Seed should come, became the object of Satan’s attack. But, glory to God, when Satan begins to show his strength then the Lord begins to act. In divine providence the tiny babe was rescued and reared to become Israel’s great leader and law-giver. Again in the face of seeming defeat God preserved the holy seed. Less than one hundred years after the death of Solo mon, Satan entered the heart of a woman in another attempt to destroy the purpose of God as revealed first in Genesis 3:15. King Ahaziah of the southern kingdom of Judah reigned but one year. The brief rule of this wicked man terminated when he was slain by Jehu. At this point Satan seized the heart of the dead king’s mother. “When Athaliah the mother of Ahaziah saw that her son was dead, she arose and destroyed all the royal seed of the house of Judah. BUT . . .” (2 Chronicles 22: 10, 11). Thank God for the Bible “ buts.” Athaliah only thought she destroyed all the seed royal. She destroyed all the seed royal of the house of Judah “ but . . . Joash.” The daughter of Jehroam hid the boy Joash in a bed chamber where he was cared for during the next six years. Blessed be God for the King’s daughters! Again Satan saw that the plan of God was not to be thwarted. Time marched on. Once again the evil instigator of war arose up in defiance of the Almighty. This time he possessed the heart of Sennacherib, king of Assyria, to lead his armies against the holy city and its godly king Hezekiah of the royal seed of David. Just when it ap peared that the holy seed would be cut off, God inter vened and said: “ I will defend this city, to save it, for mine own sake, and for my servant David’s sake. And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the Lord went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an h u n d r e d fourscore and five thousand (185,000): and when they arose early in the morning, behold they were all dead corpses” (2 Kings 19:34, 35). Satan was still fighting God, but he was fighting a losing battle. Eight hundred years went by. The iron rule of Rome held the known world in its power. The throne was oc cupied by the devil-possessed Herod, a godless Idumean who became Satan’s tool in a critical hour of the world’s history. In a Bethlehem manger the seed of the woman was born, the promised One of Genesis 3:15, He who was to crush the head of Satan. Seeing that time was running out Satan fired the heart and mind of Herod with the diabolical scheme similar to that of Pharaoh. He ordered all the children two years old and under to be slain. Mary’s young child, God’s holy Son, was al most in the enemy’s grasp; but all of hell could not stop the plan of God to put an end to war. When He
way of telling. We do know that the devil was cast out into the earth and his angels with him, and that Michael and his unfallen angels overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony. God had won the first battle. Seeing that he could not stand against the Almighty, Satan’s next target of attack was against Adam and Eve, the human pair whom God had created and placed in the Garden of Eden. In spite of God’s clear warning to our first parents, the serpent in his subtilty persuaded Eve to eat the forbidden fruit, and she in turn enticed her husband to eat. Adam and Eve fell from their lofty estate and lost the divine moral likeness and their im mortality. Satan appeared to win the second round. At this point it is well to notice that God said: “ And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and be tween thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel” (Genesis 3:15). If Satan was determined to carry the fight, then God would not suffer the enmity to die down. Keep in mind here that God is not the author of the enmity, that is, He did not arouse Satan to enmity or He would be the author of evil. Satan started the conflict, but God is going to see it through to the triumph of righteousness. This verse re veals a further unfolding of the clash between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman, with the seed of the woman ultimately triumphing over the seed of Satan. In other words, the battle is to be fought out to a decisive conclusion and won by Jesus Christ. The seed of the woman (Christ) suffers, but Satan is seen to be crushed. Here on the first pages of the Bible God pro nounces the age-long struggle culminating in a mighty triumph of Jesus Christ and the sentence of doom upon Satan. Armageddon will be the decisive battle. Satan’ s A ttack Continues All through the past six millenniums of human history there were times when it seemed that Satan would con quer. Adam and Eve had two sons named Cain and Abel. Cain followed in the way of the serpent but Abel chose the way of the Lord. Then one day Cain rose up and killed his brother Abel. Again it seemed that vic tory in the contest would go to Satan, but God preserved the holy seed by giving Adam and Eve another son, Seth (Genesis 4). The years went by, the population in the earth in creased, and Satan filled the hearts of men with evil. God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. It grieved God at His heart until He determined to destroy man from the face of the earth. He sent the great flood to cover the earth, but Satan had so hardened the hearts of the mul titudes that they would not turn from their sin. Again it appeared that the forces of evil would win— “ But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord . . . And God re membered Noah” (Genesis 6, 7:1). Again God had pre served the holy seed. About 1500 years after the flood “ there went a man of the house of Levi, and took to wife a daughter of Levi. And the woman conceived, and bare a son: and when she saw him that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months” (Exodus 2:1, 2). That baby’s name was Moses. But why was it necessary to hide the child? The godless Pharaoh, inspired by Satan, conceived a diaboli cal plot to legalize infanticide as a state policy. The murderous pagan king decreed that every Hebrew son born was to be killed immediately. This was another at tempt on Satan’s part to frustrate the purposes of God. Every human instrument that God was about to use to keep the godly line intact, until Jesus Christ the Royal
ABOUT THIS MONTH'S AUTHOR
Dr. Strauss is pas tor of the High land Park Baptist Church, Highland P a r k , Michigan. His previous serv ice included 18 years as pastor of the Calvary Baptist C h u r c h , Bristol, Penn., a n d 10 years as instructor of the Philadelphia Bible College. Dr. Strauss has contrib uted a number of outstanding a n d stimulating articles f o r t h e King's Business.
THE KING'S BUSINESS
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