Robert McLaughlin Bible Ministries
The Angelic Conflict. Part 32. The most important phase of all in the angelic conflict.
Thursday, February 2, 2006
The terminology of our United States jurisprudence system or court system provides analogies for the appeal trial of Satan and this angelic conflict.
1. There is the formal presentation of the case: the prosecution presents its case, followed by the defense presenting its case.
2. The rebuttal phase: the rebuttal arguments of the prosecution [God] followed by the rebuttal arguments of the defense [Satan].
3. The closing argument and summary: first by the prosecution [God] and then by the defense [Satan].
The formal presentation of Satan’s appeal trial corresponds to Old Testament history. This phase begins with the fall of man in the garden and continues until the beginning of the dispensation of the Hypostatic Union.
Next is the rebuttal phase: the rebuttal arguments of the prosecution [God] followed by the rebuttal arguments of the defense [Satan].
The rebuttal phase of the prosecution is coterminous with the two Christocentric dispensations: the hypostatic union and the Church-age.
His justice is revealed by His fairness in dealing with the fall of mankind and by judging sin.
His righteousness is revealed by the fact that He was willing to forsake His own Son while judging sin.
His love is revealed by the fact that He offered salvation to anyone who would believe upon TLJC.
The third group of witnesses could either be Christian marriage, any Old Testament saint who became a winner, Tribulational winners, and Millennial winners.
The chief witness in all of human history is the humanity of Jesus Christ in hypostatic union.
Our Lord is the strategic witness.
Strategic = He came up with strategy to defeat Satan and executed that plan magnificently and defeated Satan.
The other witnesses are the invisible heroes, those believers who execute the PPOG in the Church-age.
Mature believers are classified as tactical witnesses.
Tactical = we do the same or something similar but in lesser form.
Tactical: relating to combat tactics involving actions or means of less magnitude than those of strategy.
Our Lord accomplished the strategic victory of the angelic conflict through His salvation ministry on the cross plus His physical death, burial, resurrection, and ascension.
The believer accomplishes the tactical victory of the angelic conflict through his advance to spiritual maturity in the PPOG; at this point he becomes an invisible hero.
The Church-age is the most important phase of all in the angelic conflict, outside of the dispensation of the hypostatic union.
ROM 9:15 For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.
Emphasized in your soul should be the fact that every believer is a part of the PPOG and every believer has equal privilege and equal opportunity to execute God’s plan.
A fantastic doctrine like this not only explains why we are really here, but it also should provide for you a personal sense of destiny.
In the rebuttal arguments of the prosecution, who is God, we have the witness of our Lord in the dispensation of the hypostatic union and the witness of every believer, pro or con, in the Church-age.
Evidence testing is Satan’s cross-examination of every witness presented by God in the historical trial of all fallen angels.
Evidence testing is Satan’s attempt, through his cross-examination of suffering, to discredit those believers who attain spiritual maturity.
a. The relationship to the plan of God test is illustrated by our Lord Jesus Christ, MAT 4:1-11.
b. The relationship to life test is illustrated by Job.
The formal presentation of the case: the prosecution presents its case, followed by the defense presenting its case, Old Testament history.
The rebuttal phase:
the rebuttal arguments of the prosecution [God] followed by the rebuttal arguments of the defense [Satan].
Satan as the defense attorney for the fallen angels presents his rebuttal argument for the defense in the Tribulation.
All of Satan’s rebuttal arguments come in the form of violence and anti-Semitism.
The third and final phase of the trial, the closing arguments and summary of the prosecution, includes the Second Advent and the Millennial rule of Christ.
1TH 3:13 so that He may establish your hearts unblamable in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all His saints.
The closing arguments and summary include the Millennial rule of Jesus Christ on earth.
This is a time of 1000 years of perfect environment on the earth.
1. Prehistoric perfect environment which occurred and existed prior to Satan’s fall and the angelic revolution.
2. When man was created to duplicate the same conditions, perfect environment was provided on the earth.
3. In the last 1000 years of human history, there will be perfect environment.
There will be world peace.
It will be a fantastic time of inner happiness and joy.
The kingdom will be characterized by glory.
It will be a kingdom manifested by holiness.
The King will personally minister to every need so that there will be the fullness of “comfort.”
There will be the administration of perfect justice.
There will be the most fantastic teaching ministry of God the H.S.
There will be direct instruction from TLJC as the King of kings and Lord of lords.
The original curse placed upon creation in GEN 2:17-19 will be removed!
There will be abundant productivity to the earth; even the animal creation will be changed.
Sickness will be removed.
The ministry of the King as the healer will be seen throughout the Millennium so sickness and even death will be removed, the exception being “death” in dealing with criminal sin or capital punishment.
All of the deformed are healed as well; if they were deformed at the time of the Second Advent they will experience a total healing.
There will be no social, political, or religious oppression.
There will not be the tragedies of mental illness or of infant deaths.
The earth’s population will soar and there will be sex.
Children will be born to the believers who began the Millennium; they will have a sin nature and therefore need salvation.
There will exist a perfect economic system in which the needs of men are abundantly provided for.
There will be an increase of solar and lunar light.
The increased light probably is a major cause of the increased productivity of the earth.
There will be a unified language.
The language barriers will be removed so that there can be free social intercourse.
All the world will unite in the worship of God and God’s presence will be experienced as never before.
There will be perfect weather.
Even though perfect conditions exist, at the end of the Millennium, there is a final revolution.
From these three areas of perfect environment, we learn that rational creatures, including angelic and humans, are no better off in perfect environment than in any other environment.