Project Footstool

BD20-02

It is necessary for us to understand this angelic conflict if we are going to orient ourselves to the plan of God and to the grace of God, and if we are going to be able mature believers. So if you’ll turn to Colossians chapter 2, we’re going to look at two verses this morning primarily in the book of Colossians—Colossians chapter 2 beginning with verse 14. Here we have described the first coming, the first advent of Jesus Christ. “Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way and nailing it to His cross.” The term “blotting out” is a gambler’s term for canceling a debt. We would refer to it as tearing up an IOU. The IOU is something which all of us as sinners owed to God. What we owe to God is perfect absolute righteousness, and satisfying the justice of God.

We have a debt of absolute perfect righteousness which we owe to God. This is demanded by the very character of God, what God is like, the essence of God. Yet we have an old sin nature that makes it impossible for us to produce anything but human good, which Isaiah 64:6 calls filthy rags and which God rejects. Hebrews 6:1 calls this our dead works. 1 Corinthians 3 verses 11-16 calls it our “wood, hay, and stubble.”

This is going to be judged for the unbeliever at the judgment of the Great White Throne, because this is what the unbeliever is going to present in behalf of his sins as payment for his salvation, and it will not be enough.

So, God’s justice must be satisfied, and we have been declared, because of that justice, spiritually dead. Because we have an old sin nature, we are short of His absolute righteousness. God cannot excuse our sins, and He cannot accept our human good. So, we have and IOU, and this verse is referring to that—blotting out. This IOU was torn up by the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross in His sacrifice on our behalf. His divine good was provided for our human good. What He tore up is described here as the handwriting of ordinances, and this refers to the Mosaic Law, specifically the moral precepts of that law.

Remember that morality, such as is expressed in the Ten Commandments, applies to everybody in the human race whether you are a Christian or not, because morality is designed to protect the human race to keep it in existence. God has established certain divine institutions in order to preserve the human race. Moral laws of God are designed to protect those institutions.

So, the handwriting of ordinances, particularly the moral code, was against us. If you look at the moral code of God, we have failed. We have fallen short of this.

So, this is what the Lord Jesus Christ tore up in the form of an IOU. We owe God perfect righteousness because we have violated the moral code. He did something that enabled Him to tear that up—the guilt that was against us.

Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances which was against us and which was contrary to us. It means it was marked against everybody in the human race. All were guilty. He took it out of the way. “Took it” means to lift it up and carry it. Jesus Christ got under the burden of our sins and He removed it at the cross. All of our sins were poured out on Him. He was judged. This is no longer an issue between God and man. Our sins are no longer an issue between us and God. The only thing that’s an issue is whether we would believe this or not.

It is amazing how many people (are unclear on the issue of their sins). Somebody told me again the other day, (they were) listening to a tape and they said, “This is the first time it has ever occurred to me, that I’ve ever realized, that I’m not going to walk into heaven and they’re not going to open the book and pull down a screen and show all my sins.” This person thought that the minute they walked into heaven, the first thing they were going to do was point their finger at her and say, “Now, why did you do this and this…” and list all their sins. No, my friend, you’re never going to hear again about your sins—ever, because every sin you’ll ever commit has already been covered by Jesus Christ. Sin is not the problem. The only reason you will end up in eternity in hell is because you reject Christ. Unbelief is the sin that God will deal with you on—nothing else.

So, all the divine wrath was poured out on Jesus Christ. He took it. He picked it up. He carried all that was due to us. Consequently, all that we could present was useless. Our human good has been rejected. He has made a complete provision. There is no place for human good, either in salvation or in spirituality. I hope you’ve got that straight. Most Christians seem to understand that good works are not going to get you into heaven. But it is something else for most Christians to understand that good works are not going to make you spiritual. Please remember that hell is going to be full of people who were producing human good, and who were very moral people. Some of the worst Christians, some of the most carnal Christians are extremely moral people. Morality is not what makes you spiritual. Being a spiritual Christian is being rightly related to God the Holy Spirit and responsive to doctrine.

Morality will not make you spiritual. However, it is a standard that reflects to us what we owe God that we cannot pay. The worst sins are these mental attitude sins. Some Christians who are very moral are extremely vicious when it comes to their mental attitude, and that’s where the real top grade sins reside.

So, we have a perfect active indicative in the grammar here. We are told that the Lord Jesus Christ has blotted out…, that is He has done something in the past and it continues forever. That’s what perfect means. It’s a permanent action. He did it by Himself. It’s the active voice. He was the one who, alone, took this judgment. Indicative declares that it’s a reality. He has borne our sins. What He did with it was that He took it out of the way—literally from the midst. He removed any case that there could be against us. He canceled our IOU. He did it by nailing it to His cross and His death. The cross then becomes the new tree (1 Peter 2:24) which will exercise our volition.

In the Garden of Eden, man had a tree to exercise his will. He failed. Now God has given us another tree, the tree of the cross. Again you must exercise your will. If you reject that tree, you will die. You will experience spiritual death. You will be separated forever from God in hell. You may be the most moral person in the world this morning. You may be the most sincere person. You may be the person who does all kinds of tremendous good, but it’s all human good. It comes from your old sin nature, and it will never stand up before God.

Now let’s take a look for just a moment at what happens to a soul when a person is born again. This will help you to understand what you’re trying to do as a witness for the Lord Jesus Christ. And by the way, may I remind you again, it is your business to be a witness, but it is God’s business to be a soul winner.

I think the term “soul winner” is not a good term for people to use. I think the very term suggests that if you don’t get out and tell people the gospel, and they believe, that somehow you have failed the Lord. Somebody wrote me about a man who is in the Lord’s work, and said he has finally come to the point where he can get up and preach the gospel, and he can explain to the group how to be saved, and he can go home and lie down at night even if not one single person has believed. He has finally learned how to be a witness. The term “soul winner” suggests unless you win people to conviction to positive volition, you have failed.

Our job is to be witnesses, but when you do witness for the Lord, something takes place. What that something is, is this: First of all, let’s take a look at the soul. That soul has a mind. Now the mind of the unsaved person has self-awareness. This self-awareness is projected (expressed) in terms of pride and self-pity. This self-awareness is completely oblivious to Jesus Christ. It is concentrated on self. How are you going to take an unbeliever’s self-awareness and get it off of himself, and get it on to Jesus Christ? Somehow you have to get some information into his mentality.

Well, we have already learned that a person has a soul, with these various aspects that we’re looking at, and it also has a human spirit down here. This human spirit is the depository of knowledge of God. It is this that feeds up here into the mentality to give information about spiritual things.

Here you are, an unsaved person. You have no human spirit—that’s dead. How are you going to feed information of the gospel, and an understanding of the gospel, in order to make that person aware of Jesus Christ? It is important that you understand that a person is not aware of Jesus Christ, and how to proceed to do this. A lot of gimmickry that is performed in local churches is because preachers are trying to get people to respond. It’s a good that they’re trying to do to get them to respond to Jesus Christ, but because they don’t understand the procedure by which this information, on which they can respond, is received by the unsaved, they devise all kinds of things that cannot use and that God cannot bless. So, their witness is frustrated by Satan.

Here’s what God has provided. There will be no information coming from this dead human spirit. For this reason, God the Holy Spirit comes into the picture. In John chapter 16, you have described what God the Holy Spirit will do. It says that He comes along and He convicts of sin, righteousness, and judgment. That is, He gives basic information directly to the mind of the unsaved. He bypasses the dead human spirit. God the Holy Spirit give information directly to the mind of the unsaved so that they understand the gospel. They become aware of Jesus Christ, and they know what the issue is.

Now, that’s what God the Holy Spirit uses you to do. You explain the gospel and give the person the information he needs to be saved. Then you tell him what do with it—that he is to believe this, to receive this. At this point, you step out of the picture and God the Holy Spirit now brings conviction, sin, righteousness, and judgment. He confronts the individual with the sin of unbelief, the righteous standard of God of which he has fallen short, the judgment which God executed upon Satan, the salvation which is now available, and the judgment that this individual will face if he tries to offer God his own human.

Now this issue is drawn, and along comes Satan. 2 Corinthians 4 tells us what Satan does. When this has happened, Satan moves in on the individual. In 2 Corinthians 4:3-4, we read, “But if our gospel be hidden, it is hidden to them that are lost, in whom the god of this age (Satan) has blinded the minds of them who believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of God, who is the image of God, shall shine unto them.” So, John 16:8 tells us what God the Holy Spirit does, but 2 Corinthians 4:3-4 tells us how Satan moves in to blind the person to the gospel information.

This gives us a clue as to how we should pray for unbelievers to whom we are witnessing. We should pray that the work of God the Holy Spirit will bear fruition. And that He will be free to perform His work, that He will take the gospel message that we have given, and that He will use it to bring conviction; and, that Satan would be defeated in the process of blinding the mentality of that individual to this information. Herein lies the problem. Satan is blinding. God is giving information. There is nothing that can come from the human spirit. Only God the Holy Spirit can give it.

Now the unsaved has the gospel information. The spirit of God has worked. He has brought conviction. He has opened the understanding. The person sees his need. The person sees the problem.

Now at this point, you can frustrate everything by saying, “Alright, now if you will just come down this aisle, you’ll be saved. If you’ll raise a hand, we’ll pray for you and you’ll be saved.” At this point, Satan will lead the preacher to give a human gimmick device, because if there’s anything person wants to do, he wants to do something to be saved. If you can let a person do something to be saved, that’s legalism. That’s getting God’s favor by your human good. Man will respond to that. Vast churches are built on people who have been brought in on the device of doing something to be saved. They made a public move. They made a public demonstration. So, there they sit, under the fantastic delusion that they are born again and they’re going to heaven; but they’re headed for hell as good moral producing their human good just as much as they were the first time they walked into the place.

Alright, we have a volition. Now we have to do something about that too. The mind has been informed. Now the will has to act. It can go positive, or it can go negative. This determines whether a person is born again or not. This is your first exhale toward God, the exhale of faith. Positive volition is expressed by faith in Jesus Christ. This is a non-meritorious act.

Negative volition is expressed through rationalism and empiricism, which are meritorious acts, and by which the gospel is rejected. When you go negative toward the gospel, you remember that you create a vacuum in your soul, Ephesians 4 tells us. Because of this vacuum, you bring into your soul, into your mentality, religion. You bring in doctrine of demons. You bring in all kinds of mental attitude sins. You bring in an attitude of self-righteousness. You are completely diluted concerning your condition. Again, a good moral person things that he’s right with God. He does not understand that his negative volition toward the gospel is going to cost him his soul.

There will be emotion involved in the process of the unsaved coming to grips with eternal life. That emotion will be a response of appreciation for the salvation that God has provided by grace. However, it makes no difference how you feel as to whether you’re saved or not. It’s totally irrelevant. You may not feel like you’re saved at all. But it has nothing to do with your feeling. Salvation is based upon the fact that you have accepted the gospel. You have accepted the truth that Christ has been a substitute that has provided for your need. The Holy Spirit has informed your mind about this. If you do believe this, you come alive at this point right here. Your human spirit leaps into life and you come to the point where you grasp an understanding of the Word of God.

Now your conscience comes into play. Your conscience up here which has been filled with human viewpoint and all kinds of deception now receives a new set of values and standards. You come into action on divine viewpoint. The old sin nature if frustrated. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit and the filling of the Holy Spirit take place. Remember that when you are born again, at the moment of salvation, you are filled with the spirit, you are completely in fellowship with God on a temporal basis and on an eternal basis. At the moment of sin, you fall out of that temporal fellowship until confession is made. But the conscience now is total oriented to God, and a whole new being is created. You are a new creature in Christ Jesus.

Now, in the Scripture, all of this wonderful that we have described here has been provided for us through the Lord Jesus Christ upon the cross. In the Old Testament, the problem of the Satanic conflict that exists against us, the resistance to personal salvation, the resistance to the plan of God and all that God is doing, the solution for this was revealed as far back as Psalm 110:1. David says, “The Lord said unto my lord. Sit thou on my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool.” Here we have the first prophetic revelation of “project footstool.” This is the means whereby God is going to resolve this conflict in the angelic realm.

Let’s look at this verse. “The Lord said to my lord …” You’ll notice that the first “Lord” is capitalized in your English Bible. This is our friend, the Tetragrammaton that we talked about before. In the Hebrew, it looks like this: “jehovah.” That is the great and sacred wonderful name for God. This is the name that is referring to God as individual persons. Remember that when God is referred to as a whole in His godhead, the Hebrew word is “elohim.” “Jehovah” sometimes applies to the Father, sometimes to the Son, and sometimes to God the Holy Spirit. Here, in Psalm 110:1, it refers to God the Father.

So, it is saying that God the Father is saying something to another “lord.” This “lord” is not capitalized. This refers to a different Hebrew word, “adonai.” “Adonai” is a word which can refer to deity or to human beings. This word “lord” can apply to people or to God. It is used here because it is referring to the Lord Jesus Christ. The reason it is used here is because it is seeking to stress the humanity of Christ, the fact that God the Father is talking to God the God-man—the second person of the trinity. God the Father is talking to God the God-man, and thereby stressing His humanity. It’s used to point out the unique person of Jesus Christ.

So, the Father says to the Son, “Sit thou at my right hand.” This, we mentioned a couple of Sundays ago, was one of the doctrines that the great Bishop Pike rejected. He said, “I certainly don’t think that there’s anything like God the Son sitting at the right hand of God the Father. Well here you have this verse which is used many times in the New Testament, and yet by the liberal minds, it is rejected that there is a human being, a man, with a virgin birth, and (with) pure sinless humanity who now resides in heaven.

The word “sit” means to dwell in a place of honor or glory. So, what He is doing here, the Father is commanding the humanity of the Son, who now has entered heaven in His resurrection body, to sit in a place of honor at His right hand. By that act, He has placed a human being above all angels. To be placed at God’s right hand, as we shall see later from the book of Hebrews, God never turned to any angel and said, “Sit here at my right hand.” Only one person has ever been told to sit at the majestic honored place at the right hand of God, and that is God the Son—a human being, a person such as yourself, in His humanity. Now, a human being is higher than angels, and you see of course that this means.

You and I are now a little lower than the angels in our physical structure, in the way we were made. We have limitations upon us that angelic beings do not. But positionally, you are already higher than an angel. You are above all the angelic hosts because you are in Christ, He is in heaven, He is at the Father’s right hand, above the angels, and you are there with Him. The right hand, of course is the place of power (Isaiah 41: 10) or it’s the place of great honor as Colossians 3:1-2 and Matthew 26:64 indicate.

He is to sit here until something happens. The Lord, the Father, said to the Lord, the Son, in his humanity, “Sit at the place of honor and power, my right hand until I make thine enemies …” Now the word “make” is not exactly “make” here. In the Hebrew, it looks like this: “shith.” What is means is actually “to sit until the Father makes an arrangement” of some kind. In other words, it means to set up. Instead of “make,” it means “until I set up” something. What is he going to set up? He’s going to set up a condition where thine enemies will be thy footstool.” And who are the enemies of Christ? Satan and the demonic hosts. They will be the footstool, which is the Hebrew idiom for conquest.

Satan and his angels are to be placed in subjection to a resurrected man. Satan and his angels are all to be in subjection to a human being, the person of the man-God Jesus Christ. Psalm 110:1, therefore, is a very important verse in the Bible which is quoted again and again in the New Testament. We find it in Matthew 22:44, Mark 12:36, Luke 20:43, Acts 2:35, and Hebrews 1:13. Again and again this verse is God’s declaration as to what He is going to do about this conflict with the angels.

Now the angels are not in subjection. Now Satan roams this earth as He pleases. The demons are able to work anyplace they have a chance—on unbelievers or on Christians. But this is going to be changed. When? Let’s go back to Colossians 2:15. This is going to be changed at the second coming of Jesus Christ. At the Second Advent, something is going to be done about this angelic host, and that something is going to be the realization of project footstool.

(Let’s look at) the second advent of Christ. Here are the mechanics of project footstool. “And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.” Now in verse 15, there are three strategic words that you should understand. We’re going to take a little time this morning because they are vital to your understanding of what God is doing in His conflict with the angelic hosts.

The first is “apekduomai.” This word is “having spoiled” principalities and powers, and it means to neutralize the enemy. From the time of the ascension of Jesus Christ, He is seated at the right hand of God the Father. He is there now fulfilling His priestly ministry during this church age. When He returns to the earth in the Second Advent, His enemies will be made His footstool. This is in the aorist tense so it’s looking at a certain point of time, and that’s the point of time when He returns.

He is going to neutralize what? Principalities and powers, which is a technical phrase referring to angel beings. Here it is used of demons and of Satan. Satan and all of his demons are going to be conquered and completely neutralized at the Second Advent. They are not neutralized now. They are in full operation. They are able to do just about as they please, within certain restrictions of the hand of God. But demonic angels and Satan are now having their day. The time is coming when God is going to neutralize what Satan and his demons can do.

Now there’s a second word. This word is “made a shew of them openly.” This is, in the Greek, “degmatizo.” This is another important word. It means “to display captives publicly.” This comes from the Roman army’s custom of bringing captives back from a conquest, marching them in a magnificent parade through the streets of Rome, and then, at the end of the parade, turning the soldiers loose to slaughter the captives. This is parading somebody who is being carried to his doom. Jesus Christ is going to neutralize Satan and the demons when he comes a second time. He is going, at that time, to express a victory over the demonic hosts by eliminating them before the millennium begins.

There is a third word. That is “triumphing over them.” In the Greek, this is “thriambeuo.” This means “to lead in a triumphal procession.” This word comes from way back in classical Greek in the fifth century, B.C. There it was used for a fraternity, the Bacchus fraternity, which worshipped the God of wine. When the fraternity would get together and sing a hymn to Bacchus the wine God, and it was called a “thriambos,” from this same word. It was a hymn of praise to the God of wine and they would parade through the streets wearing goat’s heads and singing their hymn of praise. Basically, (that’s what) the word means: “to lead in a triumphal procession.”

There’s something important to notice about these words. Without getting into the grammar, Greek grammar says the action of aorist participles always come before the main verb. It goes in this way. The angelic enemy is going to be neutralized, “having spoiled” comes first. When Jesus Christ comes first, all of Satan and his demonic hosts are going to be neutralized from their power. Secondly, the next thing that’s going to happen is the angelic enemy is going to be led in a “thriambos” procession, in a victory march under Jesus Christ and His bride the church. They’re going to be led, but to what? To a point where they experience destruction, which is the main verb here, (and) the angelic enemy is destroyed. How does He destroy them? By removing them from the earth.

Remember that this is all in preparation for the millennial earth. And here’s how God is going to take care of the satanic influences that are in the world today. The more we get into the study of Satan, the more appalled I think you are going to be at the influence of Satan and demons in our society in our day--upon Christian and non-Christian alike. Now that has got to be removed. The reason we can’t have perfect environment upon this earth, (and) the reason we can’t solve the problems of the world is because Satan and his demons are free to operation.

Well, God is going to bring all that to an end with operation footstool. He is going to come back. He is going to neutralize the satanic host. He is going to lead them in a triumphal procession as captives, and then He is going to remove them from the millennial earth. How is He going to do that?

Well, this brings up some very interesting points. Let’s summarize them. Israel is no longer the representative of God on this earth. The book of Leviticus chapter 26, you can check this for yourself sometime, gives several stages of discipline that God warned would come upon the Jewish nation if they rejected the Word of God. The fourth stage of discipline that God predicted for His people was a stage where they would be dominated by a military power while they still resided in the land of Palestine. Then you’ll see in Leviticus 26 there is a fifth stage of discipline. That is where a military not only dominates them, but takes them out of their land and scatters them as slaves. In 63, B.C., the Roman General Pompeii came in, Pompeii the Great. He took Jerusalem, and the fourth stage of discipline reoccurred over the Jewish people. They were now under a foreign military power, and still in the land.

Then, in the year 70, A.D., in August of that year, Titus, with his three Roman legions tore Jerusalem apart stone from stone. (He) slaughtered something a million-and-a-half Jews, and scattered them as slaves throughout the world. The fifth stage of discipline descended upon the Jewish people, and they are still under it today. So for this reason, they are no longer God’s representative on this earth. The Jews today are under a double curse.

If you happen to be here as a Jew this morning, and you are unsaved, I can tell you you’re under a double curse of God. You’re under the curse of the fifth stage of discipline, and you’re under the stage of spiritual death because you have an old sin nature. A gentile is only under the curse of spiritual death. If you are a Jew and you have received as your savior, you are removed from the discipline and the judgment of spiritual death, and you are also removed from the judgment of the fifth stage of discipline because you are no longer a Jew. You are now a Christian, and you move into a different category.

Alright, point number one is that the Jew is no longer the representative of God on this earth. Point number two is that the church, which replaces Israel, is called the body of Christ (Acts 2:47, 1 Corinthians 12:12-14, Ephesians 1:22-23, 2:16, 4:4-5, 5:23-24, Colossians 1:18). Many verses speak of the church as the body of Christ. The body refers to the church on earth as the bride will refer to her when she’s in heaven. The head of the body is Jesus Christ. He’s seated at the right hand of the Father until project footstool is completed.

Point number three (is that) the Body of Christ is being prepared on earth by means of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is an act by God the Holy Spirit upon every person who believes the gospel. At the point of salvation, he is baptized into Christ. That is, he is placed into union with Jesus Christ. It began on the day of Pentecost in 30, A.D. The mechanics of the baptism of the Holy Spirit is found in Colossians 2:10. So the body is being built here on earth. That is, it is being built by means of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is not something I could offer you as a Christian. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is what happens at the point of regeneration, and it’s the way that God is building up the body of Christ.

Number four: When the body of Christ is completed, the rapture will occur (1 Thessalonians 4:16-16). We don’t know when this (will) come to an end. But when it does, it will be a unique climax for the angelic conflict.

Number five: Once the church is resurrected, it become the bride of Christ in heaven. This bride is going to be prepared. First, she gets a resurrection body (1 Corinthians 15:51-57, 1 John 3:1-2, Philippians 3:21). Secondly, the bride loses her old sin nature in her marriage to the lamb (Philippians 3:21). Thirdly, the bride’s human good, her filthy rags, are burned (and) removed. This is an occasion that takes in heaven while the tribulation period is taking place on earth.

Number six: The bride returns with Jesus Christ in the Second Advent. That’s why in Colossians 2:15, we had these aorist tenses—these point actions when these things take place that Christ does to the demons. 1 Thessalonians 3:13 and Revelation 19:6-8 speak about the return of the bride with Christ.

Number seven: At the second coming of Christ, with the bride, comes project footstool. Here is how the church is involved with project footstool. It takes place at the second coming. Satan is then in prison (Revelation 20:1-3). Demons are removed from off the face of the earth (Zechariah 13:2 and Colossians 2:15—which we have looked at on the order of these events here—neutralizing, parading, and destroying. How is He going to destroy? He’s going to destroy them by removing them from operation on this earth, along with Satan.

This has suggested to some people, and maybe the suggestion is well taken, than there will be as many believers in the church (born again believers in the body of Christ) as there are demons in the world. So … one believer, because he is positionally in Christ, who is now in heaven, and therefore that believer is superior to every demon being—so that one believer, superior now to the demons, will get rid of one demon from this earth. There will be as many believers as there are demons, and one believer gets rid of one demon on this earth. That may well be the case. The millennial earth is free of both Satan and the demons.

Number eight: Removal of Satan and the demons from the earth under project footstool will change the environment of the earth. With Satan and the demons gone, there will be no more religion on the earth. With unbelievers gone, there will be no more influence from them. Satan’s world system will be destroyed since he won’t be here to run it. This will be a time for new spiritually (Job 2:28-29). The verbs there in the Hebrew speak about ecstatics, beside yourself in joy. In the church age, emotions and ecstatics have nothing to do with spirituality. Be sure you understand that. In the church age, emotions and ecstatics have absolutely nothing to do with being spiritual. This is a satanic fraud. But in the millennium, emotions and ecstatics are going to have a lot to do with spirituality. The tongues and the healings today are frauds. They are satanically influenced. They are of demonic origin. These are not of God.

There is a conflict in the angel realm. There are different kinds of demons—some imprisoned, some free. The fallen angels have been assigned to the lake of fire. Matthew 25:41 tells you about that. Now this raises an interesting question. Did it ever occur to you to ask the question, “Why is it that out in eternity past, a condition took place where Satan rebelled, the book of the Revelation indicates that a third of the angels rebelled with him, they took sides, the lines of drawn, and God passed judgment? And out there in eternity past, God proceeded to build a place of fire and brimstone. We commonly refer to it as hell. Matthew 25:41 tells you about that, and it’s in the perfect tense which means it happened in the past and it continues. Why didn’t God send Satan and the demons into that place He prepared for them?”

You read about this place in Revelation 20. It’s described as a place still which God has prepared for Satan and his angels, when it explains why human beings end up in there. Why didn’t God (already) put them in there? We almost seem to have implied here; the old question came up: “Are you telling us, God, that you are going to cast your angel beings that you made into a place like hell?” Now you may perhaps honestly say to yourself, “Yes, you know, I sometimes thought that is a terrible thing to think that here’s somebody I know, somebody I think a lot of, but who is an unbeliever, and to think that all day and all night, 24 hours a day, that person is going to be in the most excruciating pain.” If you can think back of sometime when you were physically ill, and just experienced pain; and to experience that all the time. Sometime when you were burned, and you think, “That is horrible to contemplate.”

And the question comes up, “Can God be a god of love and do that?” We can almost see how Satan rose up and said, “God, how can you be a good of love and send us to a place like that?” And what he did was impugn the justice of God. And God said, “I’m going to show you that I am a just god.”

And here’s where man comes into the picture. God creates a man in a perfect environment. That man falls, and now God brings judgment upon him. God’s justice cannot excuse it. God’s righteousness can take nothing less than being absolutely perfect. How does God show his love? How does God prove that He is a god of love? By all that we have looked at in the way of the solution of the cross. For God removed the problems to His own justice and to His own righteousness, and every time a sinner believes the gospel, the Bible says the elect angels of heaven send up a great big cheer. Why?

Because they’re standing there and they’re looking over at the demon angels, and once more they’re sending up a cheer because everybody who believes the gospel proves how just and fair God is. There will be nobody in hell, as terrible a place as that will be, who is not there by his own choice. Because a god of love has demonstrated His love by providing a way out at His own great personal expense. And operation footstool is going to be the climax of what God is now permitting Satan, so to speak, to have a delayed execution of sentence.

It is one thing to be judged. We have over 650 people in this country who are on death row because they have been condemned to die, but the Supreme Court of the United States is now considering whether God is right or wrong in saying that when a person commits willful murder, that person’s life should be taken. The United States government is not sure that this is not cruel and unusual punishment, and they’re going to check God out on this business of capital punishment. Until that happens, all 50 states have placed a hiatus on executions. Over 650 people are under sentence.

This is what’s happened to Satan. He’s under sentence, he’s doomed, he’s judged, (and) he’s finished. But the execution: Why was it delayed? The place where he is going is ready. Why was it delayed? Until God disproves the insult to His integrity, to His justice, to His righteousness, to His love, and to His character with which Satan has impugned Him by challenging Him because He condemned the angelic hosts to hell.

Now you’re going to come up after the service and say, “Did God provide a salvation for the angels?” Did God provide a way that they could be saved?” The Bible is silent on this. I’ll save you the question now. He may have. In any case, there was a condition by which the angels made a choice. They could have chosen to have been elect forever, or they could have chosen to have been fallen forever, and that’s what happened. Now God, through you and me, by what He has done for use, through operation footstool, is demonstrating that He is a fair and just and loving God. When He’s through, nobody will be able to point a finger at him, least of all Satan, and say, “You were unfair. You were cruel. You were not a kind being.” When you hear this among human beings, remember project footstool.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1971

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