The Bible assures us that God's promise cannot be stopped.
Hebrews 2:14 Because God’s children are human beings—made of flesh and blood—the Son also became flesh and blood. For only as a human being could he die, and only by dying could he break the power of the devil, who had the power of death.
First the good news: the end of Satan is coming despite his best efforts to stop it from happening but the bad news is that he is still very much at work despite the fact that he is sure to fail.
Ever since his rebellion Satan has been actively plotting against God, first he lashed out at us because we are God's most prized creation and then he immediately started working against God's plan to redeem us.
It is amazing that even the chief of all the evil angels is no more than a created being under the authority of God. Satan and the evil angels who follow him can do their evil work only within the limits that God allows.
We see a lot of injustice in the Bible as a result of sin but just recently I have come to realize that a lot of tragic events that happened in the Bible were probably a result of Satan fighting against the coming of the promised Messiah that would undo his work.
The Promise Opposed
At first Satan didn't know who to focus on, the Messiah could have come from anyone's ancestors, but after God committed himself to one person's descendants they became the focus of Satan's hostility and they would need to be protected.
- Evil Cain needed a Godly brother and then he needed another brother because he got rid of the first one.
- Noah's family needed to be rescued from the quick spread of sin because they were the last Godly people on the planet.
- All of the descendants of Shem (Noah's son) that led to Terah (the father of Abraham) were probably attacked by Satam in order to
- Abram was God's chosen but after he arrived in Canaan he kept on traveling without a word from God. He went to Egypt and unwittingly allowed his wife to become part of Pharaoh’s harem which would keep Abram from having the promised son.
- Jacob had to be protected from Esau and from Laban (Genesis 27:41, 31:29)
- Pharaoh ordered all male Hebrew infants to be murdered and later be attempted to destroy Israel when they were backed up against the Red Sea with nowhere to go.
- The lineage of King David had to be protected as Israel went to war over and over again to claim the Promised Land.
- The Assyrian and the Babylonian armies killed so many Jews that they could have wiped out anyone of King David's ancestors that would lead to Jesus.
- When Haman attempted to destroy all the Jews throughout the Persian Empire he probably didn't know he was working for Satan.
- In the New Testament it is easy to see that Satan was attempting to stop the promise when Herod killed all of the babies or when he tempted Jesus to sin.
The Promise Guaranteed
In each of these examples it appears that God’s promise would certainly fail only to have God intervene and protect his promise. No matter what Satan does it cannot change the ultimate end of world history found in Revelation.
Satan has used circumstances, things and people (even Godly people) throughout the ages in a failed attempt to outdo God.
| Psalms 33:10-12 The LORD frustrates the plans of the nations and thwarts all their schemes. 11 But the LORD’s plans stand firm forever; his intentions can never be shaken. 12 What joy for the nation whose God is the LORD, whose people he has chosen as his inheritance. Acts 5:38-39 “So my advice is, leave these men alone. Let them go. If they are planning and doing these things merely on their own, it will soon be overthrown. 39 But if it is from God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You may even find yourselves fighting against God!” Hebrews 6:17 God also bound himself with an oath, so that those who received the promise could be perfectly sure that he would never change his mind. |
Since God protected his promise to redeem us by protecting the people that were a part of the lineage of our Savior I can be sure that God's plan and his promises will come to pass. God will continue to work out his plan to destroy the work of the Devil, just as surely as our Savior came to redeem us, I know that he will also come again to take us to our eternal home.
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