As I listened to a discussion about the difference between predictive and prescriptive foreknowledge I began to see why-and how- Satan had the audacity to challenge God, thinking he could assume and wrest authority over creation from God. Satan is a keen-observing futurist, like Faith Popcorn or other popular futurists whose time comes and goes because of their genius in reading the signs of the times and predicting the next move of the collective human mindset. We are told in Luke 4:13 “When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time.” We had previously been told in Genesis 3:1 that “the serpent was more cunning than any other animal”, I.e. subtle, crafty, etc. (READ: than any other “created being”!!) In 1 Peter 5:8 we are told “Be alert and of sober mind.Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”
He is a genius at watching, waiting, and skillfully wagering on our behavior based on his understanding of human nature. And he is wily, manipulative and luring, putting temptations before us based on his observation of our appetites, vulnerabilities, and past actions.
God knows all this. God has watched satan’s ploys and plays for many millennia. God, on the other hand, is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. He sees to the depth of our soul and knows our every thought. He knows that if we are committed to Him and immersed in His Word, we will be every bit a match for the Adversary in this chess game of life that satan insists on making it. Satan has no such insight about our hearts and minds and how they may be being transformed by encounters with God and His Word. He can only watch what we say and do based on observation.
God has an additional advantage in that His Word is like a homing device, a tractor beam, a Potter’s Wheel that signals, draws, and forms us in its image as we immerse ourselves in it. Satan knows that. It is the only wholly effective tool against him and he will do anything to keep us out of it and away from conversations in prayer with its Author. Distractions, delights, deceptions, diversions, delays, and demonic attacks. We are so easily duped by satan’s tactics….until we learn his ways and begin deploying the tools given to us by God. And then we can simply drop satan with a word. The Word. The one the Lord puts in our mouth in that moment through the power of His Holy Spirit in us.
God foreknows because He is our creator and has intimate access to the depths of our soul. Satan foretells based on his skill at wagering on the predictability of odds. But God is a God of Divine Mystery and is at work in the world and in the hearts and minds of humankind in ways that satan cannot observe and predict. God holds an additional trump card in the process…. redemption. God built into creation from the beginning His plan for redeeming any debt satan might impose against God’s own elect… those who choose to receive God’s gift of salvation and eternal life.
Satan’s time is swiftly coming to an end as God reveals His Truth in one heart after another and satan becomes known as the impotent false prophet that he is. He’s nothing more than a shrewd gambler….. and in the the end, the House always wins.
Satan is locked already in a cell, trying to figure his way out of Death Row, knowing his demise is at hand, but he is still calculating and gaming the system, trying to manipulate those with whom he still has contact and over whom he exercises influence. Meanwhile those who have seen the truth of his impotence walk freely and unafraid.
Some define prophecy as “telling the future”. They operate out of manipulating predictive “foreknowledge” based on observing and intuiting from knowledge of broad assumptions about life. Some know prophecy to be a prescriptive and timely Word from God to His people through His obedient servant to accomplish God’s will.
In all honesty, Curt, I played chess…. or was a pawn in it…. with satan so long that I finally figured out some of his angles. God has shown me that some of the times in the wildernesses in my life were due to my own rebellious wandering. But there were times when I was just pointedly taken there by the Spirit to be tested. Unlike Christ, I failed miserably and not out of naïveté, like Eve, but out of pride, like satan himself did when he had the notion to challenge the Grand Master…… and lost. He was then cast here to our domain to sharpen our wits in a Game in which God had already tipped the table. Satan’s punishment, his own personal hell, is here trying to outwit the goodness and sovereignty of God by manipulating and seeking to destroy God’s creation on earth. God has given him just enough rope to hang himself as God’s people figure out the enemy’s modus operandi and, using the means shown to us by God Himself in Jesus Christ, how to slay the dragon.