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But possession of KNOWLEDGE has neither solved troubles
nor prevented evils. In the decade of the 1960's, human knowledge
DOUBLED, yet the problems and evils doubled also. God placed,
apparently, a third of all the angels upon earth at its creation.
Their superior knowledge did not prevent rebellion, sin, and
worldwide chaos, darkness and destruction. Angels had superior
KNOWLEDGE, superior POWERS, were endowed with FREE CHOICE -- and
still all that KNOWLEDGE did not safeguard against misuse and SIN
-- they chose rebellion and EVIL.
Now consider further. God could have created angels in
such a manner that they could not rebel or sin. That is, so that
they would have been UNABLE to do wrong. But then they would have
had to be mere automatons -- like an automatic mechanism -- without
thought, choice, or CHARACTER. And an automatic mechanism is not
what God wanted to create.
Perhaps God was proving things. The angels under Lucifer
were holy -- and Lucifer himself, sealing up the sum of wisdom,
perfection and beauty -- created perfect! Yet he led the
rebellion, and evidently induced his angels to follow him in
super-sin. Their experience proved -- as humans have since proved
-- that KNOWLEDGE ALONE will not guarantee right performance. A
third of all the angels did deliberately turn to evil.
So possession of vast KNOWLEDGE, and endowment with FREE
CHOICE does not constitute perfect righteous CHARACTER. Neither
does it prove that the remaining two-thirds of the holy angels will
not turn to SIN. It merely leaves the attainment of perfect,
righteous CHARACTER uncompleted as of now.
But now look at GOD HIMSELF, and consider what He must have
considered. God Himself possesses PERFECT RIGHTEOUS CHARACTER.
God will not sin. God will not go contrary to the perfect, holy
spiritual LAW which He created and set in living, active inexorable
motion, to cause and produce ALL GOOD. God has so set Himself that
He CANNOT SIN.
So here we have the state of things, as God saw them, after
the sinning Devil and demons were cast back down to the earth they
had RUINED! When the earth first was created, the angels SHOUTED
FOR JOY! There was HAPPINESS, joy, ecstacy, perfect PEACE on the
earth as long as THE GOVERNMENT OF GOD was administered on earth.
Can we see, therefore, that God had these facts to
consider: That immortal beings possessing GREAT KNOWLEDGE and
freedom of choice without proven RIGHTEOUS CHARACTER could not
guarantee the PRESERVING of what God had CREATED here. Then also,
that beings possessing the perfect holy and righteous CHARACTER
that God possesses WOULD preserve and maintain God's CREATION.
This led of necessity to the great PURPOSE God had in mind for
creating and putting MAN on the earth.
God's overall PURPOSE in creating and putting man on earth,
therefore, was DUAL: