Did God Create A Devil?

Is there a devil? Many people talk about the devil and Satan. Others scoff and say it’s just superstition and imagination. But is there a devil? According to most Christians the Bible is supposed to teach that the devil is “the god of this world.”

What does the Bible actually teach? To find out let’s look back to the very beginning in Genesis 1:1. “In the beginning God ….” God was before all. The next word in the King James version is “created.” “God created.” He created the heaven and the earth.

But the very next verse says this: “The earth was without form, and void.” The Hebrew words for “without form, and void” are tohu and bohu. Translated into English they mean chaotic, in confusion, waste, and empty.

When God created the heaven and the earth, did He create this earth originally in a state of confusion? Did He create it all topsy-turvy and chaotic?

World NOT Created in Chaos

We read in I Corinthians 14:33 that “God is NOT the author of confusion.” God is the author of peace. God is the author of order and of law.

Why would He create the earth in disorder and then have to straighten it out? That doesn’t make sense! One scholar points out that the Hebrew word for “created,” bara, used in Genesis 1:1, “implies that the creation was a perfect work.” That very word “created” implies a perfect and a beautiful order and system, not chaos or confusion!

The book of Job shows God talking with Job about the creation. God is saying to Job, “Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?” There is the implication here that Job had directed the building of some very great edifice — such as the great pyramid of Giza in Egypt. Job was righteous and somewhat proud of his accomplishments. God was whittling him down to humility by a comparison of accomplishments.

God continues, “Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it? Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened [margin, “sunk”]? or who laid the corner stone thereof; When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?” (Job 38:4-7.)

It is significant that the great pyramid is a building where the corner stone is not laid in the foundation, but the final stone to be laid — at the pinnacle. The “morning stars” are light-(truth-) bringing angels and archangels, according to Biblical interpretation of symbols. As creations of God, they also are referred to as “all the sons of God.” So this, too, implies a perfect and glorious creation of the earth.

Is The End Of The World Near?

zenzoneforum.com

The self-proclaimed Doomsday prophet Harold Camping had predicted a May 21, 2011 date to be the End of the World when 200 million people will Rapture and the earth will be struck with series of violent natural disasters. Believers abandoned their careers and sold all their earthly belongings in preparation.

According to Camping, the prediction of the date was calculated using references in the Bible, particularly Genesis Genesis 7:4 (“Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth”) and 2 Peter 3:8 (“With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day”).

According to Camping, “God’s wrath was supposed to begin in New Zealand and then race across the globe, leaving millions of bodies wherever the clock struck 6 p.m. But the hours ticked by, and New Zealand survived. Time zone by time zone, the apocalypse failed to materialize.”

It’s worth noting that Camping made a similar prediction in 1994, which received little publicity. This time, however, the story headlined across newspapers around the globe because we are witnessing unparalleled wars and rumors of wars. The Middle East is in meltdown, Western nations are collapsing due to massive debt crises and the entire globe is being pummeled in an unprecedented wave of natural disasters.

The idea of an “the end of the world” no longer seems so far fetched in light of what we see happening today, but we still have to look to the Bible for our answers. Matthew 25:13 states that we cannot know the exact day or hour of Christ’s return—only the Father knows that. However, this doesn’t mean we can ignore the sign of the times.

In Matthew 24:3, Christ’s disciples asked Him for signs of His coming and of the “end of the world”— or the end of the rule of man. The disciples understood this as Christ returning and establishing the Kingdom of God on this Earth, headquartered in Jerusalem. Of course they didn’t have all the details, so they asked for signs of His return.