Messianic Perspectives

Liz Aiello: We often hear prophetic teaching about God's plan for the end times, but did you know Satan also has a plan? Stay tuned as Dr. Gary Hedrick discusses Satan's plan for the end times right here on Messianic Perspectives.

Shalom and welcome to Messianic Perspectives, a daily program where we look into the scriptures from a distinctly first-century Jewish point of view. This is Liz Aiello. Today our Bible teacher is Dr. Gary Hedrick, president of CJF Ministries in San Antonio, Texas.

You can reach our offices by dialing 1-800-926-5397. Gary's subject today is Satan's plan for the end times. I'll be back a little later with information about a special offer, so have your pencil and paper ready. And now with today's installment, here is Gary Hedrick.

Dr. Gary Hedrick: All right, thank you. And welcome, Chaverim. Welcome, friends, to another edition of Messianic Perspectives. We're glad you're with us today as we continue this series of studies on Satan's plan for the end times. Now, here is what a lot of people don't understand.

How could Satan ever hope to defeat God? After all, he was a cherub, one of the highest order of heavenly beings. He must have tremendous intelligence, unimaginable intellect, one of the smartest and most knowledgeable beings in the entire universe. And yet he makes such a dumb mistake as to think that he can defeat God. Why is that?

And here is what I think is the answer. In any kind of contest, when you know you're facing a bigger and stronger and faster opponent, what do you do? Whether you're a four-star general facing superior firepower on the battlefield or a boxer in the ring facing an opponent who is bigger and faster and stronger, the principle is the same. What do you do?

The answer is you figure out a way to use your opponent's strength to your own advantage. You figure out how to turn his own power against him. Like that science fiction story when we were kids about the indestructible robot that was wreaking havoc on the city. Now, how do you destroy a gigantic robot that's bigger and stronger and deadlier than anything you have to use against him?

Well, they finally destroyed that giant robot by using a mirror to reflect his own death ray back at him. In other words, they used his own power to destroy him. It's like in the martial arts, especially in judo and jujitsu. The whole idea is to use your opponent's strength and speed and size against him. And that's the concept here.

If you're facing a superior enemy, you figure out how to turn his own strength against him. And if you can do that, you can beat him, even if he's bigger and stronger than you are. And that has been Satan's strategy all along: to turn God's own power, and even His very nature as God, against Him. In other words, his plan was to put God in a position where He would defeat Himself.

Now, how was Satan going to do that? Well, it's really pretty simple. Before you go into battle, the first thing you do is you study your opponent. If you're going to use his own power against him, you've got to know something about him. And when you study God, you find that His central attribute is what?

His justice and righteousness and holiness. In other words, He can't do anything wrong. Everything He does must be just, it must be right, it must be holy. Everything He does must be the right thing to do. He cannot lie. He cannot cheat. He cannot violate His own standard of righteousness.

So the devil had to figure out a way to use God's righteousness against Him. That was his strategy, to use the Lord's own power and His own nature against Him. He wanted to put the Lord in a position where His own righteousness and even His very nature, even His very character, would be turned against Him, like the death ray that was reflected back at that robot.

And guess what? In Genesis chapter 3, Satan had his chance. That's where he came to Eve to tempt her in the Garden of Eden. It says in verse one, "Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made." The New King James says, "Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made."

He was cunning. He was crafty. Then it says, "And he said unto the woman, 'Yea, hath God said, ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?'" You see, he started by doing two things. First, he appealed to her natural curiosity, and second, he twisted the words of God. Because God did not say they couldn't eat of any tree.

It was only one tree. But you see, what was happening here was that Satan was trying to get a foot in the door. He had sinned and been cast out of heaven at some point before this episode in the Garden of Eden. Now, we don't know where he was before this, and we don't know when he was kicked out of heaven.

Many dispensationalists believe there was a primordial earth between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2. They say the flood of Noah in the book of Genesis was actually the second time God had destroyed the world with water. Some theologians even point to the fact that our solar system shows signs of some sort of cosmic cataclysm in the ancient past, tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of years ago.

The asteroid belt, for example, out there between Jupiter and Mars could be a sign of some sort of cosmic catastrophe. Did you know they're saying now that the asteroid belt, all of those chunks of rock floating around out there in orbit between Jupiter and Mars, did you know they're saying now that these are the remains of a planet?

I was just reading the article in the encyclopedia the other day. You know, the evolutionists used to say the asteroid belt was material that was left over after the Big Bang, but it just never came together or coalesced to form a planet. The problem with this evolutionary theory that the asteroid belt is material left over from the Big Bang that never came together to form a planet, the problem with that theory is that now we have these high-resolution photographs from satellites and from the Galileo space probe and from other sources.

And we can see that these asteroids are pieces of something much larger that was literally blown apart. I mean, you can actually see the fractures, and they say it may have been a planet that somehow fell apart. And that's the asteroid belt today. Now, what exactly happened to that planet? The answer is we do not know.

And I'm sure there are probably all sorts of goofy theories out there about what destroyed that planet, but the simple truth is we don't know, and the Bible doesn't tell us. So we're not going to speculate as to exactly what happened that would cause an entire planet to be blown into smithereens, leaving nothing but chunks of rock orbiting around the sun between Mars and Jupiter.

I don't know what happened, and neither do you. All I'm suggesting is that this solar system shows signs of some sort of cosmic catastrophe, something that could have happened long before the Garden of Eden. Does it have something to do with that event described by our Lord in Luke 10:18, where He said He saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning?

We do not know. What we do know is that here in Genesis 3, Satan was trying to get a foot in the door. You see, he knew that if he could cause Adam and Eve to sin, if he could get them to disobey God, he knew they would have to be condemned. God would have to condemn them. This is how he would turn God's own character against Him.

This is how he would thwart the plan of God. But there was one thing Satan didn't count on, and that is God's grace. Now, isn't that interesting? Satan dwelt in the very presence of Almighty God for all of those eons of eternity past. Even before the world was created, he was there. And yet he didn't know the Lord as well as he thought he did because he had no concept of grace.

He had no idea that there was an alternative to the condemnation of the human race. He thought he could leverage God's character and turn it around and use it as a weapon to destroy God Himself. It just shows that Satan never really knew God. He was the anointed cherub that covered the throne of God. He was the guardian and protector of God's presence, of God's throne, but he never really knew the one whom he served, even though he was the very guardian of God.

You say, "Gary, who in the world would God have to be protected from? Who can threaten God?" Well, no one. It was a ceremonial post, the guardian of God. It's more a matter of decorum than it is a matter of defense. And so it was with Satan, the guardian and protector of God's presence. But isn't it interesting that even Lucifer, the anointed cherub who dwelt in the very presence of Almighty God, did not know the Lord as well as he thought he did?

He was counting on God's sense of justice and righteousness to result in the destruction of the human race and to frustrate the plan of God. What he didn't count on was God's grace and His love. He didn't have the foggiest notion, but when there was no one else who could die and pay for the sins of the human race, no one else in the universe qualified, Satan had no idea that God would do it Himself.

He would take upon Himself the form of a man and allow Himself to be killed, to be poured out, if you will, as a sin offering for mankind. That's what Satan didn't count on. And that's why his plan didn't work and why it won't work, because of God's amazing grace. And Satan's not the only one who didn't understand.

First Peter 1:12 says these are things even the angels desire to look into. Even the angels who didn't fall have difficulty comprehending the scope of God's amazing grace and His plan for the human race. Well, we're out of time. We'll continue on the next program. Until then, this is your friend Gary Hedrick, saying God bless you. Take care. Bye-bye.

Liz Aiello: Thank you, Gary. And thank you, listener friend, for tuning in today. Today we've been listening to our Bible teacher, Dr. Gary Hedrick, talking about Satan's plan for the end times. If you found today's program especially helpful and insightful, you'll be glad to know that we have placed the entire series of programs on compact disc.

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And as always, when you're in touch with us, please mention the call letters of this station. If you're listening to our webcast or podcast, we need to know that too. I'm Liz Aiello. Join us next time, won't you, as Dr. Gary Hedrick continues our series of studies on Satan's plan for the end times right here on Messianic Perspectives.

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