The Truth About Good and Evil

VICTORY

Chapter 1

ENEMY

enemy — a harmful or deadly adversary. 

one seeking to conquer, confound or destroy.

We, the human race, do have an arch enemy.

One that can’t even be seen.

This enemy has already gained significant control over us,

without us even knowing it.

"Be self-controlled and alert.

Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion

looking for someone to devour."

1 Peter 5:8

Our fellow human beings aren’t our enemies at all.

"For our struggle is not against flesh and blood,

but against the rulers,

against the authorities,

against the powers of this dark world and

against the spiritual forces of evil

in the heavenly realms."

Ephesians 6:12 

But how do we fight an enemy we can’t see?

"For though we live in the world,

we do not wage war as the world does.

The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world.

On the contrary, they have divine power

to demolish strongholds.

We demolish arguments and every pretension

that sets itself up against the knowledge of God,…"

2 Corinthians 10:3-5

It’s to our enemy’s advantage

for us not to know our Creator;

his unfailing love or his authority.

It’s to our enemy’s advantage

that we don’t know our survival’s on the line.

It’s to our enemy’s advantage

that we don’t know that immortality is also on the line.

"The great dragon was hurled down—

that ancient serpent called the devil or Satan,

who leads the whole world astray. 

He was hurled to the earth,

and his angels with him."

Revelation 12:9

God made the devil or Satan

both beautiful and capable

and gave him a free will when he created him.

But instead of being thankful and enjoying it,

Satan turned against the one who made him and loved him.

"You said in your heart,

"I will ascend to heaven;

I will raise my throne above the stars of God;

I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly,

on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain. 

I will ascend above the tops of the clouds;

I will make myself like the Most High."

But you are brought down to the grave,

to the depths of the pit."   

Isaiah 14:13-15

God is the Creator.

A creation is never greater than the Creator.

Satan, a creation, wanted total dominance and control.

This could never be.

Once Satan had sinned, he made himself unworthy

to be in God’s presence.  So he, along with a portion of the

other angels who followed him, were cast out of heaven.

So Satan, who craved control, now had no control at all.

Satan ruined everything for himself.

There Satan was, kicked out of heaven, ruler of no one.

But he still had an insatiable ambition

to dominate and control.

So, when God made the earth and his latest creation; us,

we became Satan’s target. 

If the devil could get us to follow him into sin against God,

we’d bind ourselves to him and have to leave God.

We’d lose life in paradise and gain death in hell with him.

Satan could become our master without our knowledge.

God, to protect us, had commanded us not to eat

from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil

because we’d surely die from it. 

Satan would have to con us into believing that

that tree was very desirable instead of very deadly. 

If we disobeyed God and did Satan’s bidding instead,

we would surely die spiritually at that moment

and would give him the power and control he craved;

covert domination over human civilization. 

Each of us would be his captive by our sin;

all of us headed for death, never even realizing it.

And since Satan knew what had motivated him to sin,

he knew what might motivate us to sin.

All he had to do was create that same motivation in us.

He’d tempt us with power and knowledge.

He’d make us the promise of a better life from that tree.

He’d convince us with his made up lies.   

I’ll pose as a snake, he thought.

I’ll act like I have all the knowledge.

I’ll pretend I’m focused on their goals. 

I’ll make them think I’m looking out for them.

I’ll misquote God and steer their desires.

I’ll make them want what will bring them over to me.

Only if they eat the fruit from that particular tree,

will they sin against God and become subject to me.

I’ll get them to question what God said.

I’ll twist the words around, making them sound unfair.

I’ll make the humans think they’re missing out

on something great by not eating it.

I’ll tell them the answer to their fulfillment is that fruit.

If they disregard God’s command and eat it,

I’ll have captured all of humanity, without their knowledge.

I’ll dominate them all. 

They’ll be mine through their sin but they won’t know it.

Each human, from then on, will be mine as they’re born,

because they followed me into sin at the start.

I’ll deceive the humans into dooming themselves.

It will be easy.  So Satan headed for the beautiful garden

where we lived, to carry out his plan.

In the garden, God was there with us in paradise!

We interacted together and he loved us boundlessly.

That’s why he warned us about eating from that single tree.

But we chose to listen to a stranger’s lies instead of him.

We followed our enemy into rebellion against our Creator;

separating ourselves from him and his paradise.

We had it all, and then we ruined everything for ourselves.

Even though our Creator had lovingly and generously

given us all the other fruit on all the other trees to eat from,

we deliberately ignored all that. 

Instead, we did what Satan, a creation told us to do.

This broke the close connection we had had with God.

Our sin created a rift between us. 

We separated ourselves from our Creator

as we bound ourselves to the deceiver.

Just like Satan wanted us to do.

We decided not to listen to God;

we decided to listen to Satan, who we didn’t even know.

God gave us life and was wonderful to us. 

We knew God and we supposedly loved him.

Then we deliberately did what he told us not to do.

God told us not to do it out of his great love for us.

In the garden God gave us one single command!

We disobeyed the one command we were given.

We chose to side with Satan, disguised as a snake.

When we did that, we gave ourselves to him.

We unleashed him and all the evil with him into our lives.

We believed Satan’s pack of lies instead of believing God.

We humans left God and joined Satan way back then.

The first of our kind (humans) were the first ones to sin

(Eve then Adam).  Through their disobedience,

we (all humans) have inherited this sinful nature. 

Now we’re all born with it.

Sin and God do not co-exist together.

By our disobedience we separated ourselves from God; and

contaminated by sin, unwittingly joined up with our enemy.

This is just what our enemy, Satan, wanted to happen. 

He got his way, and once we had become sinful,

we became stained and tainted as a human race,

we became unworthy because of our disobedience. 

Human souls became bound for death

the moment the first of our kind turned away from God.

Now we remain in this state of separation from God

from the time we’re born of Satan until we’re born of God.

Even though we had gone over to the enemy,

and sided with him, God didn’t stop loving us! 

God still loved us so much, that even though he knew

all it would take for us to be together again for good;

he was willing to do it for us. 

Sin’s punishment is death, eternity without God.

God doesn’t want us to be alone forever, he cares about us,

he wants us alive forever with him in paradise!

But we entered into a contract with death by our sin.

This contract with death has to be satisfied.

The only way we wouldn’t have to pay with our lives,

was for God to send someone who was sinless

and willing to take our entire punishment for us.

No human being could have saved the human beings,

because we’ve each been contaminated with our own sin.

God knew his only Son, the Lord Jesus Christ,

was pure and sinless; capable of defeating Satan for us.

But how Jesus would defeat Satan is not what we’d expect.

He’d pay for our release, with the offering of his own life!

This is what it would take to free us from Satan and death,

Jesus Christ was willing to take on death for us.

Jesus would be the one to win us back for God!

God willingly laid down his own Son’s life for our lives!

And Jesus Christ, who had everything in heaven,

was willing to come here to suffer and die in our place! 

Jesus was looking forward to sharing immortality with us!

"For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,

that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor,

so that you through his poverty might become rich."

2 Corinthians 8:9

When God asked him to, Christ took onto himself

all of humanity’s sin and bore our punishment on the cross,

this killed our sin when he was killed.

It wasn’t pretty and it wasn’t easy.

It wasn’t neat and it wasn’t expected.

It wasn’t even recognized or understood.

But Jesus stripped Satan of his power over us by that cross.

God sent us the way of escape from our enemy’s plan;

his only Son would suffer our death sentence for us!

And Jesus willingly came here

even knowing we would mock, torture and kill him. 

And even though Jesus Christ had no sin,

he was willing to take all our sins onto himself

so we wouldn’t have to pay the price of death.

Even though none of us realized what he was doing for us

on that cross, and he got no accolades, Jesus did it anyway.

"Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:

Who, being in very nature God,

did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,

but made himself nothing,

taking the very nature of a servant,

being made in human likeness. 

And being found in appearance as a man,

he humbled himself and became obedient to death—

even death on a cross! 

Therefore God exalted him to the highest place

and gave him the name that is above every name,

that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,

in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,

to the glory of God the Father."

Philippians 2:5-11

Jesus Christ didn’t consider equality with God

something to be grasped as Satan the creation had,

but instead was victorious in humility and obedience.

But the devil is holding us without our knowledge

by our sin.

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

Romans 3:23

"He who does what is sinful is of the devil,

because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. 

The reason the Son of God appeared

was to destroy the devil’s work."

1 John 3:8

God’s Son Jesus Christ destroys the devil’s work in us

by atoning for our sin to free us from Satan!

"Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel,

because he has come and has redeemed his people. 

He has raised up a horn of salvation for us

in the house of his servant David

(as he said through his holy prophets of long ago),

salvation from our enemies

and from the hand of all who hate us—

to show mercy to our fathers

and to remember his holy covenant,

the oath he swore to our father Abraham: 

to rescue us from the hand of our enemies,

and to enable us to serve him without fear

in holiness and righteousness before him all our days."

Luke 1:68-75

God sent Jesus here to defeat our enemy,

to strip him of his power over us; sin and death.

Enduring the cross, Jesus conquered our sin!

Being raised to life, Jesus conquered our death!

"…I am sending you to them to open their eyes

and turn them from darkness to light,

and from the power of Satan to God,

so that they may receive forgiveness of sins

and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.’ "

Acts 26:17&18

Jesus did everything it took to save us,

as he satisfied our death contract with Satan by the cross.

Jesus bought us freedom by paying with his blood!

In Jesus’ blood is our forgiveness and our way to God.

It completely severs our affiliation with Satan,

so Satan doesn’t want us knowing anything about it.

Satan wants us to stay under his death contract through sin.

If we find out what God did for us through his Son,

we’ll receive Jesus Christ and have our sin washed away.

Our sin is the only thing holding us to Satan.

Jesus Christ is the only one uniting us with God.

None of us want to stay united with Satan,

who deceives us and has torment in store.

But we do want to be united with our Creator,

who loves us and has paradise in store.

The difference; it’s Jesus.

So the devil desperately tries to keep each of us

from personally inviting Jesus into our lives.

When Jesus saves us, we’re separated from Satan.

We become part of God’s family to live forever!

So Satan can’t let us find out who Jesus really is,

or that Jesus delivered a death blow to him from the cross,

or that Jesus bought us our freedom from death

and now offers us eternal life.

Because if we find out how much God really loves us;

we’ll be drawn to him because of his great kindness.

We’ll believe that God had Jesus suffer

instead of us having to suffer!

We’ll understand that those nails went through our sin

as well as Jesus’ flesh into that wooden cross.

We’ll believe that God raised Christ from the dead

breaking the power of sin and death over us!

We’ll receive Jesus into our hearts now,

and we’ll receive immortality in paradise when this is over!

We’ll also know that Satan manipulated us

into what keeps us from God; our sin,

and he’s been hiding the fact

that this sin is still keeping us from God.

Satan knows that if we’re redeemed through Christ,

we won’t be his anymore and we won’t be with him in hell. 

He absolutely can’t stand losing his grip on any of us.

The devil wants to keep control of each of us.

This means keeping us in darkness

so we won’t see God’s light of the world, Jesus Christ.

So we won’t see that God himself paid for our release

with his only Son’s blood!

"For you know that it was not with

perishable things such as silver or gold

that you were redeemed from the empty way of life

handed down to you from your forefathers,

but with the precious blood of Christ,

a lamb without blemish or defect."

1 Peter 1:18&19

We inherited an empty way of life that leads to death.

So out of love, God sacrificed his perfect Lamb for us!

Now, when we ask God to apply Christ’s blood to our sin,

he does, which forgives us and ensures us life after this!

Since Christ came and paid with his blood

for our souls to be ransomed away from Satan,

once we place our sins onto Jesus

by confessing them to God, the transfer is made complete.

Jesus snatches us away from Satan and gives us to God!

We won’t have to fear death anymore,

because Jesus paid for us to have eternal life!

We’ll be sin free and headed for God’s paradise with him!

When we believe in Christ, he rescues us from our captor, 

and releases us from the curse and guilt of our own sin.

But Satan wants to keep his dungeons full of death row

inmates, so he muddies the water so we won’t see through.

He wants to affect our knowledge of God; to prevent it.

So he gives us all kinds of wrong ideas.

The ideas themselves don’t really matter.

They come from the devil’s imagination.

The purpose of each of them is to veer us away from truth.

So using his imagination, Satan lies about Jesus Christ.

The fact that Jesus is excellent, glorious and powerful,

and the fact that Jesus annihilated him on the cross,

is information Satan wants to keep far from us.

It’s so important to Satan

to stop our minds from grasping

who Jesus Christ is, the Son of the Living God.

It’s really important to Satan

to prevent us from knowing

what God did through Christ on the cross for us.

He’ll offer ideas about who Jesus is, none of them true.

But he hopes to hold our attention on his lie

long enough for us to go on to the next thought or thing

in our life without having it straight. 

This way, his lie is left to linger in our brains.

Lie after lie, he keeps telling them.

If one lie about God and his Christ doesn’t work,

if it doesn’t get and keep us off the right track,

if it doesn’t leave us with the wrong impression,

he’s ready with another viewpoint, as false as the last.

Satan will continually introduce alternative ideas

that sound like they might be correct.

His arsenal of lies are meant to resemble truth,

so we get it wrong in our minds.

Once Satan’s sure we have it wrong,

he’s temporarily satisfied,

as long as a lie is what our mind remembers.

Each time he does this successfully,

it leaves us farther and farther from the truth,

and stuck deeper in his pit of ignorance.

He’ll make each lie look reasonable and possibly true.

Satan, sounding like the voice of reason and truth,

plants warped ideas and images in our minds

of what it means to know God.

He knows Scripture, and he knows how to distort it.

Satan will make something crucial to us, look unimportant.

Only Scripture can cut through his lies.

So we need to arm ourselves with it.

This way, we’ll be able to tell when we’re being lied to.

Satan is formidable and not to be underestimated.

His deceptions are murky and hard to see through.

He loves fooling us into totally believing what’s not true.

This gives him satisfaction, to watch us fall for it.

He likes coercing us to do the wrong thing,

while we’re thinking it’s right.  And because we humans

turned ourselves over to Satan in our infancy,

on our own, we’re vulnerable victims to him.

But God sent his Son to conquer Satan, and that he did!

Satan’s power over us can now be broken

through our faith in Jesus.

God has made Jesus our gate

through which we can enter and reach him!

"I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. 

He will come in and go out, and find pasture. 

The