A Seventh-day Adventist Philosophy for Witnessing, pt. 3: Sharing the Great Controversy From Scripture (Old Testament)

Here we are again for part three in the seminar. In some respects some of these earlier presentations are going to be more cerebral and the latter ones more practical. EVen so, today we are going to make some very practical suggestions. Here is how we'll proceed. First we'll look together at some fascinating quotations from Ellen G. White concerning the great controversy. From this set of statements we are going to derive 12 points of insight. We will spend the remainder of our time working through the Scriptures and beginning to pull these same points out of the Bible.

What we are looking for is, we want to be able to share these ideas with others who have never heard them before, and in all likelihood never shall hear them, unless some serious Seventh-day Adventists are sent across their pathway and helped by God to explain it to them. I don't want to sound like we know it and no one else does here, but we have to be very lucid. God has granted this people a present truth message and we are overdue in admitting it to ourselves.

It might be handy to expect the Baptist church down the street to finish our work for us but it would hardly be responsible. God has sincere people all over the place in a lot of places and churches we might not usually expect. But His present truth is meant to be found here. We cannot stand before God and say we didn't know what our mission was. We have to tell it. We have to share it. There is simply no other way. Noah had to build the ark, and we have to tell the story to our generation before the fire falls.

Several Helpful Points From the Spirit of Prophecy

What are Satan's charges against God. In the writings of Ellen G. White we find statements concerning what the deceiver's charges against God are. For example:

"The Lord desires through His people to answer Satan's charges by showing the result of obedience to right principles." Ellen G. White, Christ's Object Lessons, p. 296 (all bolded emphasis added).

"Even when it was decided that he could no longer remain in heaven, Infinite Wisdom did not destroy Satan. Since the service of love can alone be acceptable to God, the allegiance of His creatures must rest upon a conviction of His justice and benevolence. The inhabitants of heaven and of other worlds, being unprepared to comprehend the nature or consequences of sin, could not then have seen the justice and mercy of God in the destruction of Satan. Had he been immediately blotted from existence, they would have served God from fear rather than from love. The influence of the deceiver would not have been fully destroyed, nor would the spirit of rebellion have been utterly eradicated. Evil must be permitted to come to maturity. For the good of the entire universe through ceaseless ages Satan must more fully develop his principles, that his charges against the divine government might be seen in their true light by all created beings, that the justice and mercy of God and the immutability of His law might forever be placed beyond all question." Ellen G. White, Great Controversy, p. 498 (See also Patriarchs and Prophets, p. 42).

"Now the guilt of Satan stood forth without excuse. His lying charges against the divine character and government appeared in their true light. He had accused God of seeking merely the exaltation of himself in requiring submission and obedience from his creatures, and had declared that while the Creator exacted self-denial from all others, he himself practiced no self-denial, and made no sacrifice." Ellen G. White, Spirit of Prophecy, vol. 4, p. 322.

"Every soul that develops a righteous character and withstands the power of the wicked one is a testimony to the falsehood of Satan's charges against divine government." Ellen G. White, Bible Training School, Dec 1, 1907.

"Satan declared that it was impossible for the sons and daughters of Adam to keep the law of God, and thus charged upon God a lack of wisdom and love." Ellen G. White, ST, January 16, 1896.

"He [Satan] has sought to make men believe that the law must be modified, because it does not meet the needs and possibility of men." Ellen G. White, ST, March 12, 1896.

"Satan represents God's law of love as a law of selfishness. He declares that it is impossible for us to obey its precepts. The fall of our first parents, with all the woe that has resulted, he charges upon the Creator, leading men to look upon God as the author of sin, and suffering, and death. Jesus was to unveil this deception. As one of us He was to give an example of obedience. For this He took upon Himself our nature, and passed through our experiences. "In all things it behooved Him to be made like unto His brethren." Heb. 2:17. If we had to bear anything which Jesus did not endure, then upon this point Satan would represent the power of God as insufficient for us. Therefore Jesus was "in all points tempted like as we are." Heb. 4:15. He endured every trial to which we are subject. And He exercised in His own behalf no power that is not freely offered to us. As man, He met temptation, and overcame in the strength given Him from God. He says, "I delight to do Thy will, O My God: yea, Thy law is within My heart." Ps. 40:8. As He went about doing good, and healing all who were afflicted by Satan, He made plain to men the character of God's law and the nature of His service. His life testifies that it is possible for us also to obey the law of God." Ellen G. White, Desire of Ages, p. 24.

"The victory gained at His death on Calvary broke forever the accusing power of Satan over the universe and silenced his charges that self-denial was impossible with God and therefore not essential in the human family." Ellen G. White, Selected Messages, vol. 1, p. 341.

If we boil all of these down, what list of salient points might we have?

1. God's plan includes His answering Satan's charges through the lives of God's people.
2. It is as our lives show "the result of obedience to right principles" that these charges are answered.
3. The aforementioned answering of charges is connected to the fact that the allegiance of His creatures must rest upon conviction of God's justice and benevolence.
4. Through the great controversy, the justice and mercy of God and the unchangability of His law shall be forever placed beyond question.
5. Satan charges that God does not practice what He preaches, He requires sacrifice but He does not give it.
6. Our developing a righteous character, our withstanding the power of Satan, or in other words, our degree of character perfection, shall stand as evidence for or against God's character and government.
7. Satan charges that fallen humans cannot obey God's law, that such an obedience is outside of the possibility envelope of what God can do for fallen man.
8. Satan charged that the law does not meet the needs of humankind.
9. Satan charges that God's law is actually a law of selfishness.
10. Satan charges that God is responsible for the fall of man and all the suffering that has ensued.
11. Jesus' life testifies that it is in fact possible for us to obey God's law.
12. Self-denial is essential for the human family.

There are certainly a number of crucial themes from the above that should be developed. But let's take just a couple for now that will especially help us as we share the great controversy with others. How can we share with others as biblical the ideas that (1) Satan has charged God with being unfair and (2) urged that humans cannot obey God's law? Could we demonstrate the truth of these concerns to them -- from the Bible alone?

Recall how, at the close of the gospel of Luke, Jesus gives to the disciples along the Emmaus road an extraordinary study of the Scriptures in which He shows that from their beginning to their end, they are pointing to Himself? I believe that Jesus can today also walk by our side through the Scriptures again, from Genesis to Revelation, and show the great controversy theme threaded throughout it, and the ultimate solution available through His high Priestly ministry.

Demonstration of Satan's Charges Against God From Scripture (OT)

Genesis 3:1-5

We can begin by showing that Satan has indeed laid charges against God. In Genesis 2:17 God commands Adam not to eat of a certain tree in the garden and tells him of the penalty of death attached to that transgression. But in Eve's conversation with Satan a view exactly opposite this is presented. In verses 4 and 5 we see charges by Satan against God. Here the issue, as everywhere else, is baseline obedience. Should humankind obey God's commands or not? Satan charges God with lying ("ye shall not surely die" verse 4), and then with withholding special knowledge that they were entitled to ("God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil" Verse 5).

From the outset this passage establishes that Satan has indeed charged God with lying about the penalty for disobedience, and with being selfish.

After Adam and Eve disobeyed God, Genesis 3:22 has their Maker pronouncing, "man is become as one of us, to know good and evil." Genesis 3:7 says that after they ate the fruit "their eyes were opened." Then they realized they were naked.

So was the devil right? When they ate the fruit their eyes were opened, they did come to know good and evil. But the truth is careful. God's promise is, "no good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly" (Psalms 84:11). In the beginning Adam and Eve walked uprightly. They were on God's side, their nature was unfallen; they lacked only maturity. There was a lot of learning to do, and time needed to be spent getting to know their Creator better, learning to trust Him more.

Had men been willing to trust God, to let Him reveal what He would to them in the time He would reveal it to them, they would have attained to a satisfying knowledge of all that they would care to know. In the beginning God had withheld from humankind an experiential knowledge of sin and the suffering and guilt accompanying it. They were progressing along just fine in attaining a knowledge of good. But to protect His children He would teach them with all-wise care what they needed to know about evil. Yet He would not withhold from them the possibility of choosing to disobey.

The Bible records not only the penalty God gave for disobedience (Genesis 2:17), but also how our Creator intervened and promised Jesus would die in our place (Revelation 13:8). Jesus was "The Lamb slain from the foundation of the world." As soon as there was sin, there was a Savior. In the moment that Adam and Eve should have died, Jesus promised to take man's place. He would pay our penalty. Far from being selfish and unwilling to sacrifice, God demonstrated that He was willing to sacrifice the dearest thing that He could sacrifice -- fellowship with His Son.

In the guise of the serpent, Satan had charged that the motivation behind God's prohibition was to withhold from humankind something to which he presumes we are entitled -- being like God, knowing good and evil. But in whose image were Adam and Eve made? We are made in God's image, and that means our moral faculties more than anything else. God's plan was that we would find joy in what God was about. His law is an expression of His character. Actually then, God had asked Adam and Eve to be like Himself, to practice self-denial, to not eat from the tree. He who made man knew what man needed. And self-denial was essential for humankind. Without practicing self-denial, they could never authentically reflect the image of God.

This first text is important, for it establishes that Satan has indeed cast charges against God, and what two of those charges are. He here charged God with giving them an unfair law and lying about its penalty, and with selfishly withholding from them that to which they were entitled.

Job 1:6-12; 2:1-7

Job was a man who served God. God commended his service. Satan claimed that Job only served God for the material benefits of Job's association with God. If these benefits were removed, the devil claimed, Job would condemn God. A test ensued in which these benefits were removed. Then the devil claimed that if Job's personal health were removed, he would curse God. The test was permitted, but that claim wasn't proven by Satan either.

The fundamental claim of Satan was that Job really was a selfish person and served God for the goodies. That is, if Job's self-interested motivations were isolated and tested, it would be found that God's prize witness served Him for selfish motives only. Satan here actually contested the idea of conversion itself. Everyone is only selfish he said, so why then the big issue about Satan's self-interest? God is no different. Such was the picture Satan preferred to paint. In the end this duel showed Satan to be incorrect.

While Job lacked complete knowledge about what was occurring, he persisted in trusting to God's fundamental fairness. In all that happened to him, he never charged God falsely. He believed that the ultimate outcome of what he was experiencing would vindicate both himself and God's goodness.

Isaiah 14:12-15

"How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit."

These lines come to us as a revelation of the mind of Lucifer. He aspired to be worshipped. He was not Creator but creature, and yet he aspired to be worshipped. He desires to exalt his throne above the stars of God, to be worshipped by his fellow creatures, the angels. He wants the position held by God. He wants to take the throne of heaven for himself and govern it himself. The stars, the angels are the angels of God, not of Lucifer. He would command them; he would govern where now God governs. This passage helps us understand that Satan truly sees himself in a war, a competition with God for control of the universe.

In Satan's plan there is "I, I, I"; self-interest reigns supreme. God's government is the opposite, selfless interest in others. God's Ten Commandment law is right for a government in which the Deity is unselfish and wants those who populate His kingdom to live by the same principles. The Ten Commandments are on the other hand directly contradictory to a kingdom where the foundation principle is operation according to self-interest. If you want to kill, God's law stands in your way. If you want to take someone's spouse or some material possession that belongs to another, the Ten Commandments stand in your way.

This passage from Isaiah aides us in understanding that there is a war between two basic and mutually exclusive moral realms. It is God, His government and His law, versus Satan, his government and his law. Satan aspires to replace God. Therefore he must, logically, displace God's government with his own. In order to achieve his goal he must dispute the validity of God's moral plan.

Satan is here revealed as radically driven by his purposes of self-interest. He is shown to be embarked on a plan to replace the government of God with His own, and replace the principle of creature worshipping Creator with creature worshipping creature. Whereas God humbled Himself to become one with us and join the human family, Satan is revealed as wishing to ascend above his fellow created angelic beings. He purposes to exalt his "throne" above them. Literally, he insists upon their worshipping him. This would require a change of God's law, "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me." (Exodus 20:3).

In fact, it would completely revise God's law, for it undermines the entire first table (worship of Creator by creature) in relation to God. And as it removes the distinction between Creator and creature, it actually destroys the second table. Only the first table makes proper the existence of the second. Without a Creator there can be no orienting principle between creatures but self-interest. Satan has thought al lof this through very carefully and knows he must undermine and destroy God's law. ANd crowds of Christians have fallen for his work.

Ezekiel 28:12-19

"Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created. Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee. By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee. Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffic; therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee. All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more."

This passage clearly places the reason for the existence of Satan on Satan himself. When God originally created Lucifer, he was a holy being, dwelling in God's presence, perfect in his ways. It was by all of the traffic of Lucifer's merchandise, his own choice to orient himself in relation to other things as destructively self-interested, that he ruined himself and became the Adversary, Satan. The passage speaks of Satan being "lifted up" because of his own beauty, overly impressed with his own "wisdom" and "brightness," as having ruined his "sanctuaries" by his great quantity of sin.

Understanding these things helps us avoid any trap of thinking that the natural state of the universe is any kind of balanced yin and yang. Righteousness and sin may be opposites, but they are not persistent constituents of the cosmic creation. The cosmic creation temporarily poses two diametrically opposed moral domains against each other, but in the end love shall prevail. Destructive self-interest will be eradicated. The decision is currently being processed by all parties.

This passage insists that Satan, not God, is responsible for evil. The responsibility is clearly placed upon he who perverted goodness, not He who gave free will. The possibility of sin was necessary, but never was sinning necessary. That is an important distinction. It combats fundamentally Satan's assertion that God is responsible for sin and suffering.

Conclusion

So we close our thoughts today, realizing that it is because Jesus loves us that He has not left us to our own devices. When we consider the great controversy, we must realize that Satan has indeed raised charges against God. Some of the facts concerning the conflict between good and evil can be summarized as

1. God's plan includes His answering Satan's charges through the lives of God's people.
2. It is as our lives show "the result of obedience to right principles" that these charges are answered.
3. The aforementioned answering of charges is connected to the fact that the allegiance of His creatures must rest upon conviction of God's justice and benevolence.
4. Through the great controversy, the justice and mercy of God and the unchangability of His law shall be forever placed beyond question.
5. Satan charges that God does not practice what He preaches, He requires sacrifice but He does not give it.
6. Our developing a righteous character, our withstanding the power of Satan, or in other words, our degree of character perfection, shall stand as evidence for or against God's character and government.
7. Satan charges that fallen humans cannot obey God's law, that such an obedience is outside of the possibility envelope of what God can do for fallen man.
8. Satan charged that the law does not meet the needs of humankind.
9. Satan charges that God's law is actually a law of selfishness.
10. Satan charges that God is responsible for the fall of man and all the suffering that has ensued.
11. Jesus' life testifies that it is in fact possible for us to obey God's law.
12. Self-denial is essential for the human family.

When we take up the issue of proving by the Bible that Satan actually makes these charges, as for example, charges that God is selfish and that His law is unfair, we can use Scriptures such as Genesis 3:1-5, Job 1:6-12; 2:1-7; Isaiah 14:12-15; Ezekiel 28:12-19; Matthew 1:21; Matthew ch. 4; 2 Corinthians 11:13-15; Revelation 12:7-9; and Revelation ch. 20. We can study these and other texts, and find ways to share from the Bible the reality and the principles governing the great controversy between good and evil. And then let us share them with others as God works His providences. May I ask you to pick out some of these themes and develop them, finding Scriptures by which you can give clear explanations of them to others, and help them to understand the great controversy. God will bless you if you do. And you will bless others. Make it a project. Perhaps you can even start today. What better way than that to spend the Sabbath?

December 14 we shall continue with part four of "A Seventh-day Adventist Philosophy for Witnessing, pt. 4, through the NT."

Pastor Larry Kirkpatrick is an ordained minister of the gospel. Since 1994 he has served in the American Southwest as pastor to several churches. He received his BA in Religion from Southern Adventist University in 1994 and a Master of Divinity from Andrews University in 1999 with a specialization in Adventist Studies. While in Michigan he was employed by the General Conference at the White Estate Berrien Springs branch office. More important than his scholastic preparation has been his immersion in the biblical and Spirit of Prophecy materials. He is author of the 2003 book Real Grace for Real People. Presently he serves as Pastor of the Mentone Church of Seventh-day Adventists, located near Loma Linda, California. Larry is married to Pamela. The couple presently live in Highland, California along with their two children, Etienne and Melinda.