Hi M.A.P,

I went to Jack Kelley's site and got your answer....I was going to answer it but he tends to add more meat to these things so I wanted to include it as well...My small addition will be under it....If the inmate you are helping has access to the internet at all give her his link because I feel he will be able to add more blessings to what you are already doing for the Lord for her as well....He answers the tough questions.....The main thing is getting her to soften her heart for receiving the Holy Spirit for salvation in the Lord and I have found when I direct people to his site they do open up....I pray this answer will help but if she had access to answers when you were not there it might help as well..:) Anyhoo, here it is:

THE QUESTION IS THIS:

AFTER SATAN'S FALL, WHY DID GOD ALLOW HIM TO DECEIVE ADAM AND EVE, AND TO CONTINUE TO RUN RAMPANT THROUGHOUT THE EARTH DESTROYING LIVES WHEN GOD COULD HAVE SIMPLY CAST HIM INTO THE LAKE OF FIRE FROM THE BEGINNING AND HAVE IT DONE WITH, SPARING MANKIND (INCLUDING ADAM AND EVE)?

Jack Kelley's Grace Thru Faith: http://gracethrufaith.com/

Q. We know that God is all powerful. He created the Heavens and the earth. There is nothing that God cannot do. So why did God ever allow the conflict with Satan in the first place? He is going to throw him in the lake of fire in the end anyway. Since He loves us so much, why allow Satan to torture us for a zillion years and then throw him in hell? I have never understood this. Perhaps we are not meant to know??

A. There’s a dimension of God’s relationship with Satan that we’re not made privy to. Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 tell us he’s a created being, and was first among the angels of heaven.  He was already a fallen being by the time man arrived on the scene,  yet we see him in God’s presence at the beginning of the Book of Job.  Colossians 1:16 says all things were created by Jesus and for Jesus, and the language clearly includes Satan.  In Jude 9 we’re told that even the archangel Michael didn’t dare to bring a slanderous accusation against him, and we know Satan is not expelled from Heaven until the beginning of the Great Tribulation (Rev. 12:9). This is long after the Church is gone, when half of the 70th week is over.  Although Satan’s continued existence is a mystery to us, we know that in some way it serves God’s purpose, and because of it God will be glorified.  Because when the time comes to confine him it only takes one angel to bind him in chains. (Rev. 20:1-2)

By the way, there are things God can’t do.  For example, He can’t overlook sin, He can’t make you love Him, He can’t make you accept the pardon He purchased for you, and He can’t keep you from going to Hell if that’s what you’ve chosen to do.

My little 2 cents:

God has given us freewill to choose and decide...If he took Satan out then we would have not freely chosen the Lord and we would have not freely chosen to love him....He wants us to "KNOW" why he is the right choice and he wants us to choose for ourselves...He does not want a bunch of mindless robots worshiping him and believing in in him he wants us to know what he knows and why. And the only way to do that is to allow us to see it for ourselves....When we have children we allow them to learn from their mistakes...Ex: Don't touch that pot it is hot!...Then as soon as our backs are turned they try it out to see for themselves...ouch! So, the next time we tell them don't touch that it is hot, they know that they know that it is because they defied us the first time and learned it firsthand...This way they see that we are telling them the truth and have their best interest at heart and love them and want to keep them from the pain...If we took all hot pots out of the situation and home when they went out in the world and saw hot pots they might just go hog wild and burn the heck out of themselves and would come home and say to us: "Why didn't you tell me???"

Small and maybe weak example but you can be creative and use what you know she might relate better to so she can understand the whole of freely choosing God and how he needs to teach us.

Living in these human bodies on this Earthly plane we get to rooted thinking this is it not realizing that it is not it but rather, the beginning of our eternity and so when we come to the truth and believe in our true father we can know that any pain Satan caused us to suffer here is probably relative to but a few moments compared to the eternity pain free and forever happy with our Lord that we freely chose..Freely chose because he allowed us to learn why we love him and why and how much he loves us. :)

I hope this helps a bit! May the Lord bless you M.A.P for what you are doing and may he soften her heart and open her eyes so she may be saved!

Ysic,
Bre