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Satan Challenges God
(As corrected by Gloria Merle Huffman: Wed., 4/13/2016 1:30-7:30 pm EDT; minor edit Wed., 4/15/2020 3:30 am EDT)
[based on “An Easter Story,”[1] presented by Paul Harvey on his radio show
“The Rest of the Story” in or before 1976]
[a.k.a. "The Empty Bird Cage"]
From “Sermons I Never Preached,” by Gloria Merle Huffman
Once there was a minister in a small American town. One Easter Sunday he came to church with an old, rusty, bent bird cage. It was empty, and the little door on it was standing wide open. When it was time for him to give his sermon, the minister set the cage by the pulpit. Some people raised their eyebrows, and, as if in response, he began to preach.
One day Satan and God were having a conversation. Satan had just come from the Garden of Eden, and he was gloating and boasting. "Yes, sir, I just caught a world full of people down there. Set me a trap, used bait I knew they couldn't resist. Got 'em all!"
"What are you going to do with them?" God asked.
Satan replied, "Oh, I'm gonna have fun! I'm gonna teach them how to divorce whoever they've married, how to hate and abuse each other, how to drink and smoke and curse. I'm gonna teach them how to invent guns and bombs and kill each other. I'm gonna really have some fun!"
"And what will you do when you are done with them?" God asked.
"Oh, I'll kill 'em," Satan declared.
"It is not within your authority to kill them," said God, "for it is written, 'The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.' By my own law I have decreed that the wages of sin is death. Because Eve and Adam willfully sinned, it is right and just that all of humanity now perpetually die in the never-ending cycles of birth and death, and that each soul merit everlasting punishment. Only the perfect shall live forever in heaven, but there is none that doeth good, no, not one."
"Nevertheless, I love my people," continued God, "so I have a grand idea: I myself will enter into my human creation and produce a man child, Jesus the Messiah, who is capable of resisting sin and of living a sinless life. He will show the world what I want my people to be like. And I will draw them to My Son.”
"Oh, you don't want those people," Satan objected. "They ain't no good. Why, you'll take them and they'll just hate you. They'll spit on your son, curse him and kill him... You don't want those people!!"
“Yes, this innocent man will be killed,” replied God.“ But when He gives up the ghost and His sinless body dies, I will accept the sacrifice of this one perfect Lamb as full atonement for the sins of all of my people so that they can live and be with me forever."
“Oh, no!” interrupted Satan as he realized what God was saying. “Now you’re upsetting the apple cart. You’re making a terrible mistake!”
God replied, "Shall the clay tell the potter what to do? You were cast out of heaven to the earth for your pride and rebellion, O Lucifer, and your destiny is the everlasting fire of hell prepared for you and all those angels that I created who sided with you.[2] He went on, "But I will save my people, simply because it is my will. And there's not a thing you can do about it. For I am God, and beside me there is no other. Only I can pay the impossible price to myself: all the blood, tears and even the very life of the sinless Messiah whom I will send to suffering humanity. With me, all things are possible, even the impossible price."
"Nah. Never gonna happen," sneered Satan. " I tricked sinless Eve and she tricked sinless Adam. I can do it again with your sinless Messianic Man!" He was referring to his coming temptations of Jesus Christ in the wilderness, where he would appeal to Jesus' pride as he had appealed to Eve's pride.
God answered, "If you so much as dare to try, my Son will resist you and say, 'Get thee behind me, Satan!'"
Satan laughed at God. "Your little Messiah will only be half God and half man, not fully man and fully God at the same time. I'm gonna go to that puny half-of-a-man and bring him down faster'n you can say 'Squat!' He'll be sinning before he knows what hit him."
"You're in the worst case of tunnel vision the world has ever seen," exclaimed God. "Whatever truth is in you has nothing but error and more twisting errors nipping at its heel. But then that's your entire nature."
After a pause, God looked Satan straight in the eye and announced, "The debt is owed to me, and I can call it or dismiss it as I please. I shall pay it myself and wipe it out."
"You can't do that," protested Satan, recoiling. "We're in a two-round fight and I won the first round with just a few slick sound bites. I triggered the fall of man with my sly and crafty cunning. I am the one who tripped the trap and brought death to your creation. I play by your rules. You're trying to get around them."
Satan let that sink in. Then he challenged God: "Admit it: I am not only your equal, I am your superior. You'll never win this one when I get a-hold of your boy!"
God said, "Just watch me!"
Then, believe it or not, God came down from Heaven as God the Holy Ghost and had a Son by an earthly woman named Mary (the new Eve), just as He had promised. In time, that Son Jesus (the new Adam) resisted Satan's temptations, which is the thing that kept Him pure so that He could go through with His mission. One misstep there and He would have blown it. Then when God the Son suffered Death by crucifixion, He, the ever-sinless Son, paid to God the Father the price for sin -- once and forever -- that sinful humanity could never hope to pay. It all happened in what was essentially a one-man show, where God played multiple roles: to create man and condemn him to death for sinning, then become a part of humanity and ultimately pay mankind's debt Himself ... to Himself.
But the story didn't end with Jesus' death, because His sinless death was accepted by God as payment for humanity's debt and that immediately reversed God's Garden of Eden death sentence where "death passed upon all men." God’s death verdict for mankind was struck down on the Cross. As receipt for paying sinful humanity’s debt to God in full, Jesus got a “Defeat Defeat Forever” card with no expiration date, usable as legal tender by every one of God’s people, and which entitles the bearer to “Defeat Death and Get Out of Ever Going to Hell,” good for eternity. Jesus reaped the victory over Death for God's people by rising from the dead in his physical (though changed) body, becoming "the firstfruits of them that sleep." By His glorious resurrection, He demonstrated that He had blasted through Death and was now triumphantly on the other side. He conquered Death, the last enemy, and we shall walk with Him -- who is the Way -- and through Him -- who is the Door -- into eternal life with God.
"For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." --John 3:16
Once more, yesterday's miracle is today's new normal. One by one, as Satan belatedly tries to disrupt God’s beautiful and finished plan, desperately mocking, "It's all a fairytale," God's people escape the death trap and file by faith through the open Door He made for them, entering into His deathless dimension of bliss.
Meanwhile, for every successful save, Satan, unable to quite comprehend his permanent powerlessness, whimpers, “Rats! Forever foiled!”
Then the pastor picked up the empty bird cage and left the pulpit.
____
[1] "Paul Harvey - 'An Easter Story'"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=135&v=s3s8Tdi5Xb4
Transcript:
"Jesus and the Bird Cage" - Paul Harvey
https://www.tonycooke.org/holiday-resources/jesus_birdcage-2/
[2] "What about Satan and the Origin of Evil?"
© 2016, 2019 Gloria Merle Huffman
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[Posted to HuffmanOnTopic, W4-10-19-1203EDT] [Edited subtitle, F4-12-19-1600E] [Edited several portions of the text, W4-17-19-0851E]
[Added Footnote "An Easter Story," M4-22-19-0100E] [Edited 3 links in footnotes to go live, edited subtitle to say "corrected," M4-22-19-1710E]
[Wed., 4/15/2020 3:30 am EDT Edited "He will draw them to me" to say, "And I will draw them to My Son." - John 6:44]