Copyright © 2006 by The Voice of Prophecy

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The Mother of all Wars

Maybe everyone remembers the story? It was a baseball playoff game, 2004. Zealous Cubs’ fan, Steve Bartman, reached out and deflected a foul ball that Cubs’ player Moises Alou might have been able to catch. As a result the Cubs went on to lose the game--and the playoffs! Fans went ballistics on the hapless Mr. Bartman. At one point, there were six police cars parked outside his house. After apologizing profusely, Bartman begged the folks in Chicago to please “redirect the negative energy that has been vented towards my family, my friends, and myself” somewhere else!

While I don’t mean to demean the importance of professional sports in people’s lives, all this controversy, strife, and negative energy, even threats of violence, over a baseball game seems a bit over the top, does it not? Especially when there are so much larger controversies that should be the focus of our attention, controversies with consequences much deeper and broader and more important than could ever arise out of a ball game!

For the past few days we have been looking at one such controversy, the great controversy, in a sense the greatest controversy of them all because it’s the one that’s at the foundation of all the strife, all the suffering, all the turmoil and confusion we face in our world. It’s the great controversy between Christ and Satan and, to modify a phrase from our common vernacular--it’s the “The Mother of all Wars.”

We saw that God created intelligent creatures with free will, but that this free will had been abused by Lucifer, a powerful angel. And by our first parents as well. Again, however you want to view the story of the fall in Eden, whether as literal or not, one point jumps out—Adam and Eve were not only given free choice they were given the capacity, the freedom, to act on that choice. Love demands that freedom. It couldn’t be love without it.

And we got a glimpse too of how this great controversy works behind the scenes. In the book of Job, the curtain was pulled back and we were shown more of the battle between Christ and Satan, and that at the heart of everything, God’s character, His mercy, His love had come under attack. And we, as human beings, we have been swept up into this conflict as well. “Woe to the inhabiters of the earth and of the sea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time” (Revelation 12:12, KJV).

And yesterday we looked at the climactic battle in this great controversy: the death of Jesus on the cross. Jesus’ death, yes, His death, was really the greatest victory that has ever been won, because by sacrificing Himself for us, by giving up His life for us, Jesus refuted the charges Satan made against His character. I mean, come on! The Creator God, the one who made all things, took upon Himself human flesh, lived among us for 33 years, and then allowed Himself to be crucified, where He in His own body took the punishment for the sins of all the world? Please! I don’t know the exact details of all the charges Satan hurled at God, but after the cross, after God would pour Himself out, and give Himself up to be the sacrificial lamb for the sins of others, it seems pretty clear that Satan charges were powerfully answered.

No wonder, in reference to His coming death, Jesus would say, “Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out” (John 12:31, NKJV).

Yes, after the cross, Satan’s real character was revealed once and for all, in contrast to the character of God, a character of the most incredible self-denying love and self-sacrifice.

And yet, friend, whatever happened at the cross, whatever victory Jesus won for us by His death, it should be clear that the great controversy isn’t over. Sure, the decisive battle has been won, Yes, that’s true! Satan’s demise is certain. Yes, that’s true! And the victory of God is assured. Yes, that’s true too!.

But we are still here, and we are still amidst this great battle, aren’t we?

Of course. We can sense it. We can feel ourselves part of a struggle, a battle of forces we don’t always understand. The German poet Goethe once wrote: “Two souls, alas, are lodged within my breast, and struggle there for undivided reign.” Have you not felt that similar struggle within, as well?

A young man was once having a Bible study, learning about Jesus, and at one point he looked at the teacher and cried out, “I feel like I am in the middle of this great conflict!”

He felt it exactly right. Paul, though, helps us the nature of this conflict better with these words: “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Ephesians 6:12, KJV). Yes, though certainly there are physical wars, physical battles, which take their toll, the real battle we all face is spiritual, a battle of the heart and mind with consequences that are eternal.

Alexander the Great was standing over a harbor where a massive battle was taking place below him, with hundreds of ship, thousands of fighters. All of a sudden-- he wept. Someone asked him why, and he said that in a hundred years all this would be gone, forgotten. Winners, losers, all would be dead, gone, forgotten.

Yes, in worldly battles the consequences, however great they might be for the moment, in the long run often seen negligible; the people are dead, gone, forgotten.

Not in this battle, however; for in this battle, this great controversy, the results have, literally, eternal consequences, eternal life or eternal destruction. That’s what’s at stake here, friend.

You see, when Adam fell, our planet became, in a sense, “enemy occupied territory.” Satan, now “the prince of this world” claimed it as his own. Adam was the father of our race, and it was through him, and his fall, that sin, suffering, and death came into our world because Satan got a foothold here. “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned” (Romans 5:12, NKJV).

But the good news is that where Adam fell, Jesus succeeded. Jesus came to undo what Adam had done. Though Adam brought death, Jesus brought life.

“For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive” (1 Co 15:22, NKJV).

The first Adam fell into sin; the second Adam, Jesus, didn’t. He never sinned. And the good news of the gospel is that we can have the perfect life of Jesus credited to us. And when we accept Jesus, we stand before God under Him, and so death, Satan’s calling card, will be forever removed when Jesus comes back.

Again, listen to the good news. When we accept Jesus, God sees us as if we had never sinned, and we are snatched out of the clutches of Satan, that roaring lion seeking whom he may devour and lead to eternal death.

Scripture says: “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death-- that is, the devil” (Hebrews 2:14, NIV).

Here’s where the battle comes right home to. When we accept Jesus, we place ourselves on the winning side, the side that has defeated Satan in the great controversy. This is the victory that Jesus won for us--the promise of eternal life, something that Satan had taken from us in the beginning.

Satan is a defeated foe. He knows that his “time is short” (Revelation 12:12), and he wants to take as many of us down to defeat with him as possible. And yet he doesn’t have to get a single one of us because Jesus won the victory for us all!

Thus, if we get right down-and-dirty, here’s the essence of the great controversy, the battle between good and evil, right and wrong, light and darkness, and Christ and Satan. It’s, literally, a life and death struggle--for in the end the consequences lead to either eternal life or eternal death. That’s the issue at stake in this battle, something a bit more consequential than who wins the next baseball game, don’t you think?

Yes, we are in a battle, the great controversy it’s called. It’s real, and it’s raging all around us--and in us. However complicated, blurry, fuzzy it might sometimes appear, however difficult it might sometimes seem to draw clear distinctions, in the end, it’s one side or the other, Christ or Satan, life or death. This is the battle at it’s core, and it’s been going on for thousands of years.

Centuries ago the Lord called to His people immersed in the exact battle you are immersed in, no matter how different the circumstances. He said: “I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live” (Deuteronomy 30:19, KJV).

Friends, I believe that same God is calling our to each of us the same thing, Choose life! Choose the life that has been won for you through Jesus, who gave Himself for you, who at the cross won this world back from Satan in the great controversy. You can’t defeat this foe on your own. Please! You’d have an easier time shooting down a Stealth Bomber with a sling shot than you could defeat Satan on your own. You don’t have, you don’t even have to try.

Jesus won the great controversy for you. The victory He won He won for you. In that sense the war has been long over. The controversy now boils down to you, and to the choice you make, either for life or for death. It’s that fundamental, and it doesn’t get more fundamental than that, either.

We all sense this battle, even if we’re not sure what’s really going on. I believe that the Word of God has shown us what’s going on. It’s the mother of all wars, and it’s raging around your own soul. Yet the good news is that the Bible shows us which side has won, already. Why not place yourself, right now, on the side that’s guaranteed victory, the side that has won the victory, the side of Jesus Christ?