Excerpt from Eternity...The Wager
Earth’s fate hangs in the balance as humanity stands condemned in Heaven’s Supreme Court of high crimes against God, themselves and nature. The Accuser, architect of mankind’s fall from grace, leverages man’s sins to demand the immediate commencement of the Biblically forewarned “End of Days.”
A Brief History of Eternity lays the foundation for Eternity...The Wager by reaching back before the time itself to uncover pre-history. There we find the unimaginable Luciferian rebellion against God in Heaven itself. In response God offers His glorious albeit fallen angels the options of summary judgment or a Trial. A Trial that continues to this very hour and which will soon culminate in a Heavenly War spilling onto Earth...
A Brief History Of Eternity
Chapter 1
The Wager
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
Shakespeare's Hamlet
Have you ever wondered what was before time and space? Who or what came before matter and the dimensions that comprise our Universe?
Eternity.
Vast, eternity stretches backwards for ages without number. Once only a single Heaven existed, filled with God and angels. Angels so glorious that even then the least among them possessed a magnitude of intelligence, power and majesty still incomprehensible to the human race.
In the perfection of eternity, prior to the singularity that created our Universe, Heaven was shaken by an unprecedented event! A Rebellion, led by none other than Lucifer, the most glorious of the three great Archangels.
A Rebellion joined by a billion of Lucifer's brothers...
God, who’s benevolence had shielded creation from the full majesty of Omnity, quelled the insurrection before it began.
Omnipresent, He addressed Himself to all participants of the Rebellion.
Omniscient, with all futures open before Him, He offered the rebells one of two choices:
The first was immediate and summary judgment for high treason by everlasting punishment in a Lake of Fire, an environment great and terrible enough to forever imprison such a myriad of glorious beings.
The second was a Trial, unlike any proceeding throughout eternity, over which God would preside as Judge. Heaven’s Supreme Court would hear the cause behind the revolt. Witnesses would present evidence, testifying as to why Lucifer should be allowed to rule.
Omnipotent, God commanded the Rebellion make their choice. With one voice they chose the Trial appointing Lucifer to prosecute their case as Accuser or Devil. The Archangel of Worship, who in eternity had walked on the Stones of Fire, would now champion their cause against Heaven and the Almighty.
An Agreement was drafted to bridge the gap between the Creator and His fallen creation. Trillions of points and counterpoints were adopted to enforce guidelines for all parties during the proceeding and over the vast ages it would span.
At the core of the Agreement lay a Wager. It specified that a lessor Heaven and Earth would be created for the purposes of providing a proving ground and as well as a prize.
The Wager’s stakes were unprecedented. Should Lucifer win, the Rebellion’s sentence would be commuted and the soon to be created physical Universe would be theirs. Should he loose, he and his fallen angels would be forever consigned to a Lake of Fire.
The terms of the Wager were simple. A tally of all sentient life would help determine the victor. At the end of time, every soul in Heaven would speak for and every soul in hell against God.
So it was agreed that God would allow creation to act as jurors while still remaining the Eternal Judge and thus retaining the right to render the final verdict.
As befitting the nature of the Wager, the proceedings would be no sham. The only certainty would be the finality of the decision.
The existence and specifics of the Wager were sealed, it’s details known only to Lucifer and Omnity Itself. Furthermore, it was decided that either party revealing the nature of the Wager would be disqualified and their victory forfeit.
Lucifer agreed to the Wager for obvious reasons, his failed Revolt leaving him few options.
God’s reasons remained a mystery.
A mystery long unsolved. Who among men would ever believe their existence to be a result of a cosmic bet? In the course of history few theorized the astounding truth of God’s motives. Those who did so based their theory on three conditions necessary for the revolt of such wise and glorious beings.
First, even among the angels, Omnity must conceal the full extent of Their power and glory. Second, their had never been a Revolt before. Third, in light of the combined might and wisdom of Lucifer and his angels, the Rebellion had reason to believe they could win!
As for God, whatever other reasons the Trinity had for entering into the Wager, one was certain. Heaven had never seen it’s Creator’s wrath. This being the case, before excising the cancer of so great an angelic Rebellion, Omnity must first administer anesthesia. Before enacting so awful a judgment against a billion of unimaginably glorious and ancient beings, God would first dare an even more awe-full display of inconceivable mercy.
The Agreement
A living document, the Agreement grew in ways never seen or imagined before, reflecting both the brilliance of its architects and seriousness of its nature.
Within it’s scope lay negotiated plans and strategies inconceivable to a lessor mind than Lucifer’s. Foremost among them were blueprints requiring God’s creation of what would be called the First Heaven where aspects of the Agreement and it’s Wager would be played out in time, space and matter.
Lucifer, both unfit and unwilling to continue as Archangel of Worship, became Satan or the Adversary. Even so, as per the Agreement’s guidelines, he and his fallen angels retained all their former resplendence, power and privilege including unrestricted access to Heaven and creation.
The Devil, assisted by the greatest of his fallen cohorts, spent eons designing their heavenly defense and negotiating their devilish plans for the physical universe being created.
And God had plans of His own.
The rebellion would remain free, able to spread itself throughout the Three Heavens (a physical Universe, the abode of God and the inter-dimensional realm between them) through any and all methods other than force. The use of force would be relegated to beings of the same nature. Angelic clashes would not be tolerated in the Courtroom or anywhere else within the Third Heaven.
Any deviation from the Agreement by either side anywhere in creation would result in banishment from the Third Heaven and/or imprisonment in chains of darkness for the duration of the proceedings.
In time the Universe was ready the stage was set for Heaven’s drama to unfold. On Earth man was added to the Garden of Eden, falling to the Serpent’s temptation. Heaven’s court watched in stunned silence, astonished there was no objection from God’s Advocate.
As agreed, a limited number of personal Earthly appearances were made by both Counselors. More frequent were angelic interactions with humanity as strategies, like wheels within wheels, were forwarded and frustrated by opposing sides.
During ancient times certain fallen angels found the daughters of men fair, taking them at their pleasure and so ancient mythology was born. Human and fallen angelic offspring became persons of great renown for both their physical and mental prowess.
These titans founded cities and civilizations, greatly influencing early mankind. They and their offspring produced the wonders in the ancient world, some of the mysteries of which modern science has only recently become capable of unlocking.
As their population grew they filled the Earth with violence, polluting humanity’s generations. Their sins overflowing, God washed away Olympus, Atlantis and much of the record of their existence.
The death of so many angelic-human hybrids created new beings that would come to be called demons, disembodied spirits seeking control over the actions and even the bodies of men.
Such metamorphosis and coercion by fallen angels violated the confines of the Agreement. Heaven's eventual judgement was the imprisonment of those involved. Further, since the Satanic influence could not be undone, the court ruled that in the process of time Heaven’s Advocate would have occasion to balance the scales. He chose to do so by providing mankind an unique revelation through the miraculous deliverance of a small people from the grasp of what would then be the ancient world’s greatest seat of military, political and religious power.
For the first time in eternity, thousands of the mighty and defiant angels were imprisoned. They passed a millennia gnashing their teeth as they struggled against divine chains in hellish darkness.
Eventually, on Earth, the Advocate appeared to a stammering Moses, equipping him to deliver helpless Israel from Egypt. Waves of divine judgment broke against pharaoh and Egypt’s army until the Accusers greatest Earthly kingdom fell in ruinous defeat at the feet of slaves.
Some thought this a portent of things to come..
The Advent
In this way Heaven's trial overflowed into human history. Kingdoms rose and fell. A hundred generations lived and died with little or no insight into the true nature of the spiritual powers at work above, about and within them.
Civilizations and religions expanded, filling the globe with people who's cries for meaning, understanding and help reached Heaven.
Before the foundations of the world, the Agreement had provided for a Redeemer should an unprovoked attack against the innocence of humanity, like that by the Serpent in the Garden, result in mankind’s fall from grace.
In the fullness of time the Advocate exercised this option in a way none but the Trinity had foreseen. First He requested and received a Court recess. Then withdrawing His presence from the proceeding, He continued doing so from all space and time which, having created, He had always inhabited. Humbling Himself and laying Omnity aside He was reduced to a single sperm.
As Heaven watched with baited breath, Gabriel, the Archangel of Message, received permission from a teenage virgin in Nazareth for the Spirit to implant the long promised Redeemer within her womb.
And so Mary became pregnant with the Son of God.
At that time the stunned silence of Heaven’s Courtroom was shattered by shouts of objection from the Prosecution. Aware the Court was in recess, the Adversary was nonetheless beside himself thundering this and that, citing previous rulings and subsections of the Agreement.
The Judge patiently endured the onslaught that went on for days. Only when the Prosecutor had exhausted himself did the Judge rule. Clothed in unapproachable light, His face flashed like lightening and His words rolled like thunder in answered the Adversary’s numerous objections. “Over ruled! Court adjourned.”
Furious, the Adversary stalked the Earth hoping to destroy the incarnate Advocate while yet a child. Several attempts having failed, he withdrew himself to develop new strategies. When the Son of God and Man reached thirty, Satan occasioned himself at an opportune time, tempting Him as he had the first man but to no avail.
Out matched, the Adversary withdrew again, beaten but not defeated.
After three years of miraculous ministry by the Redeemer, the Devil filled the soul of a disobedient disciple and had the Advocate arrested. Hauled beaten and bleeding before an unjust court, he used the Redeemer’s own religious leaders to mock and condemn Him while handing the King of Heaven and Earth over to Romans for crucifixion.
The Great Dragon savored the taste of victory. Cautiously optimistic, for he knew better than any the dangers of underestimating Omniscience, he prepared his closing arguments. Suddenly an icy chill ran down his spine as he heard the Advocate faintly breath His last word, “Finished.”
The following days saw a whirlwind of activity and change. Impossibly, the Redeemer was resurrected! After eating with and strengthening His few remaining disciples He ascended with honor into the Third Heaven.
To the amazement of all, as Court reconvened, the Redeemer took up His place as Advocate. Glorious, He was clearly the same Person yet remarkably changed, for it was the first time in all Eternity a Man stood within Heaven’s Supreme Court.
And clearly this Counselor was no ordinary man!
Over the next two millennia a new dimension of human history would unfold. What few realized was the full extent to which it’s details had first been argued in Heaven. The ascension marked a change in the proceedings as well. The Prosecutor increased his attacks against humanity in general while targeting a growing new group called, “Christians.”
Leveling accusations day and night, he obtained increasing rights to persecute and kill. When this proved problematic, he changed tactics choosing rather to tempt and entice the whole Earth. His Heavenly arguments and Earthly campaigns proved so successful that as man’s population grew to fill the planet so too did Satan’s influence.
According to the Agreement’s provisions human will, as free as it was frail and limited, could not be directly usurped. Yet too often the nature of fallen man, redeemed or not, provided more help than hinderance to the Adversary's plans.
Litigation grew exponentially. The Agreement expanded to cover every conceivable aspect of the present and, perhaps more importantly, the future.
A future that was prophesied to conclude with a terrible time of tribulation that would come to be commonly known as “the End of Days.”
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