V Have you heard what Lucifer has been saying about God?

Y Why doesn't God deal with Lucifer?

B Have you heard what they're calling Lucifer now? -- the Adversary. We've never had an adversary before. I never even heard that word before.

Y I don't think Lucifer is saying he is more powerful than God -- that doesn't seem to be the issue. But what is keeping God from acting? I feel like somebody needs to give Lucifer a good shaking and shake some sense into him. Doesn't he see what he's doing to everyone in heaven?

V I trust God, but Lucifer has been right next to Him; does Lucifer know something the rest of us don't? This whole thing is making my heart feel as if I'd just eaten a full meal of cold lead.

B Lucifer says he should be in charge, he should run things; he says that if we continue to obey God we won't have any freedom left. He says that the Law is taking away all our freedom;

V How is this going to end?

Y I don't know. I don't like all this uncertainty. It's unsettling. It hurts when I see some of my best friends choosing to be with Lucifer;

B I know, I feel all of this, too. I would feel better if we could clarify the issues, so I can get a better handle on it. I feel that I am getting bogged down in my fears.

We have to make a choice, between God and Lucifer. We have known both of them for a long time. Lucifer is making claims about God which are really hard to accept --

that God is trying to take away our freedom by having us worship Jesus;

that God is interested only in Himself;

that His law is arbitrary, designed to make us unable to think and act for ourselves;

that God is severe and unforgiving, not the kind of person we would serve if we had a choice.

So far, all we have from Lucifer are claims. We have a long history of association with God. I don't understand everything, and I can't imagine why Lucifer would make up all of these things, but I am going to have to go with the evidence I have about God so far.

V Why did we have to push Satan out? Surely God is strong enough to deal with this. Why did we have to push our own friends out of heaven?

Y Those angels deserved to be pushed out, they have proven

their disloyalty, and there is no place for them in heaven.

V How long is this going to last? I wish it was over already.

B What is going to happen to Satan?

V I trust God, but I don't understand everything He is doing.

Y God has a plan; I don't think we can do anything except wait to see how it turns out.

B I didn't enjoy pushing my friends out of heaven, either. But as I watch those of us who remain, I can already see a growth in trust in God, even though we don't really know more answers to the questions than we did before. Apparently the act of resisting has strengthened us in our belief. So, I guess that is an answer. God is wise enough to let us choose which side we are on and then actively defend our choice. I don't see this as a fight about who is more powerful, but about which system is right.

Y That's right. When we serve God, we are completely absorbed in working for God and for others. And up until now we had been completely happy. Satan's way seems to involve looking out for himself.

B I will be very interested to see how it works out for them. So far, it has created a great deal of unhappiness for us and for God.

(Turn away from audience.)

Y Satan used the same approach with Adam and Eve that he used with us -- that God is trying to keep us under His thumb, that He doesn't want us to advance as far as we can, that God is a liar, and that they won't die.

V Do you think they will die? I can't imagine what death will look like.

Y Satan says that if he is destroyed, Adam and Eve have to be destroyed, too, or God isn't fair.

V Yes, he says that there is no opportunity for mercy without destroying the Law.

B But, God said that Jesus is going to go to earth to die for men. How do you think that will work?

Y What I don't understand is, how will it satisfy the Law for Jesus to die for these rebels?

B Well, let's see if I have this straight. God's new creation has rejected Him just as Satan did. And they believed the same things that our friends believed about God, that if you serve God you are saying good-bye to freedom, that God will say and do anything to keep us in subjection -- even lie. This is an apparent defeat for God. When God said that He was going to send Jesus to earth it sent a cold chill through me. If Jesus dies for sinful men, why won't He die for Lucifer and all of our old friends? What is the difference between them? They have both sinned. If God's law can be satisfied by Jesus' death for sinful men, why not for sinful angels?

Y One thing I haven't been able to understand yet -- before Adam and Eve sinned God said "In the VERY DAY you eat of it you will die." Yet Adam and Eve haven't died. This puts God in a no-win position on the surface:

If He destroys Adam and Eve, He will seem like an angry severe person, just like Satan said He was.

If He doesn't destroy them it looks like He was just trying to scare them when He said "You will surely die," but He wasn't telling the truth.

I think this is one of the things we will want to watch. I am anxious to see how God resolves it. I feel like things are open-ended.

(Turn away from audience.)

Y Now that's what I expected from God.

V It's a pity that so many people and animals had to die. I felt for those people as they were washed away.

B Do you think that's what God meant when He said all the sinners would die?

V Well, all the sinners didn't die. Noah and his family are still alive. I've never seen God act in that way, before.

B There has been so much suffering in the world already, how long will this go on?

Y When God let Cain live I thought that was too soft. Now I see that He was showing us what would happen if evil people lived without restraint. It's sad to think that only eight people were willing to enter the ark and stay alive, even after 120 years of warning.

B It seems like God almost wants to play into Satan's hands. Satan said that He was severe, and this was a very severe action. However, as I look at humans, I don't wonder why God sent the flood; I wonder why He didn't do it a long time ago. However, I don't think that was the death God was talking about when He said "In the very day you eat of it you will die." It doesn't seem to fit completely, because Noah and his sons have sinned, too. There has to be more to it than whether a person has sinned or not.

V There seems to be an element of power in changing these humans which can't always be seen from the outside. Even though Noah and his family aren't perfect, there is a difference between them and the people destroyed in the flood. Obviously they are listening to God. Their faith in Him led them into the ark.

Y Many times I have wanted to rescue one of the faithful ones from a difficulty, but God has us wait, and they struggle with their difficulties for a while. But, when they come out of it their faith is stronger, much like ours when we had to actively resist Satan and push him out of heaven.

B This whole process has taught me so much about God. I just keep watching to see what He will do next.

(Turn away from audience.)

Y God's got to do something, things are just as bad as before the flood.

V There's not so much blatant sin, but people's hearts are as full of hatred and strife as they were then.

Y I don't see anything that God can do except destroy these people and start over one more time like the flood.

B The world just seems to get darker and darker; fewer and fewer people are really seeking God.

(Hmm-mm) Perhaps. Maybe it would be good for us to reflect on the major issues that have been in question. Do you remember the issues we initially faced?

V Is God arbitrary? I still don't understand everything; but as I have seen God patiently wait for hundreds of years before sending the flood, long after we would have acted, as He waited patiently through hundreds of years of idol worship before letting Israel and Judah go into captivity, and as He has waited patiently these 400 years since the Israelites came back from Babylon, I would have to emphatically say "No," God is not arbitrary. He is not as severe as we would be at times. He has demonstrated magnificent patience.

Y Secondly, do we know what the final outcome of this rebellion is going to be? Yes, I believe in the Hebrew Scriptures we have evidence that sin and sinners, from Satan to the last one, will be destroyed by fire, much like Sodom and Gomorrah were.

B Yet, God said in those same Scriptures, "I don't enjoy the death of the wicked". I still don't understand everything there is about the end of this, though.

V The third issue was: What did God mean when He said "In the VERY DAY you eat of it you will surely die?" We have seen lots of people die in lots of different ways -- some at God's hand, some at the hands of other men, some by accident or by illness. Is that what He meant, and how does that tie in with the final destruction of sinners? It seems that God could just let this world go on in its own way and all the sinners would die either of natural causes or by being murdered. So far I don't think we have the answer to that.

B And a fourth issue is: What will Jesus do when He goes to earth, and how will it fit in with all this? How will that make it right for God to forgive sinners without letting Satan back into heaven? We don't know the answer to that question. If the world keeps going downhill, it will never be safe for Jesus to go there.

(Turn away from audience.)

V It's so fantastic, who could have imagined it?

Y I wish Jesus could just come back to life now. I know God is leaving Him in the tomb for a reason, but it seems like we've waited so long already. I feel sorry for the disciples -- we're rejoicing and they're hiding out; they haven't gotten the point yet.

B So many of my questions have finally been answered. All of the uncertainty I had is gone. I feel awestruck by His love, by His wisdom. As I look back on the way He has handled this whole thing it seems obvious that this is the only way it could have been done.

Y I know what you mean. I have never loved God more, nor felt so confident in His government.

V What has amazed me is how open Jesus was towards these sinners. When He said "Whoever believes in Me will have eternal life," I thought He was throwing the door wide open to all sorts of rebels. I thought "If He doesn't put some conditions on that invitation, we're going to be back in the same place we were when Satan started this whole thing." He didn't make any other requirement than belief. But now I see that the act of believing changes these people. Anyone who is willing to believe will be changed in the process -- they're teachable. As Jesus said, "If I live in you and you live in Me you will be a fruitful person."

B That really makes the central issue a person's freedom of choice, or free will. When God threw the door of heaven wide open like that, He was basically saying, "It's your choice; your decision to go in or not is what is going to bring you either life or death", just like with Noah and the ark. But, like you said, unless you are teachable, you won't be willing to go in the door. It's a selection process in and of itself.

Y Right, so when God said "In the very day you eat of the tree you will die," He meant that if He had honored their choice, they would have died that day. He would have had to let them live independent lives apart from Him; and there is no life apart from Him. The same with Satan. If God had let Satan bear the results of his choice, he would have died in the very beginning. But, we could never have understood what it meant to die from sin if Jesus hadn't done it first. We would have thought that God got angry and got rid of the competition. That would have made us nervous.

V Watching God abandon Jesus was terrible. If I hadn't seen with my own eyes what being separated from God would do, I wouldn't have understood it. I didn't have any concept of how painful that would be. I know when all of these rebels are separated from God at the end of sin it will be excruciating for them. I kept wanting to do something so that Jesus wouldn't have to die. But, I knew that He was the only One who could really show what it meant to die from sin.

Y It's incredible that God would let Jesus live on that dark planet for 33 years, and then die for all those rebellious people.

B I think it's important to recognize that He didn't die just for those rebellious people. The universe needed to see that God's warning against sin, against doing things your way, is not a concern over rules. The law is not a collection of rules. The law is more like a fence around a steep cliff -- a cliff of selfishness -- that keeps us from falling like Satan did. I needed to see that.

Y Now I know why humans can be saved, and why Satan and our old friends can't. Satan lived in the very presence of God. He knew God as intimately as any created being can. He knew that there was no excuse for his rebellion, but he went ahead anyway. He was incurable. There was no way that he would ever consent to live in God's presence again, but when he is ultimately separated from God, he will as die as painfully as Jesus did. As God said in the Hebrew Scriptures, "Those who hate me love death"(Prov 8:36). But, human beings could be won to trust and love God again as they saw what He was really like. When Adam and Eve sinned they still had a lot more they could learn about God's character, and as they saw it they could change from rebellion to faith.

B Well, I'm glad that I made the right choice in the very beginning. I know that God plans to provide even more answers for us during the judgment, as we go through the lives of every human being, but I will never again have any question about any of the issues that we have talked about all these times. It's wonderful to know that a rebellion like this will never again happen. I praise God for His love, His sacrifice, and His wisdom.

(Turn away from audience.)