Problems of the Lucifer Rebellion

54:4.1An­other prob­lem some­what dif­fi­cult of ex­pla­na­tion in the con­stel­la­tion of Nor­la­ti­adek per­tains to the rea­sons for per­mit­ting Lu­cifer, Sa­tan, and the fallen princes to work mis­chief so long be­fore be­ing ap­pre­hended, in­terned, and ad­ju­di­cated.

54:4.2Par­ents, those who have borne and reared chil­dren, are bet­ter able to un­der­stand why Mi­chael, a Cre­ator-fa­ther, might be slow to con­demn and de­stroy his own Sons. Je­sus’ story of the prodi­gal son well il­lus­trates how a lov­ing fa­ther can long wait for the re­pen­tance of an erring child.

54:4.3The very fact that an evil-do­ing crea­ture can ac­tu­ally choose to do wrong—com­mit sin—es­tab­lishes the fact of free-will­ness and fully jus­ti­fies any length de­lay in the ex­e­cu­tion of jus­tice pro­vided the ex­tended mercy might con­duce to re­pen­tance and re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion.

54:4.4Most of the lib­er­ties which Lu­cifer sought he al­ready had; oth­ers he was to re­ceive in the fu­ture. All these pre­cious en­dow­ments were lost by giv­ing way to im­pa­tience and yield­ing to a de­sire to pos­sess what one craves now and to pos­sess it in de­fi­ance of all obli­ga­tion to re­spect the rights and lib­er­ties of all other be­ings com­pos­ing the uni­verse of uni­verses. Eth­i­cal obli­ga­tions are in­nate, di­vine, and uni­ver­sal.

54:4.5There are many rea­sons known to us why the Su­preme Rulers did not im­me­di­ately de­stroy or in­tern the lead­ers of the Lu­cifer re­bel­lion. There are no doubt still other and pos­si­bly bet­ter rea­sons un­known to us. The mercy fea­tures of this de­lay in the ex­e­cu­tion of jus­tice were ex­tended per­son­ally by Mi­chael of Neb­a­don. Ex­cept for the af­fec­tion of this Cre­ator-fa­ther for his erring Sons, the su­preme jus­tice of the super­uni­verse would have acted. If such an episode as the Lu­cifer re­bel­lion had oc­curred in Neb­a­don while Mi­chael was in­car­nated on Uran­tia, the in­sti­ga­tors of such evil might have been in­stantly and ab­so­lutely an­ni­hi­lated.

54:4.6Su­preme jus­tice can act in­stantly when not re­strained by di­vine mercy. But the min­istry of mercy to the chil­dren of time and space al­ways pro­vides for this time lag, this sav­ing in­ter­val be­tween seed­time and har­vest. If the seed sow­ing is good, this in­ter­val pro­vides for the test­ing and up­build­ing of char­ac­ter; if the seed sow­ing is evil, this mer­ci­ful de­lay pro­vides time for re­pen­tance and rec­ti­fi­ca­tion. This time de­lay in the ad­ju­di­ca­tion and ex­e­cu­tion of evil­do­ers is in­her­ent in the mercy min­istry of the seven super­uni­verses. This re­straint of jus­tice by mercy proves that God is love, and that such a God of love dom­i­nates the uni­verses and in mercy con­trols the fate and judg­ment of all his crea­tures.

54:4.7The mercy de­lays of time are by the man­date of the free will of the Cre­ators. There is good to be de­rived in the uni­verse from this tech­nique of pa­tience in deal­ing with sin­ful rebels. While it is all too true that good can­not come of evil to the one who con­tem­plates and per­forms evil, it is equally true that all things (in­clud­ing evil, po­ten­tial and man­i­fest) work to­gether for good to all be­ings who know God, love to do his will, and are as­cend­ing Par­adis­e­ward ac­cord­ing to his eter­nal plan and di­vine pur­pose.

54:4.8But these mercy de­lays are not in­ter­minable. Not­with­stand­ing the long de­lay (as time is reck­oned on Uran­tia) in ad­ju­di­cat­ing the Lu­cifer re­bel­lion, we may re­cord that, dur­ing the time of ef­fect­ing this rev­e­la­tion, the first hear­ing in the pend­ing case of Ga­briel vs. Lu­cifer was held on Uversa, and soon there­after there is­sued the man­date of the An­cients of Days di­rect­ing that Sa­tan be hence­forth con­fined to the prison world with Lu­cifer. This ends the abil­ity of Sa­tan to pay fur­ther vis­its to any of the fallen worlds of Sa­ta­nia. Jus­tice in a mercy-dom­i­nated uni­verse may be slow, but it is cer­tain.