Eph 241 3/18/86
A. The Angelic Conflict and Evidence Testing
1. Evidence testing is Satan’s cross-examination of every witness presented by God in the historical trial of all fallen angels. In human history, man’s thoughts, motives, decisions, and actions are entered as evidence, exhibits, precedents, and arguments in Satan’s appeal trial. Every believer who attains maturity is an argument or witness for the Prosecution against Satan. Evidence testing, then, is Satan’s cross- examination of every witness presented by God.
2. No believer qualifies as a witness until he has attained spiritual maturity, tantamount to the fulfillment of the protocol plan of God.
3. The three stages of spiritual adulthood (spiritual self-esteem, spiritual autonomy, and spiritual maturity) are the prerequisites for facing and passing the three categories of suffering for blessing, providential preventative suffering, momentum testing, and evidence testing. Passing evidence testing as the highest category of suffering for blessing results in the doubling of your escrow blessings.
4. Every believer who attains spiritual maturity is a witness for the prosecution, either in the formal trial of Old Testament history, or in the rebuttal phase of the First Advent and Church Age, or in the closing argument and summary phase of the Second Advent and the Millennium.
5. To qualify as a witness for the Prosecution (i.e., God), the believer must execute the following standard operating procedures.
a. Spiritual self-esteem plus providential preventative suffering means spiritual autonomy.
b. Spiritual autonomy plus momentum testing means spiritual maturity.
c. Spiritual maturity plus evidence testing means glorification of God to the maximum in the historical trial of Satan and all fallen angels.
6. Evidence testing is Satan’s attempt, through his cross-examination of suffering, to discredit those believers who attain spiritual maturity.
7. It appears that Satan always administers evidence testing, but under restrictions imposed by God before the evidence testing begins. For example, Satan was not permitted to kill Job.
8. There are two categories of evidence testing.
a. The relationship to the plan of God Test is illustrated by our Lord Jesus Christ in Mt 4:1-11.
b. The relationship to life test is illustrated by Job.
9. Either category of evidence testing is administered only to the mature believer, for only he is a witness for the Prosecution. Apparently, the spiritual maturity believer does not take both tests, and which one he receives is a matter of the sovereignty of God.
10. The pattern of the relationship with God test is found in the three unique temptations to our Lord Jesus Christ, which were temptations to His humanity only; as God He cannot be tempted. The three parts are:
a. Relationship with the Holy Spirit, Mt 4:1-4.
b. Relationship with the Word of God, Mt 4:5-7.
c. Relationship with the plan of God, Mt 4:8-10.
11. Perhaps the most surprising thing about our Lord’s evidence testing was that instead of performing miracles under His own power, our Lord used the greatest power ever known in the history of the human race. He used Bible doctrine in all three parts of His evidence testing.
a. Bible doctrine is the greatest power the world has ever known; it is far, far greater than God performing a miracle.
b. When God performs a miracle, it requires only His sovereignty. But when a believer uses Bible doctrine and makes correct application and advances in the plan of God through the use of that Bible doctrine, that is the greatest power and the highest function that any member of the human race can attain.
12. Because the first part of relationship with God test involves one’s relationship with the Holy Spirit, category of evidence testing obviously belongs only to the rebuttal phase of the angelic conflict trial. There is no relationship with the Holy Spirit on the part of all believers except in the Church Age, the precedence of which was established by our Lord during His First Advent and incarnation. Therefore, this category of evidence testing applies only to our Lord and the royal family of God in the Church Age.
13. Job took the relationship to life test. After receiving his escrow blessings, it was all swept away in the first part of Job’s relationship to life test. The three parts of his test are:
a. Loss of prosperity, Job 1.
b. Loss of health, social life, and attractiveness, Job 2:1-10.
c. Loss of friends and maligning, Job 2:11 - the end of Job.
14. Job passed the first two parts, failed the third, recovered, and received his blessings back doubled in all three categories after he passed evidence testing.
15. While evidence testing comes quickly, without any notice or warning, and always occurs at a time when least expected, since the believer has reached a peak in his spiritual life, it is completely and totally undeserved suffering. It is very, very severe. However, it never puts on the believer more suffering than he can bear. Only the negative believer functioning under the punitive law of volitional responsibility piles on himself more than he can bear.
16. Evidence testing is the third and highest category of suffering for blessing. When passed by the mature believer, it results in a great phenomenon that occurs perhaps only once or twice in every generation: a doubling of escrow blessings! God isn’t quite saying “Double or nothing,” but it seems like that at the time the evidence testing is administered.
B. Scripture.
1. The pattern of evidence testing is found in Job 1:6-12, 2:1-7; Zech 3:1-2.
2. In Zech 3:1-2, Joshua, the high priest, had attained maturity and was entered as a witness for the prosecution, cross-examined by Satan. “Then He showed me Joshua, the high priest, standing before the angel of the Lord [Jesus Christ], and Satan, standing at his right hand to accuse him. And the Lord [Jesus Christ] said to Satan, `The Lord [God the Father] rebuke you.’”
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© 1989, by R. B. Thieme, Jr. All rights reserved.
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