???

Satan, the mightiest of warriors, leads the van, and his angels unite their forces for this final struggle. Kings and warriors are in his train, and the multitudes follow in vast companies, each under its appointed leader. With military precision the serried ranks advance over the earth's broken and uneven surface to the City of God. By command of Jesus, the gates of the New Jerusalem are closed, and the armies of Satan surround the city and make ready for the onset (GC 664).

The same erroneous idea is defended on the basis of the EGW statement that God does not force anyone. God does not force anyone to serve Him. But this doesn't mean God sometimes does what the sinner doesn't want to be done. Satan wished to remain in heaven; he didn't leave spontaneously. That's why there was a war in heaven. The wicked of course don't want to be judged, but God will make them face judgment and its consequences.

Rosangela - up to that point, the gates are not closed. Anyone could have come in, but they did not. Yes or no?

The use of force - I suggest reading the following: RH September 7, 1897 The Great Controversy. "It is most difficult to make the deceiving power of Satan apparent." September 14th follow article is also excellent.

APL, up to that point the wicked haven't come in because they were preparing the attack!!! Yes or No? They do wish to come in, but are prevented from doing so.

About the use of force, you can just make a small summary explaining whether Satan wished to be expelled from heaven and whether the wicked wish to face judgment.

They want to come in but are prevented? By whom? By their own choice.

When Satan was expelled from heaven, did he still have access to heaven? Yes. Read the story of Job. When Christ died, what happened? Read DA 761. Read the whole chapter! How was Satan cast out? The truth about him was revealed. No one in heaven would listen to him! He no longer had any sympathy with the unfallen angels. This is how he was cast out. They were no longer going to listen to a murder and a liar. And read this statement carefully, what killed Christ? God? Did Jesus die the death of a sinner? Yes. How is God involved? Look to the cross, there are many answers there.

If this was the case there was no need to close the gates.


I think you must read DA 761 again, for that passage confirms that he didn't have access to heaven. He waited for the angels when they came from the heavenly courts. He waited for them at the gates of heaven.
As to the passage of Job, it doesn't say that this meeting occurred in heaven.


I'm speaking about the occasion when he was expelled because he fell. He not only wished to remain in heaven, but also be taken into conference with the Father and understand His purposes. He fought to defend his place in heaven:

All the heavenly host were summoned to appear before the Father, to have each case determined. Satan unblushingly made known his dissatisfaction that Christ should be preferred before him. He stood up proudly and urged that he should be equal with God, and should be taken into conference with the Father and understand his purposes. God informed Satan that to his Son alone he would reveal his secret purposes, and he required all the family in Heaven, even Satan, to yield him implicit, unquestioned obedience; but that he (Satan) had proved himself unworthy a place in Heaven. Then Satan exultingly pointed to his sympathizers, comprising nearly one half of all the angels, and exclaimed, These are with me! Will you expel these also, and make such a void in Heaven? He then declared that he was prepared to resist the authority of Christ, and to defend his place in Heaven by force of might, strength against strength. {1SP 22.2}

You want to ignore the point, that they were OPEN, that they would not come in.

As for force, God uses mercy to restrain, this is true. But when mercy is lifted, as God will do, all hell breaks loose.

Does God have the ability to destroy sinners? Yes, as easily as it is to cast a stone to the earth. But you say God does not do this. You say, God will raise sinners, then miraculously, preserve their life, and torture them as long as they deserve. This is not the God I know or love. This is the view of Satan as described by EGW in GC pages 35 and 36. "Their sufferings are often represented as a punishment visited upon them by the direct decree of God. It is thus that the great deceiver seeks to conceal his own work."

I shrink at the idea of eternal torment which is the false doctrine that has crept into so many of the Christian churches, however, even though I also shrink at any type of 2nd death suffering, I see it as the consequence of rejecting His mercy and grace and continuing to cling and practice sin.

The 2nd death is a consequence of the choice of the wicked, however, God executes the consequence when He does His strange act of bringing fire down to consume them, even though some may actually suffer longer than others before being completely consumed to that 2nd death.

What saves us? The life, death, resurrection, and the High Priestly ministry of Jesus Christ.

What condemns us to the 2nd death? The rejection of the life, death, resurrection, and the High Priestly ministry of Jesus Christ.

Daryl,

You are saying that salvation is saving us from destruction by God, right? How do you read GC 35/36? Also read ST April 14, 1898 particularly paragraphs 9 and 13? And Isaiah 53 where it says we thought what Christ experienced was sent by God. It is not, but we thought it was!

GC36 says God is not the executioner. But you, rosangela, green and asygo say God is the executioner. How do you reconcile this? Yes we are saved by Jesus Christ, from Sin, not God, Matthew 1:21. How do you reconcile this?

APL,

Read the chapter in The Great Controversy. The wicked dead are raised and Satan represents himself to them as a redeemer who has brought them forth from their graves and who will rescue them from the most cruel tyranny. He works wonders to support his claims and proposes to lead them against the camp of the saints and to take possession of the City of God. From the moment they are brought to life again they begin to be deluded by Satan. They are no longer able to think in terms of a conscious choice of being or not being saved. So there can be no such thing as they not coming into the city because they would not.

As for force, mercy to restrain does not explain the wicked being judged.


No matter how you slice it, this is a subject difficult to understand. The Bible says there will be different degrees of punishment. EGW makes clear that this will be true not only in terms of intensity, but of duration (she says some will be destroyed in a moment, while others will suffer for many days). I'm inclined to believe the torture the wicked will experience will be first a mental one, like that of Jesus, and only then the literal fire will do its work. However, this mental torture will be worse than a physical torture. I don't know how you can reconcile this with your picture of God.

God is in fact the one who brings down fire upon both the fallen angels, including the devil himself, and the fallen humans.

The devil obviously doesn't do it, therefore, God is the One who does it.

Sin is lawlessness and the penalty, the wages of sin, is the 2nd death, however, sin doesn't pay those wages. It is God who pays those wages, which, again, in the execution of the 2nd death, is His strange act.

It is God's strange act for the reason that He would prefer that all fallen human beings would accept His love. mercy, and grace in what His Son did by coming to this world, living a sinless life, and taken our place in that the wages of sin were paid to Him instead of to those who confessed and repented of their sins, etc.

What saves us is the life, the shed blood of Jesus Christ on the tree of Calvary, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ to minister to the human race as our High Priest. Only those who accept all this benefits from it. Those who reject all this will eventually face the Judge who will one day do His strange act of destroying those who didn't accept Him.