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Amazing Facts

Joe Crews

The Great Controversy

The most desperate conflict since time began is now taking place in the world.

It's raging around you and you cannot be neutral.

I'll be back in a moment with the amazing facts about your part in this battle.

Hello, this is Joe Cruz of the Amazing Facts broadcast, facts which affect you.

You know, never has the world presented such a perplexed, bewildered, and sad picture as it does today.

The most Optimistic commentators have turned some of their broadcast into a whale of lamentation at what they see and forecast.

No 1 can be totally blind to the mess in which the world finds itself and to the reasons for such conditions.

Now somebody might ask, why must it be like this?

Let me answer that by asking you a question.

Do you believe in the law of cause and effect?

If you do, you must know these 2 simple facts.

Number 1, if there is a problem there must be a cause, and number 2, if there is a cause the effect must follow.

We cannot sow wild oats and garner in golden wheat.

We can't drink the beverages of drunkenness and remain sober.

As surely as there is a God in Heaven, the cause produces the effect.

We can't sow wild oats all week long and then pray for a crop failure on the weekend.

A visitor walking through the workshop of a state prison passed an inmate who was sowing canvas mail bags for the government.

Their eyes met for a brief moment, and the visitor, wishing to be friendly, simply asked, Sewing?

And you know, it works that way, friends, every time.

For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.

We do make some of our own problems and troubles.

But even in these, Satan, the enemy of God, is the instigator.

He's the originator of all evil, in fact.

What we need to keep in mind, of course, is that Satan has no power to force us to do wrong.

Now, our questions may be, why did God allow sin in the beginning, and why didn't He destroy the devil as soon as he sinned.

Wouldn't this have prevented the situation into which our world has been plunged?

First, we're all aware, of course, that there are just 2 rulers in the world, God who made all things and Satan, a fallen angel who rebelled against God in heaven in the ages past.

Now later, Satan came to this earth to usurp the dominion and rulership of this world.

And since that day, he seems to have had it much his own way in our world.

The Bible has termed him the adversary, the prince of this world, the prince of darkness, the prince of the power of the air, and 2 score other names, of course, indicating the diabolical character of this ruler in his work.

He's the sworn and avowed enemy of Jesus and his followers, and will stoop to any depth to try to overcome them.

Now how did this conflict between 2 heavenly beings find its way down to this earth?

The story is told, of course, in Revelation 12, 7 to 9.

And there was war in heaven, Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon fought and his angels and prevailed not.

Neither was their place found anymore in heaven.

And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent called the devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world, He was cast out into the earth and his angels were cast out with him.

So the war which began in heaven between God and the devil found its way down to the earth.

Of course he wasn't the devil then, he was called Lucifer, a beautiful angel.

So Lucifer and his angels were cast out of heaven and they came to this earth and entrenched themselves here.

Now Satan overcame Adam and Eve and led them into sin and disobedience, but man was still the work of God's hands, and when Adam was led into sin, it was God's love for him that made Jesus come down here to redeem those sinners.

And this made it possible for man to return to God.

God in the person of Jesus Christ flung Himself into the battle on this earth, on the side of man.

These 2 leaders came to grips in person during the ministry of Jesus in this world.

They met in the wilderness where Satan faced Jesus and sought by his guile and intrigue to overcome him.

Although Satan withdrew in defeat after that conflict, He returned again and again and made other attempts.

He had lost a battle, but the war was still on.

Satan thought his masterstroke would be to nail Jesus Christ to the cross as a vile and wicked criminal.

So 3 and a half years after the wilderness battle, he struck so hard a blow that Jesus indeed laid dead in a tomb.

Now he had surely triumphed, or so he must have felt.

Just before Jesus was crucified, an angel spoke to him, saying, Now is the judgment of this world, now shall the prince of this world be cast out.

When Christ was born, Satan set to work to destroy him, and when God's own chosen people led Christ out to be crucified, it looked as though Satan had succeeded.

They could lay him in the tomb, my friends, but no power in earth or hell could hold him there, for he had never sinned.

He arose from the grave a conqueror, and thus the devil was defeated and dethroned.

From that day on, Satan was confined to this earth, and here he is now, reserved in chains of darkness until the great day of final judgment.

On the resurrection morning, when Jesus came forth, leading with him, of course, a multitude of captives, a loud voice was heard in heaven, saying, Now is come salvation and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ.

For the accuser of the brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night." Revelation 12, 10.

And then in verse 12 we read, Therefore rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them.

Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and of the sea, for the devil is come down to you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.

Now friends, a devil can no longer roam through the universe to tempt and molest its inhabitants.

The cross of Christ and His resurrection settle that.

Now the devil knows that he's fighting a losing war.

In this old earth of which he's confined, he's doing his utmost to destroy the Church of God.

He does it, of course, by guile and cunning, by force and persecution, by war and every other conceivable method.

When Jesus escaped Satan's master plot by ascending back to heaven after the Resurrection, Satan then turned his anger on the followers of Christ.

The warfare will get hotter and more intense and bitter as we get closer to the end.

The final issue in this giant struggle of many millenniums will be the keeping of the commandments of God.

For in chapter 12 of Revelation, verse 17, we read this, And the dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant of her seed, which keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus Christ.

Now when the warfare ends, there will be only 2 sides among men, those on God's side, who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus, and those on Satan's side, who ignore and reject them.

The test of obedience to God's commandments was the issue Satan faced when in heaven itself when he turned into the devil, and it will be the great testing issue for every human being as we near the end of time.

Professing to be a follower of Jesus Christ will be of no value if it doesn't make 1 obedient to the commandments of God.

Even though some preachers may declare it's not necessary to keep the commandments, that they are a yoke of bondage to be avoided, the good book of God says to the law and to the testimony, if they speak not according to this word, it is because there's no light in them.

The Apostle Paul declares in 2 Corinthians 11, 13 and 14, for such are false apostles, deceitful workers transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ.

And no marvel, for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.

So you see, friends, few realize that Satan will perform miracles and work dazzling wonders to lead the world astray.

There is only 1 sure way of discerning those on God's side in this great warfare.

It will not be in loud profession or boasted sanctity.

Jesus warned that men would draw near to Him with their lips while their hearts would be far away.

The 1 way by which we may recognize God's true servants is by their fruits.

If they live not according to the law and to the testimony, which is the Bible, is because there is no light in them.

I'm not talking about the 30, 000 or so precepts that governed the Jewish economy and the sacrificial system.

Sometimes people get confused over the ceremonial laws and throw aside the great moral 10 Commandments law in the process.

1 of them is permanent and unchanging, the other is temporary.

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The Great Controversy

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