Earth is a Battlefield 5 - Prevailing Hope

I'm sitting beside the Sabbath
Trail, which is this really cool trail,

that starts and ends at the Washington
Seventh Day Adventist Church,

in Washington, New Hampshire.

Which is the first
Seventh Day Adventist church,

the oldest Seventh Day Adventist church.

And this is a trail that
winds through the woods

for about a mile, it's got
twenty-two separate stops on it,

each of which has a part in tracing the
Sabbath through the Bible, through the ages.

If you ever get a chance to
visit, I highly recommend it.

For our purposes, this trail
is an ideal spot to continue

our look at the selfishness paradigm.

We have to wait to see a pure expression of
the loving-kindness paradigm, God's paradigm.

We won't see that until heaven.

But today, even though Satan
has twisted things around severely,

God, as master designer of
the earth, can still be seen.

The author Ellen White, in
the book Desire of Ages,

talks about how there's
both good and evil in the world,

and we can see God in nature still.

Where the only thing that is,
or can completely be evil,

is the hearts of those humans
who decide to be wholly evil.

And here is what she says
on page twenty of her book.

She says, "Now sin has
marred God's perfect work,

yet that handwriting remains.

Even now, all created things
declare the glory of His excellence.

There is nothing, save the selfish
heart of man, that lives unto itself.

No bird that cleaves the air, nor
animal that moves upon the ground,

but ministers to some other life.

There is no leaf of the forest, or lowly
blade of grass but has its ministry.

Every tree and shrub and leaf
pours forth that element of life

without which neither
man nor animal could live.

And man and animal, in turn, minister to
the life of the tree and shrub and leaf.

The flowers breathe fragrance and unfold
their beauty in blessing to the world,

the sun sheds its light to
gladden a thousand worlds.

The ocean, itself the source of
all of our springs and fountains,

receives the streams from
every land, but takes to give.

The mists ascending from its bosom
fall in showers to water the earth,

that it may bring forth and bud."

So, we can even still see God in His earth.

And we can see Him, even in the soil,
if you'll remember video number one.

The soil is full of micro-organisms, there
are probably literally billions of them

in a handful.

And while there is war
going on in our soil,

and war going on at
every level all around us,

so also is there a little cooperation, a
little sharing, a little passing of blessings.

We see a little bit of that
paradigm -- God's paradigm.

We can see bacteria capturing nitrogen from
the air to make it available to plants,

who then provide the bacteria with
nutrients, and fungus in the soil,

the filaments of fungus cycle
nutrients and enhance plant life.

Plants provide food to the
fungus; symbiotic relationships.

So even though the tapestry of
creation is tattered and faded,

we can still catch a glimpse
of God's paradigm in it.

And in catching this glimpse, we can better
understand that he wants us to return

to a much, much better world
than the one that we now live in.

But, for now we're here, in the midst
of this war between Christ and Satan,

this pitched battle, which started in
heaven and will soon end, praise the Lord,

here on Earth.

And this war has been
raging without pause.

And we're going to look at
a couple of the skirmishes

between these paradigms we've been
talking about, as recorded in the Bible.

We'll start with the temptation of
Adam and Eve, in the garden of Eden,

in Genesis 3:3 and 4.

Satan cleverly offered to Adam
and Eve an alternate paradigm,

disguised though it was.

To this first couple, who had
everything, he offered more.

He told them that God was a liar.

And he told them that by disobeying Him,
they would receive the amazing thing

He was keeping from them, and
that they would become like gods,

knowing good and evil.

Well, they fell for it. And they were
ashamed, they were appalled,

and they were incredibly
sorrowful as a result.

God then pronounced a broad ranging
curse in Genesis 3:14 through 19.

But within that curse, is
something very, very interesting.

He put enmity between us and Satan.

I read this to say in part, that God
gave us the ability to resist Satan,

who had just conquered us.

Our friend in Maine, Arnet Mathers,
who has studied this deeply,

and he concludes that
Satan didn't see that coming.

That are ability to resist him after he
conquered us, was a surprise to him.

That perspective gives us a sense
of just how dynamic this war was,

and is.

Next, going to the book of Job, we
see Satan claiming that Job serves God

only through selfishness, and asserting that Job follows God