The World and the Word

                                        God's Plan

The Devil has no ability to create anything. Only God can create. Satan invents sinful and evil systems by misusing God's good ideas. Psalm 99:8; Proverbs 8:12; Ecclesiastes 7:29; Romans 1:30. The Devil has been quite clever and witty in that he has invented false systems that provide excessive pride, excessive pleasure and excitement, but they all result in addiction, suffering, and destruction. The Devil believes that his sinful inventions can eventually annul a part of God's creation which is the living nature of humans. The Devil thinks that he can prove that God's Love is not Almighty which will give him the opportunity to eventually murder God and take His place. Isaiah 14:12-17.

One of the great themes of the Bible (KJB) centers on God's constant ability to take control of false systems, eliminate all of the sin and evil in them, and recreate them to be wholly good systems. Judah's sin with Tamar that produced an ancestor of Jesus, and David's sin with Bathsheba that also produced an ancestor of Jesus are two good examples. The story of Joseph and his brothers is another good example. God's complete confidence in the Almighty Power of His Love constitutes the essence of predestination.

It matters not in the long run whether humans choose to sin or to do good. God is still in control. God can always reward, and God can always correct. God uses various means to eliminate sin and evil from false systems and recreate them to be good systems. God will punish believers to correct them. Hebrews 12:5-14. God also directly fights against evil. God has sometimes eliminated whole groups of evil people in order to shorten His work on the earth. Romans 9:28. God used the world wide flood, the fiery destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the warriors of the Israeli army to eliminate large groups of evil people from His world. If God had allowed huge amounts of evil to persist in His world, then the history of God's salvation of humanity would have taken much longer to accomplish. God decided to shorten the history of mankind in order to eliminate all of the additional suffering that a long history would have caused. But God's destruction of large groups of evil people does not mean that He has given up on saving His living image of Himself that He has put into every one of them.

Christ will visit them all confined to the regions of death, preach the gospel to them, and cause all of their living souls and spirits to repent and believe of their own free will. In the end of the world, Christ will cause all unbelievers on the earth, under the earth, and in the sea to repent and believe simply by the appearance of His tremendous Majesty and the Love He has for them. Revelation 5:11-14. Christ will then use His fiery wrath against evil to dissolve their systems, cleanse them of all sin and evil, resurrect them and recreate them to live on His recreated earth. I Corinthians 3:11-15; I Peter 3:18-21; Psalm 75:3; II Peter 3:9-13; Isaiah 45:20-25; Revelation 20:5; Revelation 21:1-5; Revelation 22:11-12.