My old Presbyterian pastor said to me once "I sometimes wonder if God wants to win", adding "He doesn't seem to help His own people much".
In another discussion, we were talking about God's alleged "love". The pastor said "I sometimes wonder if it's true. He seems to write people off pretty easily."
This world can be very discouraging for Christians, or for that matter anyone who is appalled by what seems to be the constant rise of evil.
But God's judgement catches up with us all. I know that because I've often said that the night my own father died, he appeared in my room. We talked and argued, but at the end of the episode he gave this almighty scream and disappeared. When you've seen your deceased father screaming his head off no more than about ten feet away from you, you sort of get the idea that judgment just might be real.
I think he went to Hell. If you'd seen the scream I think you would say the same thing. Now he thought he hadn't been seen, but at the end he found out he answered for the lot.
Whether God "wins" in a situation like that I don't know. Does the devil win? The reason I ask that is because at one stage my father blurted out "I always was doomed! I never really had any choice!" I argued back, even though I was an atheist at the time, saying "That can't be right!"
He replied "Oh, it's right all right, you can see that from here!" It was obvious during the whole exchange he was looking at something over my head and behind me. If I turned around to see what it was, all I could see was the bedroom wall.
But later he admitted "I was WILLING!". So he may have been predestined, but he also admitted he was "WILLING".
Judas was the "one who must be lost", but was he WILLING? It would appear so - he was prepared to hand Christ over to the chief priests, although I think he wanted to force Christ into a corner so he would use His obvious supernatural powers to get rid of the Romans. Judas had seen Christ still a storm, walk on water, curse a fig tree so it withered to the roots overnight, raise the dead, heal the deaf, dumb and blind, feed 5000 starting with a mere handful of bread and fish. He knew what Christ could do, and I think he wanted Christ to use His powers to destroy the Romans.
This leaves the question "Does God win?" when it is clear Satan has gained another human soul? I don't know. If we take the line there's a spiritual war on, then I fail to see how God can possibly win every time.
I think He often loses. There are many times that God has good plans for people, but for whatever reason they have not fulfilled them and are lost.
I suppose I'm thinking here of a young bloke (whom I didn't know - I think this happened around the same time as I joined the Presbyterian Church way back in 1982) who was riding his motor bike dangerously. The pastor said it was obvious to everybody. He said he warned him, but later wished he had used different words as he said he found that if he said something it tended to happen.
He said to the young bloke "If you don't smarten up and start riding your machine more carefully, you won't last two weeks!" He said he felt a bit guilty about the wording as he buried him two weeks to the day after warning him.
Now I'm not presuming the young bloke went to Hell, since presumably he was a Christian. But what plans God might have had for his life were thrown out the window by his sheer stupidity in the way he rode his motor bike despite being warned by the pastor. God couldn't use him for anything - he was gone.
I'll repeat - I think God often loses.