- 19 - free to do as he chose, but God did not restrict his authority over those who had voluntarily become his subjects. It was the terrible consequence of God’s justice that Lucifer was allowed to call his own all those who had joined him. For them, there was now no escape. Even if they repented their defection to Evil, they could not go back. They had indentured themselves to the Ruler of Hell for all time. That is the contract of indebtedness of which Paul says in his epistles that it was an ‘insurmountable obstacle’ to the salvation of the fallen. Things are no different in your earthly states. Whoever becomes the subject of a country must yield to its authorities. He may not leave its boundaries without their permission, and if the country in question goes to war with another country, he will never be allowed to join the enemy. The same thing is true of Lucifer’s realm. It is in a constant state of war with the kingdom of God. So, it was out of the question that Lucifer would ever allow a subject of his to return to the kingdom of God. Let me cite another example: Whoever volunteers for service in the Foreign Legion is held to the terms of his enlistment. He may regret his step a thousand-fold; he may weep over and lament the hardships he has to endure, but it will avail him nothing. He is under a harsh discipline that knows no mercy. He must stay, for if he tries to desert he will be overtaken and recaptured by the legionnaires, after which his lot will be harder than ever. There is no bridge to carry him back to the home and country he left of his own accord. Satan’s dominions are a foreign legion of this sort. For those who had entered it, there was no retreat, no bridge spanning the gulf between the foreign legion of darkness and God’s kingdom. • Not until later was this bridge built in the Redemption through Christ. That is why Christ, in the parable of the rich libertine and the beggar Lazarus, causes the same truth to be uttered through the words of Abraham: Luke 16: 26: ‘But aside from all this, a great chasm has been put between you and us, so that those who want to cross from our side to yours cannot, nor can you come to us from there.’ By way of a third illustration: Consider the fate of a soldier who deserts his own side in wartime and goes over to the enemy. However bitterly he may subsequently repent his desertion, and much as he may long to be back in his native country, he will not be released. I have now taken you in my teachings to the point where you have two antagonistic realms standing in unbridgeable opposition to each other: the realm of those who are separated from God or the ‘kingdom of the dead’ - and the kingdom of God. The realm of darkness against the realm of light. Lucifer’s kingdom against that of Christ, here Lucifer, there Christ. Nevertheless, God loves all His children, even those who were driven from their Father’s home because of their own transgressions. Since He had created them through His Son, and had implanted
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