If God has planned the perfect ending to pain and injustice, why haven’t we reached the end yet?
Texts for this message
Why God waits
- Matthew 24:14
- Gospel preached to all the world for a witness to all nations
- II Peter 3:7–9
- Wishes all to come to repentance
Satan’s deceptions
- Genesis 3
- God wants a monopoly over evil. A knowledge of evil is the only thing lacking to make you equal with God. God won’t share it, so you’ll have to take it.
- Job
- Job appears to serve God but really serves himself.
- II Corinthians 11:14, 15
- Transforms into an angel of light.
- Hebrews 2:14, 15
- Keeps us in bondage through fear of death.
Satan’s story
- Isaiah 14:12–14
- Ezekiel 28:14, 15
- Zechariah 3
- John 8:44
- Revelation 12
Satan’s defeat
- I John 3:2
- Character of Jesus in His people: completes the exposure of Satan’s deceptions.
- II Corinthians 3:18
- We are changed by beholding the glory of God.
Questions
- What needs to be accomplished in the judgment?
- Is it possible for people to stop being selfish?
- Does God play favorites? Are His rules the same for everyone?
In heaven, Satan tried force and failed to defeat God. When Jesus was on earth, Satan tried to defeat Him with temptation and failed. The only defense Satan has left is God’s love for the people Satan has deceived. Satan lives only because the exposure of his deception is not complete.
Satan claims that God’s superiority derives from evil. Let’s see if we have been deceived.
Deceptions
- Bad things are God’s punishments.
- God is in total control. Everything that happens is His will. (God works in mysterious ways.)
- God has chosen some to be lost against their will.
- God saves us from hell.
- The innocent can suffer for the guilty.
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