and ‘like begets like,’ thusly ‘birds of the same feather flock together.’ In the end they are all “caged together’ as ‘every hateful birds.’ See Rev. 18.
“Had not God SPECIALLY INTERPOSED, Satan and man would have entered into an ALLIANCE AGAINST HEAVEN; and instead of cherishing enmity against Satan, the WHOLE HUMAN FAMILY would have been united in opposition to God. [Then it could’ve and would’ve not only been the ‘United States and Nations’ but the United Earth Against God and Heaven!].
“Satan tempted man to sin, AS HE HAD caused angels [1/3 of the angelic host in heaven] to rebel, that he might thus secure the CO-OPERATION in his warfare against Heaven. There was NO DISSENSION between himself and fallen angels AS REGARDS THEIR HATRED [enmity] OF CHRIST; while on ALL OTHER POINTS THERE WAS DISCORD; they were firmly united in opposing the AUTHORITY of the Ruler of the universe.
“But when Satan heard the declaration that enmity should exist between himself and the woman, and between his seed and her seed, he KNEW that his efforts to DEPRAVE HUMAN NATURE WOULD BE INTERRUPTED [not eliminated]; that by SOME MEANS man was to be ENABLED to resist his power.” -E. G. White, Great Controversy, original 1884 edition, Vol. 4 Conflict of the Ages series, Pacific Press and Review & Herald, Facsimile Reproduction ISBN O-8280-0575-3ch. XXV, pp. 324-5. Diligent and humble students of God’s Word know that (1) Satan immediately knew that his plans to deprave human nature beginning with Adam and Eve after their fall, would be interrupted, not instantly eliminated and that [by ‘some means’ fallen, sinful mankind would be enabled and empowered to resist his terrible power of deception in the “mystery of iniquity,” as he so successfully did with 1/3 of the angelic host in heaven.
This “some means” is the “mystery of godliness” in the enabling divine power of God’s saving grace in the comprehensive plan of redemption of the Gospel, given in the simple yet meaningful sanctuary doctrine that was to unfold in type and shadowy symbols and their types and substance progressively through the successive generations and dispensations “till all be fulfilled” in “His appointed time.”
We are living in the waning hours of mankind’s probation, “the most solemn hours of earth’s history,” the antitypical day of atonement of the investigative or pre-advent judgment. Are you a sleeping “wise” or “foolish” virgin? The antitypical “midnight cry” that will reach its stupendous climax in the final “loud cry of the fourth angel” of Revelation 18 has been sounding.
“He that hath ears let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches.” “Today, if you will hear His voice, harden not your hearts” for your own salvation’s sake and for God’s glory!
To be continued next MWM, God willing. Bless all, NMF.