What is Satan’s goal or endgame, and why? Does anyone know? Do we need to know?
I suspect it is to insult God as much as he can, while he can. I suspect it is kill! kill! kill! (along with steal! and destroy!).
He is an intelligent strategist. After all, he did almost take out “the whole shootin’ match” with the Flood of Noah. (And nowadays, mankind has terrible weapons of mass destruction–which apparently includes North Korea, and probably Iran.)
But he is a defeated enemy, and we need to learn to recognize him and effectively oppose him with weapons that are not carnal, “but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds.” 2 Cor. 10:4.
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“Praise be to the name of God for ever and ever; wisdom and power are his. He changes times and seasons; he deposes kings and raises up others. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning. He reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what lies in darkness, and light dwells with him. I thank and praise you, God of my ancestors….”* Daniel 2.
and
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“This is the day the Lord has made; We will rejoice and be glad in it.”* Ps. 118:24.
" Now, a couple of questions come to mind. If God does not allow evil as the OP suggests, then why is He allowing a cosmic rebel to hijack the heavens and rain fire and brimstone down on people? Secondly, the article also mentions that Satan caused the flood in the story of Noah. Why is Satan offing all the evil people? Doesn’t he need armies to take over and rule the world? This makes no sense to me.
According to “Don’t Blame God” Satan got the legal right to have dominion of the earth from Adam and then even offered it to Jesus. God doesn’t interfere with Satan because Satan legally obtained the right to rule and God’s righteousness won’t let him interfere.
Re Noah, this is my thought. Perhaps Satan lied and the people weren’t actually all evil. In fact it does seem strange that God would wipe out almost everyone because of their evilness yet the replacements became just about as evil over time. As far as Satan’s army goes, he has an army of demons.
Of course i still have the traditional belief although i’m open to learn more, but for this i was playing devil’s advocate!
Here is a relevant excerpt of a comment from another thread:
Jesus is holding that title deed, and he will most certainly, at his convenience, take possession of the land.
Regarding eschatology, I am still a futurist, and believe in a literal antichrist, and a literal Tribulation.
And yet as to the nature of God, I believe Him nonviolent, and only loving. How do I reconcile the two?
Well, when I now read the book of Revelation, I remember what Richard Murray terms “The Strobe Light Effect”:
I also remember from Murray’s “IS SATAN INVOLVED IN EVERY EVIL OCCURRENCE?” (quoted in its entirety earlier in this thread) how he defended his viewpoint that, for example, “natural disasters” don’t have to be natural. One of the several Church Fathers he cited was Origen:
Today, I was reading in the book of Revelation a description of the seventh plague. It says,
“And there fell upon men a great hail out of heaven, every stone about the weight of a talent: and men blasphemed God because of the plague of the hail; for the plague thereof was exceeding great.” Rev. 16:21. So, who exactly is sending those hail stones in the seventh plague? Men will continue to lose divine protection through willful sin, and the enemy will happily enter through the holes in that hedge. So when I read this passage, I see that God will be blamed and blasphemed, when in reality it is satanic forces afflicting people during those terrible times.
In seeing that the Bible is part of a progressive revelation, I know now that God doesn’t threaten and kill, He warns and rescues. He is not an arsonist, but a heroic fireman. As Murray also says in God vs. Evil,
And here is a final exhortation for all of us from that same Murray essay included in my earlier comment:
Steve, I would say that a thief and murderer has no such rights. I’m still confused. Who’s side is Satan on? He seems to be killing everyone no matter whether they’re evil or righteous. God said, if you sin, you die. Satan lied and said that this isn’t true. However, he goes on to prove God correct when he kills off all the evil people. I wouldn’t consider this to be very intelligent. You’d think that only the righteous would be targeted.
You’d think that only the righteous would be targeted.
LLC
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Satan’s main weapon is deception and if he attacked only the righteous that would expose him. Scripture does portray him as “The father of lies” and “a murderer from the beginning” and “the god of this age” and “a roaring lion walking around looking for whom to devour” and also as having “the power of death.”
So it is hard to figure why Satan is barely mentioned in the OT , yet there are plenty of deaths and killings! But the way God is described in the NT is hard to reconcile with his occasional actions in the OT.
The picture I am getting here, is that Satan is this big, bad cosmic chap. And Christians have no power over him. I believe just the opposite. Though invoking the name of Christ, along with the help of the Holy Spirit, the Saints (yes, I side with the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches on this), and the Holy Angels, you can reduce his power over you. Make it nothing, so to speak. It’s doing on a miniature scale, what they do in the Roman Catholic exorcisms - for demon possessed people (after eliminating organic disease and abnormal psychosis). I think the Pentecostals, Charismatics, and folks from the RC and EO churches, would side with me.
Let me share a prayer, from the contemporary, Old Catholic Church mystic, Tiffany Snow:
Of course, I wouldn’t touch him, with a 10 foot pole. But many folks, try to make him a friend.
The picture I am getting here, is that Satan is this big, bad cosmic chap. And Christians have no power over him. I believe just the opposite.
Yes i agree with you but in the OT folks had no power and no knowledge of Satan, so a possibility is (just a theory) if someone was possessed by demons they had to be destroyed?
Neither does the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox nor mainline Protestant churches. Nor do academic Christian professors of theology, philosophy and science.
The Roman Catholic church, believes that God still has a covenant with Judaism. I feel the same way, for Native American spirituality. Their teachings date back thousands of years. And a Lutheran minister, penned the biography, of one of their holy people (i.e. saint) - Fools Crow. Now Fools Crow (like Black Elk), practiced both Native American spirituality and Roman Catholicism. And they feel that we are the ones, who get nature out of balance. In other words, nature is reacting to our behavior and trying to cleanse itself. This comes from thousands of years, of handed down tradition. And the modern scientific equivalent, is called Chaos Theory.
And if Satan were responsible for natural disasters, he’s working within the parameters of science. Where our science, normally has early warning systems in place - for many natural disasters.
It’s a broken world, folks - pure and simple. And didn’t Satan have to get God’s permission, in the book of Job?
You know, upon reading Postmortem Opportunist , I feel universalism is an established position. As the author points out, approximately 1/3 of the church fathers believe in ECT, 1/3 in annihilation and 1/3 in Universalism.
But some ideas, presented in this forum (i.e. we have no free will and God is pulling the strings, Satan causes all natural disasters, etc.)…Is like being out in left field, with a baseball bat.
I’m not so sure about that. Did God create natural disasters? Or are their occurrences the result of a fallen world? Could it be the case that when Adam and Eve fell, the whole earth fell with it, including the behaviour of the weather?
Why do wolves have teeth fitted to tear flesh, when it is written that God gave plants for the consumption of people and animals?
And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so. (Genesis 1:29,30 ESV)
Could it be that man and some animals eat flesh as a result of their fallen condition?
Why do mosquitoes give irritating bites to animals and people, sucking their blood to produce their young? Did God create them that way? If so why? Did He get some kind of enjoyment in seeing people and animals getting bugged by those little irritaters? Many years ago, the idea came to me that perhaps God didn’t create mosquitoes to suck the blood of people and animals, but rather created them to suck the juices of plants. Then as a result of the fall, they switched their feeding habits from plants to animals. About a week later I read in a science book that mosquitoes at been isolated in a conservatory in which no people or animals of any kind were present. Amazingly, the mosquitoes sucked the juices of plants and produced their young just the same! Having read that, I felt that my speculation was justified.
As to Murray’s above quotes from Church Fathers indicating the “angelic” is intimately involved the “natural” functioning of our planet:
First, I have no good handle on where modern Eastern Orthodoxy diverges from the Church Fathers. And, after all, which Church Fathers? Do the Orthodox revere them all equally? Are the Orthodox alone “orthodox”? Or are the orthodox perhaps actually heterodox (and I alone am orthodox? )
Further, I have no good handle on the spectrum of beliefs of the many Church Fathers themselves. My Christian milieu (of people who were sharing my experience and revelation) started as:
-Get personally saved (vs. “my family is Catholic,” or “my family is Orthodox,” Methodist, etc.)
-Get baptized in water and in the Holy Spirit (with the manifestation of tongues)
-Prayerfully read your Bible daily
-Listen to, and ask questions of, more mature believers who show spiritual fruit in their lives
-Prayerfully investigate and consider teachings and ideas outside your immediate circle; make up your own mind
-The priesthood of all believers
So, I never learned, and still don’t accept, e.g.,
-infant baptism cleansing away original sin.
-rosaries as a good idea (re. not using “vain repetitions,” and all that. Mt. 6:7).
-transubstantiation.
And, with all due respect, in my visits to Catholic and Orthodox churches, I never heard a clear understanding that “you must be born again,” as a definitive personal experience.
As to “natural disasters” not all being “natural,” we all agree that there was satanic fire from heaven, and a satanic windstorm, which killed the friends and family of Job. But thanks to Murray’s article, I recognize now that the Bible is part of a progressive revelation, and that even today, many believers still misattribute to God what is actually of Satan. Now I know that God is completely nonviolent. Now I understand that Satan unleashed the Flood of Noah, not God. And what “natural” disaster can compare with that?! So anything less than that also being satanic is certainly a possibility.
(And no, I don’t think a bridge falling down is necessarily satanic, although he may certainly try to beguile even “rational” scientists and engineers who wear white lab coats Just look at the Nazis.)
Got it. And I addressed exactly that in my reply!
You did say it sounded to you that Knoch’s translation could be read as, “in order that,” which would require hina to be the conjugate of choice. I agreed that you made a good point, and so that was exactly what I investigated.
And this was my conclusion:
That does not make me right, of course. Because, like yourself (unless you are a Greek scholar!), I have to trust that Greek scholars know what they are doing as I use the tools and translations they produce, while accounting for bias. That includes recognizing my own bias as I look into such a good challenge to my understanding as you presented me.
So, this is my bias, presented for your analysis:
I find Knoch’s very unpopular literal translation quite refreshing because he wasn’t applying his expertise to make money. And don’t you know that being unpopular is usually a sign that you’ve done something to upset the status-quo?
From what I’ve read of how the CLV was created, Knoch recognized the influence of bias and accounted for it so he could be faithful to his Greek learning and to Truth, and not translate to satisfy the popular opinion of how a particular passage should be understood. So, when there is a difference between the CLV and the KJV, it is noteworthy, especially when one considers the sordid history of Calvinisim, the KJV, and the pedophile King that commissioned it.
The way I came to see it was, if that peculiar, eternal hell of the KJV was actually translated into existence - which that hell is necessary for Calvinism to be viable - then so, likewise, should be the other components of Calvinism: and that is what I discovered.
The KJV twists the Greek words to form the ideas of “foreknowledge,” “predestination” and "fore-ordination, " thus making God’s purpose in election to be understood differently by us later Believers than it would have been understood by the first century believers; for Calvinism was not the belief of the first century believers!
Unfortunately, I’ve come to perceive that many in modern Universalisim, particularly Ultimate Reconciliation (UR), seem to cling even more tenaciously to Calvin’s other aspects exactly because they can eliminate his peculiar hell from their understanding.
For me, Universalisim, separated from the more popular aspects of Calvinism, brings a sense of peace and new sense of joy to living my life being the best human being I can be. And it gives me different answers to such questions as are debated here.
With Universalisim I get peace, satisfaction and a feeling of unity with all my fellow human beings. I can relax into my salvation, while being properly diligent, because I know that I can be fully what I was created to be, both good and human.
With Calvinism I had fear, anxiety and dreaded my fore-ordained future. I could not relax, not for a moment, because I always feared that I might not be one of the elect - and I hated the understanding that there were those God elected for damnation, which meant that they could be nothing but damned, no matter what they did, even if they, “freely,” choose damnation by not accepting John Calvin’s Jesus. This led me to despise myself when I dared to think that my election was sure simply because I was a believer in Christ, no matter what crimes or immorality I committed, no matter what lies I told. Indeed, Calvinism led me to think that, if my election was sure, then my continued sinning was predestined by God for me to commit because I needed to be taught a lesson. I could sin with impunity, even if I might suffer some inconvenience for it later.
Funny thing is, I’m not the only Christian who thought that way for being taught that Calvinism was the truth, being drawn logically from the very translation God himself must have approved, given its popularity; for surely God would watch over the translation of His Words to ensure they weren’t tampered with!
With Universalisim the belief of the first two centuries, you got believers who led righteous lives, lived in peace, and who experienced joy through holy spirit. They led good lives of charity and empathy that inspired others to live good lives because of the way they took care of their own - because they had love, one for another. You got believers who turned the world upside-down because you got believers who believed it was possible to live their lives freed from sin!
With Calvinism, you got believers who stood with satisfaction as they watched the slow-burning of Michael Servitus over green wood; you got a diabolical, clergy-led theocracy in Switzerland; and you got the Salem witch-trials. You got the Westboro Baptist Church. You got believers who could justify all kinds of heinous actions, in the middle-ages, right into today, because they believed they were predestined to be saved; they believed that their name is written in the book of life of the Lamb, slain from the foundation of the world.
So, that is my bias!
And now you know a bit more about why I perceive that Knoch’s translation of Romans 8:28-29 is more accurate, and why I say, “Be good! It is, after all, what you were created to be!”
Dennis!
P.S. Please forgive the lateness of this reply. I’ve been busy making lemonade from the bowl of lemons Life recently passed to me.
Yes it is a broken world, this kosmos that the human beings of this age know very well.
So, if it is broken, then this shouldn’t be the world as God created it to be. THAT world and what it was like would be lost to us, merely a matter of speculation, if we did not have the Genesis account.
Before the flood, there was no rain. Which means there was no weather, as we know it. The earth is tilted uniquely on its axis, and as a result all that water is frozen at the poles. But, a different tilt would create a temperate zone throughout the earth. Weather, then as we know it, is a result of the constant mixing of cold and heat as our planet wobbles through four seasons every 365 1/4 days.
So, where did all that water come from, enough to severely flood the world if it were thawed?
Now, the first age of human history had us dwelling on an earth that we did not have to defend ourselves against: that is, there wasn’t weather as we know it. At that time, after The Awdam were turned, only the ground was cursed, making the growing of food a time-consuming task.
Something had to keep Mankind busy in our turned state because we did not turn out to be what we were intended to be; virtuous human beings. That is why we eventually caused God to grieve over His intention of creating human beings because, in that age there were no governments, and every man was free to sin as he wished, including murder for any perceived offence by another. And that’s not to mention the fantastic immorality that resulted when the celestial beings made human women pregnant and their offspring weren’t just corrupt, but powerfully corrupt.
Hollywood pretty much captures how human beings behaved then, when they use creatively written devices that free human beings to follow their lusts and passions.
Many creationist hold to the belief that the firmament was a shield around the earth that protected life and assisted in replenishing a powerful magnetic field that was partly responsible for the incredible growth of living organisms before the flood.
And that is where all that water came from! The firmament was collapsed and all the water stored under pressure in those massive caverns beneath our feet were heated to expansion and broke through the crust of Pangaea. And, at that time there were no mountains; for mountains were formed, as was the Grand Canyon and other similar geographic features on our current split-apart earth when, “the land was divided in the days of Peleg,” during the ice age that began after the flood.
So, what about Satan, The Adversary? If our currently hostile planet can be said to provide its own unique evil, to add its own unique Pain and Suffering to our existence, prompting people to blame God for it all, forgetting that the planet was turned to hostility because of the sin of our ancestors, what does Satan do?
He accuses.
There are several scriptures in which we find Satan accusing. I Chronicles 21:1, Psalms 109:6 where David requests God to assign Satan to stand at the side of those who did him wrong, Zechariah 3:1-2 and, of course no where is this more evident than in that fantastic account we call Job.
The first three chapters of that account gives us a lot to contemplate… and justify, if we wish to believe that God is good and does not create commit or allow evil.
So what is evil?
The crap we have to deal with that comes to us from a turned earth is certainly evil, because it causes us Pain and Suffering.
The sudden and untimely death of those we love, by accident or by the hand of another human being, either through deliberate action, inaction or negligence, is certainly evil because it causes us Pain and Suffering. Indeed, the untimely death of anyone is certainly evil because it causes someone, somewhere to experience Pain and Suffering.
Forcing someone into sex is most certainly evil because it, too, causes Pain and Suffering. And of a particularly pernicious kind given the instability this creates in the personality of the victim.
Even consensual immorality often comes to be perceived as evil because it, too, leads to Pain and Suffering, despite how right it all feels at the beginning of the immorality. We usually put the blame for that particular Pain and Suffering on the actions of the other person we are being immoral with.
So, evil is perceived by us as anything that causes us to feel Pain and Suffering.
Sometimes it comes to us from a turned earth, sometimes it comes to us from the evil actions of others - evil because it causes Pain and Suffering - and this is most keenly felt from the empathy we feel for victims of particularly heinous crimes, crimes that create a sense of unfairness in us for the violation of innocence employed, like when America was attacked by religious zealots on September 11, 2001, or when a child is raped.
Sometimes we even invite evil, that is, Pain and Suffering into our lives when we choose immorality or duplicity or hatred as our behavior of choice, or as a response to having Pain and Suffering, evil, inflicted on us.
I asked myself, “How much evil have I inflicted on others?” My answer, “Too much. And I want to stop inflicting Pain and Suffering on others.”
So, how much Pain and Suffering, how much evil, have you inflicted on others? I ask rhetorically, of course.
Why didn’t God stop you?
Why didn’t He stop me?
Why should He stop others who cause you and me Pain and Suffering, if He didn’t stop you or me when we inflicted evil on others?
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Now, concerning Job.
He was righteous.
That is to say - borrowing a phrase - every thought of his heart was only good, continually.
God knew that he was righteous, not just because He observed his actions but because God knew his heart.
So, here is a different perspective on Job, considering that Satan is The Adversary, the accuser.
God had His chance, given the legitimate accusations of The Adversary… to put His trust in a man… And be proven to know that He knows who is righteous and who is not, exactly because He searches the hearts of men, everywhere, all the time.
Can Satan be said to be able to do the same? No, all his wisdom is the wisdom of a clever Prosecuting Attorney, the wisdom of the court of law. And he knows how to ask questions.
God put His trust in a man because he could read Job’s heart and foreknew that Job would not turn and curse Him, as Satan said he would if he were allowed to bring to Job Pain and Suffering.
And you know what? God was vindicated! A human being came through because that human being knew that God was not punishing him for sin, because that human being knew that he was righteous!
And so, Job got to hear from God Himself, Who gave him an answer that satisfied Job’s conception of God as being the owner of his soul and the one Who will vindicate him in the end, as God did.
Just like God is the owner of my soul and yours and does not desire that soul to perish but to be redeemed unto righteousness, despite the Pain and Suffering you and I must endure that brings us to a point where we can accept His salvation by belief and through confession, all of which involve the heart.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness; for they shall be filled!
So, no, God does not create or commit evil, that is Pain and Suffering, but He does allow Pain and Suffering, even as He requested His only sexually begotten Son to endure evil so that Pain and Suffering would eventually be brought to an end when the son’s of God are unveiled to the world.
Until that age is realized, this explanation will only make sense to those who know they are among those sons. But, it will not be satisfying, no not at all, to those who are not, to those who inflict Pain and Suffering, yet desire to ensure that evil is not inflicted on them.
Being righteous, being good is advantageous to many levels of understanding, if you are willing to believe that it is possible for you to live your life freed from sinning, to live your life being good.
This is how I see the problem of Pain and Suffering, the problem of evil, for whatever it’s worth.
Where did this come from I don’t recall reading that, in the Old Testament. And I’m never heard or watched a homily (in any church, radio or TV program) - that affirmed this
To Dennis (AKA Eleutheros):
Here are a couple of Calvinist answers, from Got Questions - regarding evil:
A very interesting, popular book, is by Jewish Rabbi Harold S. Kushner. In the US, the local public library, adult reference librarian, can obtain a copy (via the inter-library loan program).
As I read this, I was thinking you might find some of the stuff that the Creation Evidence Museum in Glenn Rose Texas is doing to be fascinating.
Carl Baugh is not much revered in Creationist circles, but this experiment of his has produced some interesting and verifiable results concerning the latent ability of plants and animals to grow prodigiously and be transformed, for the better, under conditions that seem reasonable for an earth with a powerful magnetic field and a greater atmospheric pressure contained within a shell around the earth called the firmament.
Creation does indeed suffer and groan awaiting the revealing of the sons of God.
From my perception, our human issues have always risen from the state of any soul’s heart and from any soul’s lack of trust, or trust, in the virtue of Jehovah. Those where our issues in Eden, and those were the issues during the establishment and correction of National Israel in the OT, and those are still our issues, even after the Resurrection of Jesus changed the focus of God’s purposes from getting His people to obey a religion (from their heart), to every human being becoming obedient to the promptings of something new, something truly life-changing, something amazingly effective at transforming human beings, holy spirit.
So, I’d like to ask, given your expressive reply, if you perceive a connection between love and righteousness?
Who’s side is Satan on? He seems to be killing everyone no matter whether they’re evil or righteous. God said, if you sin, you die. Satan lied and said that this isn’t true. However, he goes on to prove God correct when he kills off all the evil people. I wouldn’t consider this to be very intelligent. You’d think that only the righteous would be targeted.
)
Just look at the Nazis.)
I don’t recall reading that, in the Old Testament. And I’m never heard or watched a homily (in any church, radio or TV program) - that affirmed this 
