MID-WEEK MANNA FROM PASTOR NAT’S DESK:
January 17, 2024
Satan’s Deceptions
Part 4
THE FIRST GREAT DECEPTION
“With the EARLIEST history of man, Satan began his efforts to DECEIVE our [human] race. He who had incited rebellion in heaven, desired to bring to the inhabitants of the earth to UNITE with him in his WARFARE [enmity] against the GOVERNMENT of God.
NOTES:
1) Inciting is one of many forms and stratagems of deception.
2) The eternal foundation of God’s everlasting government is His immutable covenant law of Ten Commandments, the transcript of His character and the revelation of His love, wisdom, mercy, righteousness, and justice.
“Adam and Eve had been PERFECTLY HAPPY IN OBEDIENCE to the law of God, and this fact was a constant TESTIMONY against the CLAIM that Satan had urged in heaven, that God’s law was OPPRESSIVE, and OPPOSED to the good of His people.
“And furthermore, Satan’s ENVY was excited as he looked upon the BEAUTIFUL HOME PREPARED for the SINLESS pair. He determined to cause their fall, that, having SEPARATED them from God and brought them UNDER HIS OWN POWER, he might gain POSSESSION OF THE EARTH, and here ESTABLISH HIS KINGDOM, in opposition to the Most High.”
NOTES:
In the same manner that God Creator ‘prepared’ a beautiful home-the garden of Eden—for the first ‘sinless’ pair so is the Redeemer Savior ‘preparing a place’ for all whose characters have been washed from all defilement and stain of sin by “overcoming by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony.”
They were rendered sinless by this process even while yet in their mortal nature and sealed in their foreheads as such. The “finishing touch” of immortality and the incorruptible, glorified body is conferred upon them at Christ’s glorious return for “the resurrection of the just” and the translation of the 144,000 living saints in order to present “her” to the Father as to His “purified bride” and church triumphant of the ages.
To them is rewarded the everlasting covenant and promised “inheritance of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” as “heirs with God and joint-heirs with Christ.” The earth made new is returned to them having been taken back from Satan “the prince of the earth”, by Christ “the promised Seed” and His “remnant of her seed who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus” that have the “Spirit of prophecy which is the Testimony of Jesus.”
They, together with all the saints of the ages, starting with Abel, “overcame the world, the flesh, and devil” by faith in Christ and His plan of redemption in the everlasting gospel. They loved God and faithfully obeyed His law and died keeping and defending it. “The blood of martyrs was the seed of the gospel.” And the “blood of Christ is what cleanses from all sin.”
(All paragraphs in quotes are from the Great Controversy, 1911 ed.. p. 531 bearing the same title, The First Great Deception. All emphasis, Notes and Comments mine).
To be continued next MWM, God willing. Bless all, NMF.