The entity of God and the devil, their work, and their purpose

The entity of God and the devil, 

their work, and their purpose

Woman: Um...

Instructor: What's wrong with you?

Woman: Oh, Instructor... During the last lesson, you said we should know the Bible because there are God and the devil, the two kinds of spirits. But, even though I read the Bible, I can't understand it. 

Instructor: Ha-ha, I will help you. 

Instructor: What do you know about God and Satan? 

Woman: I think God is the Almighty, and Satan is the one who makes people distressed. 

Instructor: Let's figure it out. God created the heavens and the earth and all things(Gn 1:1). He is Spirit(Jn 4:24). He is not a creation but self-existent (Ex 3:13-15)

God: I am who I am. 

Instructor: God created all things, visible and invisible (Col 1:16). 

Woman: The visible thing means the physical world where people live, and the invisible thing means the spiritual world where God and angels live, right?  

Instructor: Very good! That's right. That's why the spiritual world was divided into God's kingdom of heaven, and hell which is ruled by Satan. 

Woman: Um, then I have a question. 

Instructor: Oh? Do you have a question? 

Woman: Who made Satan? If there was no Satan, there wouldn't be hell, right? 

Instructor: Satan who is called the devil, or the dragon, or the serpent of old (Rv 12:9, Rv 20:2), was originally an angel that God made.  

Woman: He is an angel made by God? How come? Doesn't that mean God created Satan? Is God a strange God? 

Instructor: No, he didn't. There is a story of how this angel became Satan. We can know it through Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28. The angel who should have been ruled by God (Ps 103:22) became greedy and arrogant, so he wanted to be God. 

Angel: Um, can I become God? 

Instructor: Because he went against God, he was kicked out of God's kingdom. 

Angel: I am God.

God: How dare you!

Woman: This means that at first he was an angel, but because he was greedy and corrupt, he became Satan, right?

Instructor: Yes. That's right. For example, although a parent teaches a child in hopes that he will become a good person, whether the child becomes a teacher or a criminal is ultimately up to him. 

Woman: Oh, I see. I think God was so sad. I misunderstood God. Before today, I thought God made Satan to make us distressed. 

Instructor: I am very glad to hear that you understand now. 

Instructor: Now, what we need to think about is the relationship between the spiritual world and us. Spirits influence people through thoughts and ideologies because they have no body. And then, depending on which kind of spirit is using us, we can belong to God or Satan. 

Woman: What" You mean those who belong to God are good people and those who belong to Satan are bad people, right? 

Instructor: There is a standard in the Bible regarding this. If you read 1 John, it says that "Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God" (1 Jn 4:1). 

Woman: Test? We should test the spirits that are invisible? Why?

Instructor: It is because Satan, who wanted to be like God, takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as God (2 Thes 2:4). 

Woman: God's temple is a church, right? 

Instructor: Yes. Because God and Satan work in one place, the church, we should distinguish which spirit is working through men, right? 

Woman: Of course. But how can we distinguish the spirits? 

Instructor: First, in John 17:3, it says "Now this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent."

Jesus' words: This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. 

Instructor: In this verse, it says "true" God. 

Woman: True God? 

Instructor: Because there is a false god, he said true God. Satan's spirit calls himself God as a false god. That's why Jesus said "true God" to discern the spirits. In this verse, the true God is the spirit, and the one sent by Him is the flesh, right? On the other hand, the one used by the false god's spirit is a false pastor (2 Thes 2:4-12). 

Woman: I think if the devil comes to a shaman or a Buddhist monk and calls himself God, people will not be deceived. That's why the devil comes to a pastor who believes in God and works through him, right? How can we distinguish a true pastor from a false pastor? Pastors look so holy. 

Instructor: That's why we can't distinguish the spirits by appearance. So, in John 6, Jesus said "the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life" (Jn 6:63). It says that the words are spirit. So a true pastor who is with the true God speaks true words, but a false pastor lies. So if we listen to a pastor's words, we can see what kind spirit is with him, and thus his entity is revealed. 

Woman: I think all pastors preach the word of the Bible. How can we distinguish truth from lies? 

Instructor: Although someone speaks using the Bible, it doesn't mean he preaches the word of God. Since God said His word is the truth (Jn 17:17), telling people the true meaning of the Bible is spreading God's word. According to Jn 3:31-34, he who comes from above speaks of what he saw and heard in heaven, and he who is of the earth if from the earth and speaks of the earth. The Bible speaks of heavenly things (truth), through the things of nature. However, false pastors only know the things of the earth and have never seen heavenly things. That's why they don't know the will of God and then speak their own interpretations, which are lies. For example, God's true pastor correctly interprets the war that will happen in heaven at the Second Coming at the time of Revelation's fulfillment, as a war on earth. 

True pastor: The war promised in the Bible is a religious war, which is a war of doctrines. 

Instructor: Because Satan's false pastor doesn't know the war in Revelation, he says it is Word War III on the earth. 

False pastor: What are you talking about? The war in Revelation is Word War III. 

Woman: Anyone who has studied the Bible will know it's not World War III. It has nothing to do with the Bible, right? It says that false prophets are the ones who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly the are ravenous wolves (Mt 7:15-16). It is the same as that their appearance being like a peaceful sheep, but they sound like wolves. 

Instructor: That's right!

Woman: God and Satan are spirits, so we can't see them nor distinguish them by appearance. That's why we have to discern the spirits as we listen to their words with our ears. 

Instructor: Yes. That's right. 

Woman: In order to distinguish God's spirit from Satan's spirit, we should know truth, right? 

Instructor: Yes. When we know the genuine, we can distinguish it from the fake. In the same say, when we know truth, we can distinguish it from lies. 

Woman: I fully understand. Thank you. Instructor. 

Instructor: Shall we summarize it? Because of people's sin, God left the world and the devil took over people and all things. In order to not return people and things to God, the devil lies and interferes so that people will not find the truth. 

The devil's pastor: I should lie to people in order for them to not know God. 

Instructor: God makes known this fact and gives the truth to restore His lost kingdom. 

God's pastor: To restore the word, I should make people known truth. 

Instructor: So, believers should know what kind of spirit their pastor belongs to, God or Satan. Faith is not based on our emotions of "this feels bad, and this feels good." Faith is the way that we should chose for ourselves based on "God's word is the standard." In order to choose the road of blessings among the roads of blessings and curses before us (Dt 30:19-20), shouldn't we know the true blessings and curses? I hope you will be blessed, not cursed. 

Woman: Yes. I will become a mature believer who can realize truth and lies through the Bible and will distinguish what kind of spirit is with a pastor

Instructor: Amen.