10. The Moment to Decide

Here is the first stanza:

"Once to every man and nation

Comes the moment to decide,

In the strife of truth with falsehood,

For the good or evil side;

Some great cause, God's new Messiah,

Offering each the bloom or blight,

And the choice goes by forever

'Twixt that darkness and that light."

At some far distant time back in eternity, before this world was yet created, the greatest and most influential of all created beings in the universe began to entertain certain erroneous ideas about God.

This powerful individual was so enlightened and so respected that he was known as "the Light Bearer," "Lucifer," "the Morning Star."

Even though he was so much more intelligent and so much better informed than we, his new ideas about God were wrong. But he entertained these errors so long, and his marvelous mind became so warped, that he came to believe that these ideas were correct.

He even dared to share them cautiously, but persuasively, with some of his fellow angels, who respected him so much.

Incredible as it may seem, these false notions about God spread among many of the heavenly host.

Who was right? God or the wonderful Light Bearer?

Could it be true that God really was a selfish, demanding tyrant who took unfair advantage of his underprivileged creatures?

So began the great debate, that long struggle for the minds of God's free, intelligent creatures that many Christians have been accustomed to call "the great controversy."

At that time, back in eternity, there came once to every angel the moment to decide, in the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side.

Finally a third of those pure, holy, intelligent beings became so twisted in their thinking that they sided with God's enemy, now fittingly named "Satan," meaning "adversary," and agreed with him that God was indeed unworthy of their love and respect.

They even ventured into open rebellion against the Creator of the universe.

It was then, in His farsighted plan for the ultimate good of all His creatures, that God expelled the rebels from His presence, and the great controversy was subsequently extended to this planet on which we live.

As it is pictured in the frequently symbolic language of the last book of the New Testament, "War arose in heaven, Michael and His angels fighting against the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they were defeated and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world–he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him." Revelation 12:7-9, R.S.V.

At his first opportunity the deceiver sought to persuade Eve of the correctness of his rebellious views.

Ah, he said, you won't die! Go ahead and eat it!

This may surprise you, Eve, but you really can't depend on God to tell the truth all the time. Eating this fruit will do wonderful things for you. It will actually make you more like God.

That's what you want, Eve, isn't it? Isn't it the purpose of your life to become ever more like your Creator, to reflect His image ever more fully?

This is God's purpose for you too, so He can hardly object if you take the fruit. I can't understand why God would withhold something so beneficial to you. It's as if He didn't want you to become like Him too quickly. See Genesis 3:1-6, 22.

And Eve succumbed to the argument.

In spite of all the evidence upon which to base implicit confidence in her Creator, Eve indulged in confused, illogical thinking and thus took her stand on the evil side in agreement with Satan and his angels that God cannot be fully trusted.

How easily God could have blotted out His rebellious creatures and started over again!

If all God wanted was unthinking obedience, how easily He could have manipulated the minds of men and angels and forced them to obey!

But love and faith cannot be forced. Not even by God Himself. Forced love would be synthetic. Forced faith would be a fraud. And the devil would make the most of it. That is why, instead of destroying, God simply took His case into court.

In order to prove the rightness of His cause, to demonstrate that His way of governing the universe was the best for all concerned, God humbly submitted His own character to the investigation and judgment of His creatures.

Knowledge of this led Paul to exclaim, "God must prove true, though every man be false; as the Scripture says, 'That you may be shown to be upright in what you say, and win your case when you go to court.'" Romans 3:4, Goodspeed.

Of course, God never asks for belief without providing adequate evidence. If this was to remain a free universe, He could only seek to win His case and thus secure the eternal loyalty of His people by showing that truth is on His side.

The Bible is the inspired record of that evidence.

Throughout the Old Testament we see God attempting in every way possible to reveal Himself, not only to the rebels on this earth but to the whole universe, for all are concerned.

At times, because of our condition, He had to use extreme methods to gain our attention and hold it long enough to teach us a little more of the truth about Himself.

At Sinai He shook the whole mountain and burned it with fire, until in terror the people gave Him their attention–at least for a few hours. What a risk He ran of being misunderstood as a fearsome deity–hardly one to be loved.

Perhaps He would much rather have come as He did later to the Mount of Olives and gathered the people around Him quietly and taught them.

What a risk God ran at the time of the Flood–allowing all but eight to perish, and not all of them outstandingly good. God almost lost contact there with the whole human race.

How Satan must have made capital of this! I can see him touring the universe in glee: I told you so! Obey or drown! That's the kind of God He is. You'd better do what He says or He'll drown you, or burn you, or swallow you up, or have you stoned. How can you intelligent people possibly love and trust such a tyrant?

How often in the Old Testament we see God running the risk of being misunderstood by His condescending to stoop and meet us on our low level, since we could not meet Him on His.

When, for example, in lack of faith the people insisted on doing their own fighting, God let them. He even helped them do it.

When they unwisely insisted on eating what they pleased, God let them, He even supplied the food.

When against God's advice they insisted on having a king, God permitted it. He even chose the king for them.

When they insisted on divorce, God even provided the divorce laws.

What a risk God ran in all this of being misunderstood as condoning or approving such behavior!

When it became urgently necessary that the people be shocked into some realization of the awful consequences of rebellion, God ordered the stoning of Achan and his family.

He opened the earth and it swallowed up the rebellious Korah, Dathan, and Abiram.

He consumed the irreverent Nadab and Abihu in the tabernacle.

How readily Satan could misinterpret all this as evidence that God was a tyrant!

But the supreme revelation of God's character, the answer to any possible misunderstanding, was yet to come.

Finally, at just the right time, God came to the earth in person. He gathered the people around Him and taught them. When He found people who were sick, He healed them. When they were hungry, He fed them.

One day, at the funeral of a friend, the Bible says that He cried.

In spite of all this, not many recognized Him. Many didn't even like Him. Some even hated Him.

He simply wasn't their idea of a god–so warped was their thinking, so in error were their beliefs about God as taught them with such authority by their leaders.

It was not that they had failed to study the Scriptures. They had simply read them for the wrong reason.

The Bible is not a code book of deeds to be done and sins to be shunned. As Jesus explained, the purpose of the Bible is to bear witness to Him, to reveal the truth about God, that men may be won to Him in faith. See John 5:39, 40.

But having misread the Scriptures, the people did not understand the meaning. They did not know the Author. They did not trust the Bible's God. They had no reason for their faith.

Instead, they rejected the One who had come to bring them life.

Finally they arrested Him and condemned Him to be executed.

And the way Christ behaved during those last terrible hours–with such dignity and submissiveness, such calmness and willingness to forgive–is the greatest revelation of the truth about God the universe will ever see.

At its climax He died the awful death of separation that is the inevitable consequence of sin, to demonstrate that God was telling the truth when He warned Adam and Eve that the result of sin is death.

Christ died primarily to prove the righteousness of God in the great controversy.

As Paul explains, "God showed Him publicly dying as a sacrifice of reconciliation to be taken advantage of through faith. This was to vindicate His own justice (for in His forbearance, God passed over men's former sins) that He is upright Himself, and that He makes those who have faith in Jesus upright also." Romans 3:25, 26, Goodspeed.

With this supreme demonstration of God's righteousness, all questions about His character and government were settled throughout the universe. God had won His case. The issues in the great controversy had been clearly seen. Satan was at last unmasked.

Only here on this planet were there any remaining questions about God. Only here did anyone still believe that Satan might be right.

Someday soon the adversary will make a last, desperate effort to win us all to his side. He will appear as an angel of light–the Light Bearer again, Lucifer, the Morning Star. See 2 Corinthians 11:14. He will even proclaim himself to be God. See 2 Thessalonians 2:4. Just as he tried to persuade Jesus to worship him in the wilderness of temptation, so he will seek to win our worship now. See Matthew 4:9.

The Bible predicts that his efforts will appear to be completely successful. The whole world will worship him. See Revelation 13:1-8.

If even holy angels could be deceived back in eternity, what makes us think we won't be taken in?

For our encouragement, the Bible speaks of a group–so small as to be described as just a "remnant"–who will not be deceived.

These will be people whose thinking is clear enough that they will reject the error. Instead, according to Revelation 14:12, they will maintain their faith and trust in Jesus Christ.

And because of their continuing faith in God they will even dare, according to Revelation 12:17, to bear witness to Jesus in those troublous times.

How is it that these few are able to do this in spite of the prevailing error and misunderstanding of the day?

Those who bear witness to Jesus are moved by the same Spirit who inspired the prophets to bear their witness to the truth about God.

This Spirit is the Spirit of Truth. See John 14:16, 17.

Those who are on the side of right at the end are those who are open to truth, those who have respect for evidence and will follow it wherever it may lead.

These are the people described in Hebrews 5:14 as "those who have their faculties trained by practice to distinguish good from evil." R.S.V. As Paul puts it in Romans 12:2, their minds have been renewed so that they "may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect." R.S.V.

The hymn says that once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide.

Paul describes what happens to those who have had ample opportunity to acknowledge the truth but have chosen instead to reject and even suppress it: "Although they knew God they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools. Romans 1:21, 22, R.S.V.

Sin is not something recorded in a book, to be marked "forgiven" from time to time.

Sin happens in a person. And he is never quite the same again, even though he be forgiven.

John defines sin as "lawlessness," "disobedience to law." 1 John 3:4, R.S.V. Goodspeed.

Sin is not just a failure to comply with this or that regulation. Rather it is a spirit of rebelliousness and hostility, a rejection of what is known to be right, an unwillingness to submit to the authority of truth.

The essence of sin is irresponsible and rebellious thinking.

To persist in such perversion of the marvelous powers of the human mind is to ruin our ability to think at all.

To persist in the careless handling of truth, in dishonest manipulation of evidence, is to invite the eternal loss of our powers of discrimination.

Truth and evidence are God's only weapons in the great controversy. They are the only means He will use to persuade us of the rightness of His side, the only basis He offers for securing our faith and love.

When a man comes to the place that he is no longer susceptible to truth, there is nothing more God can do for him.

When a man has finally rejected the Spirit of truth, God has no other course than to give him up, to turn him over to the desires of his base and darkened mind. See Romans 1:21, 28. This is why, after the final decision, there is no later chance.

Surely our only safety is to open our minds to the Spirit of truth. We must discipline ourselves in the pursuit of truth, that our faculties may be trained by practice to distinguish good from evil.

Then with minds renewed we must confront ourselves with the evidence about God's character revealed in the Bible and form so clear a picture of Him that we shall not be deceived.

For there will be a group at the end who will maintain their faith in God and Jesus Christ.

In doing so they will join the vast throng of other beings throughout this universe who have already decided that God is utterly worthy of their eternal reverence and love and trust.

–A Graham Maxwell, excerpt from You Can Trust the Bible © 1967, Pacific Press Publishing Association.