2006-11-22 - Start Your Own Country Day

Luke 10:18, "I was watching Satan fall from Heaven like lightning."

In case you did not know it, November 22 is: Start Your Own Country Day. In this amazing world where there are so many things that constantly fight for our attention, there really is a day for everything. But I have in mind today to talk a little bit about Satan. He did more than try to start his own country; he was foolish enough to try to dethrone God. The created trying to supplant the creator. It seems foolish even at first blush, but given a little thought, the absolute absurdity of the concept comes more and more into focus.

If you have been reading these devotionals for any length of time, you may have noticed that I rarely speculate on things such as prophecy, or end times, or what Heaven will be like, or even what Heaven was like before the rebellion of Satan against God, and the fall of man into sin. I see little profit in examining such things. Scripture gives us some windows into these things, but from our fallen state, those windows are at best stained glass and hard to see through, and at worst covered with mud. Having seen the Israelites completely miss the boat respecting the coming Messiah, and all the prophecies related to Him, I can't see how my speculations would fare much better. It seems a much more profitable use of time to center my efforts in rooting out indwelling sin, and seeking to fulfill the positive admonitions to holiness and righteousness that Scripture gives us.

But we are aware of something that took place in Heaven where Satan rebelled against God, and a host of angels followed. Christ says that Satan was a murderer from the beginning (John 8:44). We learn in 1 John 3:8 that Satan has sinned from the beginning. Jude 6 tells us that the angels did not keep their own principle, abandoned their proper abode and are kept in eternal bonds under darkness until the judgment of the great day. Clearly, something happened in Heaven. Clearly from Scripture, there is now a kingdom of evil (Luke 11:17-18, Matthew 12:26, Mark 3:24). Besides Satan, there are demons, evil spirits, unclean spirits, and spiritual hosts of wickedness which all seem divided into various classes and ranks (1 Cor. 15:24, Eph. 6:12, Col. 2:15, Jude 6). Each seem to surpass each other in their wickedness (Matt. 12:45, Luke 11:26).

We know that Satan will fail, but in this there is a lesson for us. We also have the tendency to set up our own little worlds. We also have areas of our lives where we seek to run things, as if God was not the ruler of this part of our life, but rather we are. But we need to take a page from the ultimate results of rebellion against God. Satan is a great example to us in this, because he will fail. He has no chance of repentance or of turning away from his rebellion. His end is determined, and he will be judged eternally. His struggle with the Almighty for power only shows he is powerless. Wickedness is something that desires to be. It seeks to be able to say, "I AM that I AM,: but it can't. Wickedness will not last. It will be overthrown. It will never achieve the goal it seeks of ungoding God.

As I said, there is something in this for us. We have the option of repentance. We do have the offer of free grace, and new life in Christ. This is something that neither Satan nor the fallen angels appear to have any hope of gaining. By grace, we can reform. Satan has learned that God is the Lord, but there is nothing that he can do to reconcile himself to his Creator. Looking at his sad state, we can assess our own. His failure is all the more incentive to us to cling to the free mercy offered in Christ, to live differently than those who foolishly try to create their own little worlds and live as if there was no day of reckoning to come. It is a great mercy, and something we should ever offer our praise and thanks for, that the Lord has provided a way for us to be reconciled to Himself. Satan never seemed to have been given this option. So on this Create Your Own Country Day, I say let us seek that better country - whose maker and builder is God (Hebrews 11:16).

Soli Deo Gloria,
T-

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