The Great War Behind All Wars:
Satan’s Hatred Against Allah (part 4)
Sin is not merely a taboo, the doing of
an act that Allah has arbitrarily prohibited; it is the cherished doubt
of God’s character of love, which leads to the desire to rise higher
than our created position under him. There is, and can always be, only
one Allah, therefore for Satan or man to desire to be "like the
most High" requires that we push him off his high and holy throne
and take his place. This was Satan’s ambition in his attempted coup;
and when he persuaded man to join him, he brought sin and evil into the
world. "Sin entered the world through one man [Adam], and death
through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all
sinned."18
There is no other explanation of why
death is universal! A proud, unbelieving person will not wish to
acknowledge this sober truth that Allah’s Word discloses, but the
world is too full of evil, suffering and death for anyone to
successfully deny that sin is the cause of it all. Satan’s principle
of self-seeking, selfishness, and rebellion against Allah is everywhere.
"The carnal mind is enmity against God."19 This
"enmity" is deeply ingrained within us, because the prophet
Jeremiah wisely says, "The heart is deceitful above all things and
beyond cure. Who can understand it?"20 Sin deceives us, so
that we cannot even understand ourselves, except in the light of Allah’s
revelation.
Since "enmity" is like a seed
planted, what kind of fruit does it produce? If it is allowed to
germinate in a human heart, take root and grow, everyone knows well what
the fruit will be: murder or the attempt to murder. It is true that many
people hate others and yet do not actually pull a trigger or poison
them; and the reason is that their "enmity" is mercifully
restrained by the good Spirit of God in one way or another. If that
divine restraint is removed, murder always follows because
"whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer."21
The desire becomes father to the deed.
Throughout long ages, the enemy, Satan,
has brought misery, sickness, hatred, wars, corruption, death, into this
fair earth. He caused persecution, especially against the true
worshippers of Allah, trying to wipe them from the earth. Fortunately,
he could not succeed, for Allah protected his faithful believers who
were always as "strangers and pilgrims" in an alien world.22
Allah counted Satan’s enmity and persecution as directed against himself.
In fact, Satan’s enmity is primarily directed against God, not
man. His persecution of Allah’s worshippers is an effort to persecute
God in the same way that a man’s enemy may attempt to get at him by
harming his children. Allah’s love for his faithful worshipers in an
alien world is like that of a father for his children: "Like as a
father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear
him."23
Satan’s fierce hatred against Allah
was yet to find a target. When our first parents invited Satan in as
"the prince of this world,"24 Allah told them of the
results of their sin, but he did not leave them to their ruin. He
immediately showed them another facet of his divine character — that
of being a Deliverer, Redeemer, and Saviour. This aspect of himself had
not been known before, because sin had not yet entered his world. In
addition, therefore, to being our Creator, our Father, and our God, he
must become our Saviour too, or he will deny his own attributes as
"Lord of the worlds, the Beneficent, the Merciful" One.
Allah
said, "I will put enmity …" |
