Copyright 2004 by Roddy Kenneth Street, Jr., Used By Permission.
Taken from his book Earth-Trekker's Voyage: Exploring The Solar System.

3. A Godlike Overview Of EVIL FLOURISHING

From Your God's omniscient viewpoint, it is clear that THERE IS A VALID JUSTIFICATION EVEN FOR HIS PERMITTING THE ASSAULTS OF SATAN UPON THE FOLLOWERS OF GOD. . . AND THE STRANGE PROSPERITY OF THE WICKED IN THE PRESENT TIME.

1. YOUR GOD'S FOLLOWERS OFTEN SUFFER GREAT INJURIES, MUCH ABUSE, AND EVEN MARTYRDOM AT THE HANDS OF THE SATANIC, BUT EVEN THIS ABUSE OF MY OWN FOLLOWERS IS UTILIZED BENEFICIALLY WITHIN GOD'S DESIGN, AND IS TOLERATED BY YOUR GOD FOR THE SAKE OF HIS GRAND DESIGN.

1) Distress of this sort is also USED BY YOUR GOD TO BENEFIT HIS LENGTHY DEVELOPMENTAL PROGRAM FOR EARTH. Such distress helps TO BRING ABOUT A GOD-DESIGNED TRANSFORMATION OF PEOPLE AND OF THE EARTH. Your God not only created human beings with free-will and the freedom to choose sin (including the evil works of destruction and disorder that result), but also angelic beings with a similar freedom to cause trouble and distress. Yet Your God also created a Master Plan by which TO PRESERVE HUMANKIND IN SPITE OF ITS SINFULNESS!

2) Your God channels this kind of suffering to a better end. By re-directing and manipulating the unhappy consequences of sin, Your God is able to mold humans into spiritually mature beings. Your God also observes all the critical choices which you make in response to distressing circumstances or a hostile environment on Earth... and He uses your freedom of choice to facilitate His Great Plan of DIVINE SELECTION, so that ONLY THOSE WHO CAN BE TRUSTED WITH FREEDOM will ever enter the utopia of THE NEW EARTH which Your God plans for humanity!

3) This PRESENT EARTH is not merely A BATTLEGROUND FOR THE FORCES OF GOOD AND THE ARMIES OF EVIL, it is also A TESTING-GROUND WHICH YOUR GOD USES TO DETERMINE WHO THE TRUE SURVIVORS WILL BE! ONLY A LIMITED NUMBER OF PERSONS, A REMNANT OF THE POPULATION OF THIS PRESENT EARTH, will truly survive the conflict of the SPIRITUAL WARFARE that is now devastating the surface of this current Earth. The others will be doomed to "the second death" ... an eternity of nightmarish separation from God in a Penalty Zone called Hell.

2. Your God's Design is NOT UNREASONABLE or irrational BECAUSE IT ALLOWS EVIL persons TO PROSPER. Your God has a valid and reasonable purpose for blessing the wicked.

1) Whenever Your God allows wicked persons to prosper or receive many comforts and blessings, He has a very good rationale for what He is permitting. Although this may sometimes seem to be a travesty, Your God is merely following a standard pattern that is necessitated by His own virtuous nature.

2) Your God's patience and mercy require that He first bless (for a certain period of time) those who have gone astray on the path of destruction.

3) Your God does this in order that such evil persons might one day acknowledge Him as the source of their blessings, then repent of their wickedness and be delivered from it. God's own virtuous character requires that He always try to reach lost people first through His mercy and grace, and only later through His justice and His rebukes.

4) If the wicked persist in their evil and refuse to acknowledge God as the source of all their blessings, then Your God will eventually remove the blessing and let that person be assailed by catastrophes and distress. Your God's understanding of justice, and His own virtuous character, requires that He do this, and yet God hopes that the calamities and distress will prepare the wicked person to receive the message of those who have chosen to follow Him.

5) Satan may then seek to perpetuate that wicked person's material prosperity for additional years, or even throughout an entire lifetime (as in the case of many dictators and crime bosses). Jesus said that Satan is the Prince of your world and the god of your world. Having such influence, Satan has much control over the wealth and kingdoms there in your world, so it is often within his power to perpetuate the wealth and luxury of the wicked.

By doing this, Satan makes it much more difficult for that wicked person to ever be enticed back to God, and the person's doom becomes more certain.

6) If the wicked person persists in evil and will never repent until the very moment of physical death, then that wicked person will receive what was chosen during life on Earth. If the wicked person dies unrepentant in the midst of wealth and luxury, then that person who chose to receive unrighteous wealth while living on Earth will next receive eternal poverty and suffering in Hell. And if the wicked person dies unrepentant and unforgiven in the midst of poverty and calamities experienced during life on Earth, then there will be much more suffering of the same awful sort coming to him in Hell.

3. In a similar way, Your God's patience and mercy required that He ALLOCATE TO LUCIFER (the angel who became SATAN) a certain amount of time in which to exercise, and MISUSE, his own God-given freedom.

1) Satan uses most of his allotted time to victimize human beings with wearisome and repetitious testing via a vast array of temptations, injuries, troubles, deceptions, and general harassment which he places before you. (He thinks that human beings were put on the Earth just for him to kick around! And so he delights in causing you torment!)

2) Satan, consumed by pridefulness and sin, wishes to play God over the people of Earth, and so he has sought to create a counterfeit kingdom of his own there on Earth. Satan is currently the "Ruler of this World," and he looks forward to a day when (he hopes) he will rule it totally, in every detail, with the absolute allegiance of his servants. Lying ceaselessly, Satan continues as always to carry forward his rebellious ambitions and his deceptions... all the while telling God that his ONLY purpose is to provide many temptations and tests that will ASSIST God in making the necessary determinations concerning God's own program of DIVINE SELECTION.

3) The great span of time which Your God (in His patience and mercy) has graciously allotted to Satan has, admittedly, allowed the evil Satan to become a powerful usurper who seeks to rule over the Earth as a god to its people. Lucifer has sought to steal God's authority over the people of the Earth, and he has in part succeeded at that. God tolerates this situation because He knows the ultimate goal and result of His great Program of DIVINE SELECTION... because He is able to see the End from the Beginning.

4) Although Satan produces countless evil works, Your God nevertheless manages to re-direct Satan's universal activities toward an ultimate conclusion that is a good end for your universe. Much of what Satan intends to accomplish for evil, God is able to turn into a good final result for your lives. Your God is often able to turn the awful works of Satan around, and to use them for your ultimate good, so that you human beings may be preserved in spite of your sinfulness.

4. When you HUMANS ARE ABLE TO PASS SAFELY through all the severe tests and temptations of your Earth with success and faithfulness, Your God FULLY KNOWS that it is a MAJOR ACCOMPLISHMENT deserving much PRAISE AND RECOGNITION... and EACH HUMAN VICTORY is seen as EXACTLY THAT by the watchful eyes of God and His angels.

1) Satan is the most powerful of all created beings, excluding Jesus Christ who had a pre-existence as God The Son. Because of Satan's great powers and the hostile environment in which you must live out your lives... because the earthly circumstances in which Satan's temptations come to you are so severe... there is absolutely no possibility that you will ever face any harsher testing than that which you must undergo during your brief physical life on this present Earth.

2) Everyone has to be subjected to the most severe testing while on your Earth. Yet you should all see a great glory in the fact that Your God helps you to still emerge triumphant from this life, even if you have endured the harshest testing that could conceivably have been put upon you.

3) Your God will thus set aside major rewards for the faithful overcomers in His Heaven and on the NEW EARTH which is forthcoming. (In this way, Your God once again makes good use of the temptations and distressing circumstances which are produced by Satan for those living on your Earth.)

5. When humans are able to successfully pass through all the severe testing of life on Earth, Your God opens up for them a DOOR to His Perfect Heaven and (later on) a similar passageway to His NEW EARTH. And this doorway leads to a new beginning and a new life in GOD'S NEW WORLD -- where death, suffering, and evil have been SUBTRACTED (completely deleted) WITHOUT TAKING AWAY A human being's free-will or a human ability to freely love the Creator.

6. THE TESTING IS NOT TOO DIFFICULT FOR YOU, NOR IS IT IMPOSSIBLE TO PASS THROUGH ALL THESE TRIALS SAFELY!

1) The testing is NOT TOO DIFFICULT FOR YOU, because Your God Himself has promised that He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able to bear!

2) Jesus said that Your God has sent you His Holy Spirit to be always on Earth, to be a Comforter who stays with you during all your trials!

3) Your God's help and His comfort are promised to be always available to those who depend on Him, and to all those who choose to turn to Him!

4) You CAN BEAT THE TEST, AND PASS GOD'S EXAM!

7. There is ONLY ONE DOOR THAT GOD HAS CREATED through which humans may enter GOD'S NEW EARTH and leave behind the sufferings and evils of your present Earth.

1) There is ONLY ONE WAY and ONLY ONE LIGHT by which a human being may navigate through the treacherous courses of your world, escape the many traps of Satan, and yet emerge faithful and successful after all the seemingly endless barrage of testing that must be endured.

2) It can be done only by declaring and maintaining a belief in the sacrificial work of Jesus Christ on a wooden cross, a work by which He has rescued you from guilt and from the due punishment of your sins.

3) By maintaining with perseverance a faithful determination to trust in the Lordship of God, and by trusting in that forgiveness and mercy which He will show to you because of His Son Jesus... you can be salvaged from your world of evil and sorrows! You can be delivered from Satan's territory, and you can ultimately escape from this present world of countless evils and tiresome suffering!

4) It may sometimes seem that the race you run forces you to pass through a gauntlet of violent, hostile assailants (or even devils) who assault you from both sides as you run between them... but if you can just persevere to the end you will be saved! At the end, there will be a DOOR opening in front of you TO TAKE YOU INTO A NEW AND BETTER WORLD, and the name of THAT DOOR IS JESUS CHRIST!

5) This means YOU can emerge from your world's battlefield as a true survivor... despite all the trials and temptations which you may be forced to undergo during your stay on your Earth!

Copyright 2004 by Roddy Kenneth Street, Jr., Used By Permission.
Taken from his book Earth-Trekker's Voyage: Exploring The Solar System.

The above material is one section of a book by Kenneth Street entitled

Earth-Trekker's Voyage: Exploring The Solar System

and is Copyright protected by him, with all rights reserved by the author.