NOTE: This article is an excerpt from my book on the end-times, “The Last Act of the Drama,” a guide for the end-times that will be completed and self-published soon. rmb

There is no doubt that our world today gives us reasons to fear. A lot of people, myself included, see a marked increase in evil in many spheres and at many levels, and it is unsettling. Things in which we used to trust as rock-solid and unchanging have collapsed and worst-case scenarios are common. Most challenging of all is that the trajectory into the future seems to be for things to get more chaotic and for losses to continue to outpace gains. Yes, the view is troubling and we as believers can be tempted to think that God is no longer in control and that Satan and wickedness have gotten the upper hand.

It is in times like these that we open our Bible and dig deep to find out what God has said in His Word. With regard to what we see in our present times, our Bible gives us a foundational truth that never changes:

Our God is always in absolute control of all things.

But, if God is in sovereign control of all things, why do we see escalating wickedness in our world? How can God’s sovereign control be reconciled with Satan being able to increase evil and lawlessness in the world? Doesn’t a rise in Satan’s work of chaos and strife and violence indicate that God is not in complete control?

The short answer is, “No.” God remains in complete control, but as the world moves toward the end of the age, God will manifest His sovereign control by using Satan’s activity to take history in a new direction. At the appropriate time, God will begin to fulfill all the prophecies about the end-times that are written in His Word so that the world will be prepared for the glorious return of the Lord Jesus.

This means that, as we study the end-times and see Satan and his demons creating chaos and strife, we must maintain a settled view of Satan’s power and his role. Despite his reputation, the Bible reveals that Satan is merely another character on the Lord’s stage. As Judas was chosen as one of the Twelve because the Lord Jesus needed a betrayer, so Satan has been created because the Lord required someone to do the grand evil acts scripted into His great drama. The Lord needed someone to tempt Adam and Eve, and Satan was ordained as the tempter (Genesis 3:1-6). God needed someone to test Job, so Satan was selected for that part (Job 1, 2). Someone was needed to test the Lord Jesus in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1-11), so Satan received that part, as well.

So it will be in the future, when Satan is released from the abyss (Revelation 20:3, 7) to play his role as God’s supporting actor and to fulfill everything that God has created him to fulfill in the last act of the grand drama. “The great dragon, the serpent of old who is called the devil and Satan” (Revelation 12:9) is the actor needed to move history toward the end of the age. In his role, the devil will accomplish exactly as much destruction and lawlessness as the Lord, before the foundation of the world, ordained for him to accomplish, but not even the slightest bit more. Satan will freely choose to do all the evil that the Lord has sovereignly scripted for him to do, and he does not get to adlib. He is an actor on God’s stage, and he enters and exits that stage according to the Director’s precise instructions. He can do no other.

Therefore, we need not be frightened when, as we approach the end of the age, we see Satan doing those things that the Bible declares he must certainly do. He is simply playing the role that God has sovereignly ordained for him to play. The Lord Jesus Himself told us these things would surely take place and He told us these things so that we would not be frightened when they came to pass (Matthew 24:5-13, 21-28). We conclude that Satan acts exactly as God has decided for him to act, completely contained by God’s sovereignty.

SDG                 rmb                 7/21/2021                   #424