by Anthony F. Buzzard

Satan, the Devil, took Jesus up to a very high mountain and showed him in a vision all the kingdoms of the present evil age and their glory. Notice that kingdoms are full of their own glory—they are even now. Look at the pageantry and the marvelous things that happen when nations show off—not the ones that have these awful people marching with their tanks. That’s all going to be put to an end when Christ comes back. But there is a glory in what kingdoms do.

And then the Devil said to him, “All these things I will give you.” But God will give them, not the Devil. And the text that people don’t read enough is Jeremiah 27:5: God has made the world and all the people on it and all the animals, and He wants to give it to the people who are pleasing in His sight. Isn’t that amazing? How would you like to be given the world? Anybody moved by that? That’s astonishing.

The Devil is playing off of that text, and he’s playing God: “I’m the Devil. I’m going to do what God’s going to do.” The Devil is trying to be God—that’s his problem. Satan is said to be “the god of this age” (2 Corinthians 4:4). And 1 John 5:19 says the whole world lies in his power. That’s why the millennium hasn’t started yet, because in the millennium the Devil cannot deceive anybody any longer. Is that something to be thrilled about? You don’t murder babies in the womb in that kingdom—absolutely not. You will not be permitted to. If you even imagine having sex outside of marriage, that would be absolutely finished.

Wow.

We Christians are not to be part of this evil system. I’m a green-card person in the U.S.A. I’m very grateful to be so. I drive on the same “wrong” side of the road as Americans do, and I pay the same taxes exactly. But I’m a green-card holder, and I’m not part of the system, so they will not ask me to join the army, for example. I’m a citizen of a different Kingdom. I’m a green-card person—and so was Jesus.