| CHAPTER 2 — BATTLEFIELD EARTH A Shouting Match Won’t Do How could God prove the truthfulness of his words? Mere claims or denials would prove nothing, for he had already been accused of lying. So God “took his case to court.”[30] Before the entire on looking universe, he laid his case open. He would demonstrate that he had told “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”[31] God has never asked us to believe him without giving ample evidence on which to base our trust[32]. Had God simply let nature take its course and allowed Satan and his followers to reap the natural results of their actions, they would have died. It would be clear to the onlooking universe that sin results in death. But how would they know for sure that their deaths were a natural result? How could they know for sure that God had not caused their death? He is God, after all. God had to interrupt the natural consequences of sin and preserve the life of his enemies. God’s intervention in their self-destruction made it appear to onlookers that Satan was right—that death was not the inevitable result of sin. If anything happened to Satan and his followers now, it would seem that God kills those who choose to “do their own thing.” How could God prove it was senseless suicide, not execution? If God had not prevented their death without making this 100% clear to the universe, the seeds of fear and rebellion would have remained after Satan’s demise. God had to find a way to forever secure the universe from the awful results of sin—he had to safeguard the universe from sin ever rising again. He must clarify the issues to the extent that everyone in the universe—saved and lost—would say, “Your ways are right and true, King of holy ones!”[33] He would shut the devil up—not by telling him “Be quiet!” but by taking way all his arguments. He had a plan. It was fail-safe. But it would take time; it would take thousands of years. And it would not be cheap; it would cost the death of God himself! How We Got Involved Faced with a state of emergency in his universe—a full scale war—God did something that may have surprised the onlooking universe. He proceeded to create a whole new planet and a whole new order of beings—ours. With all these unanswered questions about him, why did he go ahead and create us? Because this world was his answer. The Bible tells us that this earth and its inhabitants and events are a “spectacle to angels.”[34] This world is the stage on which God gave the answers to Satan’s accusations. Our planet became the focal-point of the universe for the next 6,000 years. In unhurried majesty, God created our world—days one, two, three, four, five, six. In beautiful perfection that shames its present loveliness, our planet sang the glory and wisdom of her Creator[35]. The unfallen worlds, the holy angels, and Satan and his horde watched with bated breath as creation week progressed. It was beautiful beyond compare; but when would God make people? What would this new creation be like? Finally, on day six, they saw God create a unique order—created “in his image and likeness.”[36] He created them male and female—Adam and Eve. How strange these new beings must have appeared—something new in creation: a man, and a woman! He gave humans the incredible ability to, in love, pro-create little people in their image and likeness! He made mankind as much like a god as is possible. There was no need for words. No selfish God would do this. Down went Satan’s accusations—felled not by words, not by claims or denials, but by silent actions, by evidence[37]. |
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| 30 Romans 3:4, Goodspeed 31 see John 10:25, John 14:11 32 God does not make mere claims; he asks us to trust him on the basis of evidence—I John 3:18. See also John 10:24, John 14:11 33 Revelation 15:3 34 I Corinthians 4:9. The Greek word translated "spectacle" is theatron, where we get our word "theater." 35 see Genesis 1 & 2 36 Genesis 1:26 37 Job 38:7 |
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