God's purpose is to call sinners, and sinners' purposes are to cleave to the Lord. "Cleave" is having unwavering allegiance to the Lord. God calls, and the utmost purpose of mankind is to respond! That process is regeneration - being born again - which all mankind "must be" (John 3:7).
God calls because it is His will that all be saved. Sinners are to cleave to Him for salvation because by no other Name can anyone be saved (Acts 4:12). For regeneration to come about, the sinner's will must harmonize with God's will. God wants that "none should perish" (John 3:16) and sinners want not to perish! Some say they don't care and others so disbelieve in God, that they don't have anyone to save them. That is pitiful; their will is their own will!
Satan has a purpose: It is to delude mankind into believing that death is inevitable and that there is no remedy for perishing forever. Why would Satan have that purpose? He desires to rule the world and the Heaven. He wants to be supreme. He knows that he can't kill God, but desires to have God's throne and his footstool: "Thus saith the Lord, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool" (Isa 66:1).
Remembering that God's purpose for mankind is to call sinners to Him. Well, God has a purpose for Satan: to test Christians' cleavage to Him. Satan's purpose, unbeknownst to him is to test the allegiance of Christians to the Lord, and if it wavers! Christians are to have steadfast faith. The following is the test:
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: Whom resist stedfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world. But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you. (1 Pet 5:8-10)Sobriety and vigilance are characteristics of those who cleave to God! Satan's purpose is to devour the Christian. Steadfast faith is unwavering allegiance; it is what is being tested. That test is tribulation and requires suffering. If the suffering is persevered, those who pass the test are made perfect, established, strengthened, and settled. My hunch is that the end result of the test is to determine who is worthy of glorification because perfection can only be achieved in Heaven.
Satan identifies his purpose as universal kingship. God allowed him temporary life for his purpose: to test his human creation. Hence, God's purpose for Satan and that for himself are not the same! Children of the devil (those not born again according to God's purpose) are like their father: they think their purpose is for pleasure. However, God's purpose for them is that they not perish. Like Satan, sinners' purposes are at odds with God's purpose for them. Regeneration is alignment of our purposes to God's purpose for us. Those who see that truth, to achieve God's purpose, do God's will.
Since sinner's purpose is pleasure, they obtain pleasure by doing Satan's will. Satan's will is that mankind all perish to diminish God. Ironically, when sinners do Satan's will, they self-destruct to promote Satan's self-proclaimed purpose. Allegiance is to Satan whose purpose is to destroy them rather than cleaving to God whose purpose is to save them! That is foolishness at its best.
Pleasure is the barrier between cleaving to God and serfdom to Satan. Pleasure is temporal. At the time of death, pleasure will be one thing: to live forever will be your pleasure. Your will, at death, will be in congruence with God's will. On the other hand, sinners who cleave to Satan and not God, will perish forever.
Of course, even at death, its never too late to cleave, even if cleavage is merely for a moment. However, it's not the mind which cleaves, but the heart. Sinners must want to please God, not save themselves. Hearts harden over time as sinners acclimate to pleasure. Even at death, they continue to cleave to Satan. Isaiah said:
He (God) hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them. (John 12:39-41).We must lift up God in His time not ours. He chooses the time. He has a purpose for everyone, and it is to His schedule. Not Satan, but God tires of rejection and comes to realize that some sinners are reprobate. They are determined to perish come hell or high water, as the saying goes. God has a purpose for everyone: "that none should perish", but if sinners prefer to perish, God allows that.
The most important thing in life is that God's purpose for us be fulfilled: "The Son of man must be lifted up? who is this Son of man" (John 12:34)? He is Jesus. It was Jesus on the pole - his cross - which Moses lift up to save mankind from the poisonous Serpent! The Serent's purpose from God is to bite - shoot those fiery darts - and mankind's purpose is to lift up Jesus to be saved from the fiery darts.
Satan's will is that we all perish, and his purpose is to test whether mankind cleaves to God.
Our will is that we be emancipated from God. Our purpose is to lift God up by looking to the cross for salvation.
God's will is that we look up to Him for salvation. His purpose is to provide eternal life to those who cleave to Him. He created mankind for fellowship, and desires one thing: that His creatures love Him back because He so loves the creatures! Ultimately God's purpose is to love and His will is to be loved.
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