CHAPTER 22
SATAN'S PLAN DURING THE POST-CROSS AGES OF TIME
Why do we discuss Satan's plan so much? Because this book is about time, and God has given Satan a certain amount of time to make his arguments, and he is running out of it. So much of what is playing out during human history is related to how Satan opposes God as part of his efforts to stay out of the Lake of Fire. Whether we like it or not, human history and Satan's appeal trial are interwoven.
Since the Messiah Jesus Christ has solved the sin problem by accomplishing the work of salvation, and history is now well into the Church Age, Satan’s options have become greatly limited. Satan is now focused on preventing unbelievers from accepting salvation, interfering with the spiritual lives of believers, and generally trying to prevent God from fulfilling Bible prophecies. He also attempts to copy what God has promised, such as trying to implement a pseudo perfect environment on earth before God can provide it in the Millennium. And Satan figures that if God ever fails to fulfill one single Bible prophecy then He would have lied, and would be no better than Satan. So Satan is highly focused on preventing God from fulfilling the remaining prophesies of the Old Testament, mainly related to the Jews, but also about how the future will play out in the Tribulation and the Millennium. Satan’s current plan is therefore very focused on eliminating the Jews since they figure prominently in many Bible prophecies which are yet to be fulfilled. If there were no Jews, some of the prophecies could not be fulfilled. So this is a recurring theme in Satan's plan.
Satan attempts to distract humans, so he tries to get them to focus on anything which is opposed to God and His plan. He distracts unbelievers from accepting salvation by grace through faith in Christ by promoting a system of attempting to work one's way into heaven. He distracts by trying to refocus efforts toward humanistic self-improvement rather than following God's Word. Some of the distractions line up with Satan's other efforts, including his goal to create a perfect environment on earth before God can do so in the Millennium. Satan is a complete copy-cat. He wants to rule earth under a pseudo-millennium based on radical environmentalism where everyone does what Satan wants and everyone is under his control. As such he tries to get humanity working to implement a pseudo perfect environment rather than rely on God and His plan. Satan wants the world he rules to be highly controlled, something most people would not expect from Satan. But Satan is crafty if nothing else, and his plan includes distracting both unbelievers and believers from God’s plan by refocusing their efforts.
Satan wants people to be zealous in working toward his goals. In this zealous approach to life the guiding principles focus on a misplaced attempt at betterment of the world rather than following the plan of God. Those involved end up replacing worship of God with worship of something secular. It can be the earth itself, human progress, or a number of other secular causes. The most widespread "religion" in the world today is one which has no deity, but has all the elements of a religious system due to the zealous nature of its adherents. To the followers there is no God or gods, only human progress in a direction they deem important. They support Satan as ruler of the world and his attempts to provide for man’s needs apart from God, even though Satan despises people and considers them expendable at any time they become inconvenient to him. Humanism, ultra-liberalism, and radical environmentalism have become a "religion" to its adherents. Without God, this secular religion is one of worshiping the earth as sacrosanct. Those who would harm their object of worship are heretics who must be destroyed. Inside this secular religion sponsored by Satan the adherents preach love but their focus is hate for those who are not one of them. They preach a love of freedom but really engage in lack of responsibility for one’s own actions, and also seek to take away the freedoms of those who oppose them. They preach tolerance yet are intolerant to the extreme. They preach helping the downtrodden yet seek to destroy those who are not downtrodden. The reality behind this religion is that they try to ignore God but cannot. They fall prey to Satan and become his slaves, meaning Satan is their god. Satan is the father of lies, and a cheater and since this is the one they follow they become like him, and will end up with him in eternity. It is no surprise the secular zealots are liars themselves. Look at what they say about those who disagree with them, and how they cheat to gain any advantage. They are clearly representing Satan’s approach, and become like their evil mentor and sponsor Satan; liars, haters, inwardly focused, and godless.
Satan has been very effective in his attempts to focus mankind on working toward humanistic solutions which distract them away from God. The reason it works so well is that it replaces seeking God with a search for meaning in life apart from God. They reject God, so they need a reason to believe their life has some meaning. Although it is empty and fruitless, the person believes they are making a difference. But it is an endless search which simply distracts from the real reason each person is on earth, which is to make decisions in favor of God. Having been distracted from that purpose, they live a meaningless life while lost in a zealous and never-ending search for meaning.
Satan also knows a future Tribulation will occur. Remember, he believes the Bible; he just wants to re-write the ending. The Tribulation will be a time of untold suffering and misery on the earth. At that time Satan will continue to try to eliminate the Jews, but will also try to destroy the world and all mankind. Satan repeats his plans since he does not have many good options, so he will try to prevent future prophecy fulfillment by either eliminating the Jews or destroying the earth. This will make the Tribulation very destructive. But God will protect His own believers, and the Jews will survive and turn to Him as believers in Christ in greater numbers.
The salvation work of Jesus Christ on the cross has sealed the fate of Satan and all fallen angels. Satan had tried desperately to prevent the cross and force God to be shown a liar since God had promised man salvation through a Messiah. Winning on this single issue would have proven Satan’s claim that he should not be put into the Lake of Fire. But since the cross has occurred, salvation has been provided to mankind thus proving the fairness of God, and Satan has lost the overall argument. The rest of history is a mere formality. However, Satan never gives up, so the conflict will continue to play out until the end of the Millennial Kingdom of Christ, when human history comes to an end and all creatures enter their final eternity.
When the end nears for Satan during the Tribulation he will degenerate into what he really is, a liar, hater, and murderer. His only remaining plan will be destruction and chaos. Satan will be shown to be a complete fraud, wanting to create a perfect environment on earth and at the same time trying to destroy all people and the earth. Proving for the millionth time that Satan is the father of lies. When the end nears, Satan gets really ugly. He will try to kill Jews, as he has for thousands of years, but he will lose control of his own angels who will kill Satan’s own followers by the millions. Satan will lash out in fury and revenge and be shown to be the evil fool he is. But in the process billions of people will die because of his actions.
Satan’s legacy will be one of having fallen from grace, having rejected the best things God ever offered a creature, having lied and cheated his way through his existence, and having murdered billions of people. He will have deceived most of the humans who ever lived into either ignoring or outright rejecting God’s grace plan in favor of his evil, miserable, and hopeless plan. His appeal to God that he should not be put into the Lake of Fire for all eternity will have failed miserably, so he will still end up in the Lake of Fire, not ruling, but just another tortured soul in a lowly body equal to all the humans he deceived. Forever.