Surely God knew that when He created Satan it would lead to a complete mess and men would go to hell; so why do it?

Finish this sentence …

If someone doesn’t agree with my thinking, I think they’re ……………….

The blindness of pride

Every human is born with the arrogance of thinking that everyone else is stupid when they hurt our feelings. We might be polite and say something like ‘you don’t understand’, or ‘I feel fragile’; but what we really mean is ‘you hurt my feelings, I feel stupid, so you’re stupid.’ Our whole life is really built around protecting our feelings and promoting ourselves because we think we’re the most important, and we go about our life proving it and at the same time resenting those who are above us or below us. This is the selfish pride that God tries to address in every human being. It has to be exposed in order to find salvation, but most people try with all their might to deflect attention from their pride, and inadvertently miss the call. Instead they opt for goodness as their valid excuse for a ticket to heaven, conveniently forgetting that the Word says ‘not by works lest any man should boast.’

The danger of thinking everyone is stupid

Regarding your neighbour as stupid simply because they don’t agree with your opinionated opinion is grounds for being convicted to go to hell, Matthew 5:22. The finger points back at us but we’re blind to it; that’s how stupid we, ourselves, really are!

The conversion of Saul, Acts 9

Saul thought he was the man. He was highly educated, legally correct and in his opinion he was on the side of right, but he couldn’t see that he was actually totally wrong. He was spiritually blind. God intersected with him, made him physically blind to see if he would permit his arrogance to be broken, and then opened his eyes to not only see physically but primarily his own stupidity. Saul could’ve said ‘how dare you treat me this way’, but he didn’t. If he had of done that, God would have chosen somebody else for the task, and Saul would have died in his pride.

Why did God allow Saul to murder His people?

So the persecuted could share in His glory and so Saul could be saved and thus save more.

Why were the disciples blind even though they were walking with Christ?

The pride of the disciples blinded them from the Christ they walked with. They confirmed this when they argued over who was the most important, Luke 22:24. They couldn’t understand Jesus’ intentions because they were too proud and even though they had the power to do miracles, Luke 10:17, they weren’t saved until they gave up everything that gave them personal status, Matthew 7:21-23 & Philippians 3:7-10.

Why did God allow His disciples to be blind?

So that they could be saved and thus save more. What was the thing that saved the disciples? … the sifting of Satan, Luke 22:31. Their whole life changed and their purpose in life changed and their thinking and vision changed, but only after Satan misused them and this exposed their pride and they could see. Their life was no longer their own and thus they willingly suffered for the name of Christ; not for the reward and benefit, but rather, in gratitude for His love. Sadly, the majority are too proud to be stupid.

Envy repels; it only attracts evil to itself

After weeks of consultation with a fellow Christian I still hadn’t been able to discover why his family had suddenly become dysfunctional. That was until the man used the word ‘distant’ to describe his feelings about a friend. Now … the word ‘distant’ seems harmless enough but if you stop for a second and think about it, ‘distant’ really means the friend is leaving me out of things, and ultimately the man is saying that the friend likes someone more than me. And there we have it all over again; the envy of the human spirit when allowed to fester will always over-ride the new nature of God in you.

The trap of offence

What caused this old nature reaction and the side-effects to infect his family’s dynamics? The answer is, he got offended with a woman who was having a big paddy because his wife had exposed her evil to the church authorities. This woman had attacked his wife for pimping on her an had called her stupid, and he had automatically defended his wife against her. The problem was that his wife had also got offended at the unjust blame and the husband was inadvertently defending a demonic spirit operating through his wife. The evidence of this was that his wife was now telling her husband what he wasn’t doing right. She had usurped his authority.

What the husband should have done was support his wife but not defend her offence. In other words, he should have told his wife that she was right but that he would not support her case until she forgave the person for the offence.

The purpose of this trap is to snare you into the devil’s power and thus to disintegrate your family, and separate you from God.

The snare of the Devil

Judgment against a bitter moody woman who had hurt his wife’s feelings was fuelled by the wife telling her husband that he was responsible to defend her. This led to husband and wife disharmony, which then led to envy of a friend’s relationship with someone else, which led to the wife befriending their child instead of the husband, which led to the child being the authority in the house, and thus you have family dysfunction, reversal of headship and eventually satanic destruction unless it is addressed with repentance.

Judgments against people put you above them and results in you acting just like them, Matthew 7:1-5, and binds you in the snare of the devil, Matthew 18:34. Falling for the emotional trap to defend your wife or child will put you in the same snare. Instead, trust God in the offence and refuse to let your wife or child have their own reactive manipulative mood.

Why was this Christian’s family in a mess?

So that they could be saved by the exposure of their selfish pride and thus save others, but only if they wanted to see it. If you don’t want to see, you’ll blindly stay under the power of the devil and be absolutely convinced you aren’t, and just blame everybody else for your hassles.

The currency in the kingdom of heaven is blood and faith

The currency in heaven is not goodness. Our heart secretly does good things to avoid being corrected, to feel good about ourselves and to look good in the eyes of others. Man can’t do righteous good except by God in him because only God is good. If you want to enter heaven it’s only by repentance (= washed in His blood), and by His faith implanted in you. In order to meet these requirements a person must have their pride exposed to themselves, for it is only by the repentance of one’s pride that results in the washing of His blood and the implantation of His faith. There’s no other door.

It’s only after God is in you that you can do good, and it’s only this God good that verifies your faith, James 2, and this good is not by deeds but by repentance of pride.

So, why did God create Satan?

1. Because man is made in the image of God, and like God he has to choose between good and evil. If there is no evil then there is no evidence of a person’s genuine goodness and commitment. Evil exposes good and differentiates what good is.
2. Because evil is the thing that God has designed to actually save the remnant and at the same time destroy the wicked and self-righteous. You need evil to fuel faith to drive you to the Lord and trust His will and plan. Faith is inactive when you’re surrounded by comfort and no hassles. You need evil to waken you to yourself; therefore, God places around you, people who offend you and thus expose your own pride. You’re saved from evil (the Lord’s Prayer), not from good, so if God is to save you, evil must exist, and you must be personally exposed as evil if you’re ever going to be good.
3. To demonstrate the power of God, Romans 9:17
4. If you want to know Christ you will be sifted by Satan, like Peter (Luke 22:331-34), till you are humbled and all the struts you rely on for your self-reliance are dismantled. Pride closes your understanding (Luke 9:44,45), exposure of your pride opens your understanding.
5. You have to share His suffering to share His glory, Romans 8:17, Philippians 3:10. In the Eastern world, suffering is generally physical; in the Western world, suffering is generally emotional eg. misjudged, mocked, separated, criticised, made to feel stupid and inferior. Eventually suffering will be physical in both hemispheres, Revelation 13:7. All that live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution, 2 Timothy 3:12.

The solution

The solution to pride is found in Philippians 2:3 “don’t do anything for vain glory but esteem others better than yourself.”

That just simply means … always start by considering others’ opinion better than your own. This is the 2^nd Great Commandment, but, you won’t be able to do this until you’ve been exposed and like Saul you kneel to His will and see that you’re the one who is actually stupid.

I repeat; you won’t be able to do this until you see that you’re the one that’s blind and stupid.

Once you surrender, you’ll not need to be offended that someone disagrees with your opinion; your confidence will be in God, not your pride; and then the irony will be that you will humbly see that everyone is stupid who fails to see.

Pastor Rick Mathews