The Eternal Fire

The following excerpt is taken from What Every Christian Should Know About Satan. Order your copy in print, Kindle, or Audible versions here.

In Matthew 24-25, Jesus is on the Mount of Olives with his disciples, responding to their questions about the future destruction of the temple and the end of the age. He closes out the so-called Olivet Discourse with the parable of the sheep and goats, revealing the preparation of a final place of judgment for Satan, evil spirits, and unbelievers.

A key verse reads: “Then he [the Son of Man] will also say to those on the left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels!’” (Matt. 25:41).

The central theme of this parable is that Christ separates believers from unbelievers at his return. Jesus also makes it clear that all angelic and human rebels are banished from his presence. This passage deals with human works, not as a condition of salvation, but as evidence of one’s regard for the Son of Man.

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The One for Whom Hell is Prepared

The following excerpt is taken from What Every Christian Should Know About Satan. Order your copy in print, Kindle, or Audible versions here.

The Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Massachusetts is well into its third decade of operation and has yet to report a single breakout. The SBCC, as insiders call it, has earned its reputation as the most technologically advanced and secure prison in the world – even more secure than Russia’s notorious Black Dolphin Prison, or the ADX prison in Colorado, dubbed the “Alcatraz of the Rockies.” 

Roughly six hundred corrections officers guard Souza-Baranowski’s fifteen hundred prisoners. But just to be sure, the omniscient eye of a robotic overlord carefully monitors every inch of the facility. More than forty graphic-interfaced computer terminals drive a keyless system that controls every aspect of the prison, from doors to the water supply. If that’s not enough, three hundred and seventy high-definition cameras record everything at all times. Plus, a taut-wire fence and microwave detection system guard the perimeter. 

If you think you can simply snip a few wires or pull the plug on the entire system, think again. SBCC is one of the only U.S. prisons designed to run entirely on solar and hydroelectric power. Oh, and for anyone trying the old-school method of digging out, the prison was built using the highest-strength concrete and tool-resistant steel available. Hollywood blockbuster Escape Plan to the contrary, not even Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone could bust out of this place.

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Satan: The Destroyer (Part 5)

The following excerpt is taken from What Every Christian Should Know About Satan. Order your copy in print, Kindle, or Audible versions here.

[Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, or Part 4 of this brief series on Satan: The Destroyer. This is the final installment.]

Satan seeks not only to destroy our spiritual lives – our confidence in the Lord, our testimonies, our spiritual disciplines – but our physical lives as well. In The Strategy of Satan, Warren Wiersbe points out that Satan targets our bodies for a number of reasons. 

First, our bodies are temples where God resides (1 Cor. 6:19-20; Phil. 1:20; 1 Pet. 2:9). “This means when Satan attacks your body, he is attacking the one means God has for revealing his grace and love to a lost world. Creation reveals the power, wisdom, and glory of God; but Christians reveal the grace and love of God.”

Second, our bodies are God’s tools (Rom. 6:12-13). Just as he employed the natural abilities of Noah to build an ark, and the skills of Bezalel and Oholiab to construct the tabernacle, the Lord uses our bodies as his hands and feet to carry out the Great Commission. 

“Just as God the Son had to take on a body to accomplish his work on earth, so the Holy Spirit needs our bodies,” writes Wiersbe. The members of your bodies are tools in the Spirit’s hands to help build the church here on earth. We should never minimize the stewardship of our bodies. “The Christian who is careless about his health or safety is playing right into the hands of the destroyer.”

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The Glorification of the Saints

This is another in a series of excerpts from What Every Christian Should Know About the Return of Jesus, released by High Street Press and available at Amazon.com. 

Memphis Belle is one of the most celebrated aircraft of World War II. Named after the girlfriend of chief pilot Robert Morgan, the lumbering B-17F Flying Fortress carried the first U.S. crew to complete twenty-five combat missions over Europe before returning to America.

Based in England, Belle coursed through flak-filled skies over France and Germany in 1942-43. The 10-man crew battled Nazi fighter planes and delivered its payload before returning to base through the same menacing skies. The crew’s survival through more than two dozen missions was rare indeed. The Army Air Forces lost 30,000 airmen in battles against Nazi Germany. During the heaviest fighting, U.S. bomber-crew airmen had a one-in-four chance of survival.

For a time after the war, however, Memphis Belle sat outdoors, neglected, until an ambitious restoration project began, requiring more than 100 workers and thousands of hours to scrape paint, bend metal, and fabricate parts. In 2018, on the 75th anniversary of Belle’s historic 25th mission, the fully restored legend was reintroduced to the public at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio.

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Satan: The Destroyer (Part 4)

The following excerpt is taken from What Every Christian Should Know About Satan. Order your copy in print, Kindle, or Audible versions here.

[See posts #1, #2, and #3 on Satan: The Destroyer]

In this post, we continue our examination of 1 Peter 5:6-9:

Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your cares on him, because he cares about you. Be sober-minded, be alert. Your adversary the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion, looking for anyone he can devour. Resist him, firm in the faith, knowing that the same kind of sufferings are being experienced by your fellow believers throughout the world.

Prowling, roaring, ravaging

Peter depicts Satan as a prowling, roaring, and voracious lion, seeking “anyone he can devour.” First, he prowls around (peripateo – to make one’s way; to make due use of opportunities). This harkens back to Job 1:7 and 2:2, in which the Lord asks the satan where he has come from. “From roaming through the earth,” the adversary replies, “and walking around on it.” According to Marvin Vincent, the word peripateo gave identity to a sect of Greek philosophers known as Peripatetics, who walked around while teaching or disputing.  Satan is the consummate Peripatetic – always on the move, and always looking for a fight.

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