Chapter three post two

The next logical question then is “why can’t we communicate with them“? Isaiah 59:1, 2, and Hebrews 10:12 answer this very important thought. “Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, That it cannot save; Nor His ear heavy, That it cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; And your sins have hidden His face from you, So that He will not hear.” “But this Man, after He had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God,” (This “right hand of God” is another reference to the throne room, or Sanctuary.) We are isolated here because of sin. Jesus had to die to save us from sin, but only once and only here. He did not have to go to any other planet and die for anyone there. So there is therefore no other world in rebellion against the Lord. All the rest of creation is at peace with God.

This brings up a very important point. They were there. Romans 6:23 says, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord”. Since death is the penalty for sin, and there is no sin in the rest of the universe, these beings have lived through countless eons of time and have watched every moment of human history unfold. They haven’t just had the privilege of seeing things from our point of view; they have also watched God as He worked to save this world.

Think about the full realities of this point. For however many years these ‘people’ have lived, they never once have had to experience any pain or suffering at all. Before this world began, they never knew what it was like to be lied to, or stole from. Yet now they have seen every murder, every broken home, every wrong thing that’s ever happened in this world.

In Job chapters 1 and 2 Satan came as earth’s representative because he did in fact steal this planet from Adam and Eve as is told in Genesis 3:1-7. Just as Adam is called a son of God, Lucifer (Satan’s original name) is referred to as “son of the morning” in Isaiah 14:12. Therefore he was once the highest angel, next in line to the Lord Himself. This reference along with Ezekiel 28:12-17 and Revelation 12:3-9 are the three most notable descriptions in the Bible of the devil. Ezekiel 28:15 says “You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created, Till iniquity was found in you.” Lucifer at some point traded away the perfection God had originally given him and became Satan. Why did he do this? Isaiah 14:13 gives us the answer. “For you have said in your heart: ‘I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation On the farthest sides of the north”. This desire for pride and self-exaltation lead to war in Heaven. Lucifer became Satan when he desired a place higher than he already had. The only place left was that of the Lord Himself. According to Revelation 12:4, 9 Satan took a full one-third of the angels with him as they were cast down to this earth.

Yet here he is in Job chapters 1 and 2 still in Heaven! He still had some level of access to the rest of the universe and was not fully cast down at this point. There must have been some questions raised in the minds of those who live on the other planets when Lucifer started this rebellion. God had to take time to answer them, which is what world history is really all about. We can give a reasonable guess as to what those questions were simply by examining the kinds of questions people here ask today. “Does He really love us?” “Is He really fair?” “Why does His law say if you’re not in complete submission to Him, you must die?” “How can I be expected to live up to God’s law anyway?” “Is the Lord right in demanding our worship and adoration, or is He just on some sort of ego-trip?” One more very important question as well “If You are going to let the people of earth whom You save join the fellowship of these other planets Lord, how can we be sure they can be trusted?” This is of course not the question we ask, but it must be the question the rest of the universe is asking about us.

All these questions and whatever others there may have been are getting their answers in a living demonstration as world history plays out. In fact, when you study it out completely, the earth is one big giant experiment to test if there is any possible way to run the universe other than God’s. The Lord is really the one on trial. Not only did Adam and Eve fall, but in every generation their children have carried on the family business. Yet the Lord has been continually offering mercy and kindness, even to those who don’t care about Him. All of world history from the fall of our first parents (highlighted by the story of Cain and Abel) to the flood can be summed up in one sentence: God gave the rest of the universe a demonstration of just how bad things would get elsewhere if sin were allowed to run rampant. The rest of the Old Testament time period can also be described with one simple statement: The Lord gave man a chance to recover through obedience. The Ten Commandments are God’s Law. Violating them is what 1 John 3:4 says is sin. In Exodus 24:3 “all the people answered with one voice and said, ‘All the words which the Lord has said we will do.’” However they were trying in their own strength. Their history showed just how futile it is for any of us to try to make ourselves good enough for God.

The next phase of human history is in the life, death and resurrection of Christ. This is simply put as: God does for us what we cannot do for ourselves. From the New Testament we can see a progressive decline in the place Satan has in the universe. Cross reference Luke 10:18 with Revelation 12:12 and you will see that Satan has now lost his place and is confined to this world. “And He said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.” “Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time.” When you think about it, the devil spent at least 4000 years telling everyone who would listen that he was the real victim, yet Jesus, who is God the Son, came and proved every one of the devil’s charges to be false.

Philippians 2:5-8 “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.” Jesus “humbled Himself”, though He should not have had to, He did. His example shows the humility of God, that He keeps His own law and that He really does love us to go to such great lengths to save us. After putting his own Creator on the cross, Lucifer lost all credibility with the rest of the universe. The planet He stole was now bought back by Jesus.
When Jesus went back to Heaven, they were ready to receive Him. He returned in triumph to make everything ready for when He would come back to earth and rescue us. Jesus can now judge us fairly, because He knows what it’s like to live the way we do. Human history now entered its fourth phase as the results of Jesus achievement were to be shared across the entire world and also demonstrated in the lives of those who received Him as their Saviour. The angels and the beings on the other planets have watched the progress His followers have made over the last 20 centuries in fulfilling His calling.

They will also watch in triumph as God works through His people in this fifth phase of history, what the Bible calls “the last days” to bring this entire controversy to its rightful conclusion. This is the time period we live in today. It’s the one where people are running to and fro with an increase of knowledge which began a little over 150 years ago. It’s the one with man trying desperately to create a heaven on earth for himself and take back his place among the stars while the Lord is working at the same time to make people ready His way, with the full and complete truths of the Bible restored in their lives. As mentioned in the last chapter and one of the most important points of this whole book, the dark ages were a spiritual as well as an intellectual darkness. That which most people today think the Bible says is only what they were told the Bible says by the influence the dark ages had on western civilization. Jesus spoke in Matthew 7:21-23 of a great many people alive at His Second Coming that He will say He didn’t know even though they thought they were His people. Why is that? Because when given a chance to fully recover from the darkness they turned it down. More on this will be discussed in another chapter.

Though the discussion here has been of the entire world on the grandest possible scale, each and every human life is also a repeat of this same controversy. Psalm 91:11 says, “For He shall give His angels charge over you, To keep you in all your ways.” This “charge” does not mean “control”; it instead means “responsibility”. Just like in the old cartoons, when someone has to make a moral decision there was a good angel on one shoulder and a bad angel on the other, each whispering advice. God sends His angels to influence and protect us, while Satan is using his angels to lead us astray in any way possible. The interest the angels and the beings of the other planets have is just as much in your life and mine as it is in everyone else’s.