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EBIs-06

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Tomorrow morning when you wake up, aliens are lurking around ready to attack. Our demonic enemies—more lethal than any terrorist, or murderer, or hardened criminal, will be waiting for you. With a flaming arrow ready he will watch for the exact moment to shoot that fiery missile into your mind. Are you ready to deflect that missile? Or will you have another horrible, defeated, empty, restless, discouraging, sad day of defeat?

The attacks on humans are led by the Serpent Dragon named the Devil & Satan. He is a person with a single focus as the Adversary of God. He was formerly Lucifer the most brilliant and powerful of all God’s created angels. Now as Satan, he leads the hosts of darkness in their relentless attacks. The war is real, the enemy is deadly and focused, and the damage among believers is widespread.

The Devil named Satan continually bombards God’s child¬ren with the flaming arrows of immorality, hatred, anger, covetousness, pride, doubt, fear, despair, distrust, and other temptations.

Every temptation, either directly or indirectly, tries to get us to doubt or distrust God. The purpose of Satan’s missiles is to cause believers to forsake their trust in God, to drive a wedge between the Savior and the saved. Put up the shield of faith and that won’t happen to you.

Are any of us just going through the motions, no longer passionate for Jesus like we used to be?
Are any of us starting to fear how bad the world is getting?
Are any of us getting comfortable around sin, and no longer forsaking personal sins?
Are any of us acting and operating like lost people, and because we’re so distracted, we’ve stopped even seeing Christ in His Word each day?

Beware of: coasting, just going through the motions, not passionate for Jesus like we used to be; starting to fear our future, our health, our safety; getting comfortable around sin, amusing and entertaining ourselves with sin, and not fleeing sin; getting truth-challenged; acting & operating like lost people; so distracted that time with God in His Word is gone from our daily vitals.

Slides

Transcript

Tomorrow morning when you wake up, there’ll be real aliens, lurking around you ready to attack. Did you know that our demonic enemies are more lethal than any terrorist or any murderer or hardened criminal?  They’ll be waiting for you; they have flaming arrows. That God says, are ready to watch for the exact moment to shoot at you a fiery missile, right into your mind. Are you ready to deflect that missile? Or will you have another horrible day? A defeated, empty, restless, discouraging, sad day of defeat. The attacks on humans are led by the serpent dragon. His name is the devil and Satan. He’s a person. He has a singular focus as the adversary of God. He was formerly Lucifer. That’s what our lesson is about today. The most brilliant and powerful of all God’s created angels, but now as Satan he leads the hosts of darkness in their relentless attacks. The war is real. The enemy is deadly and focused.  The damage among believers is widespread. The devil named Satan, continually bombards God’s children with flaming arrows of immorality, hatred, anger, covetousness, pride, doubt, fear, despair, distrust, and every other temptation. Each temptation is either directly or indirectly an attempt to get us to doubt or distrust God. The purpose of Satan’s missiles? To cause us as believers to either forsake our trust in God, or to drive a wedge between our Savior and His children. Put up that shield of faith and that won’t happen, as we meet the real aliens of Lucifer’s rebellion, Satan’s demons, and the cosmic war all around us.

That’s class number six. As you open your Bibles to Isaiah with me, we’re going to Isaiah 14. What I just read to you is the summary. I think it’s something that most believers don’t quite understand. How we went from the wonderful worship of Heaven with all the angels God created, with the beautiful universe, and happy man and woman down there in the garden of Eden, to this mess that we’re in today but that’s what we have in class six. We’re going to meet the real aliens that were born out of Lucifer’s rebellion.  We’ll actually see that event taking place in the scriptures in just a moment. Those that have become Satan’s demons, they were angels. When they fell, they became Satan’s demons.  Together with Satan, they’re waging what can be called the cosmic war. Chapter 14, starting in verse 12, and I would encourage you, if this is your very first class, maybe the title was interesting, maybe you’re catching us on YouTube, I’d like to frame this for you.

My name is John Barnett. My wonderful wife Bonnie is over there. This class is actually being beamed virtually to a classroom in East Asia. That’s what we do full time, 11 months a year. We actually travel and teach, in all of these various places, the scriptures to the next generation. That means future servants of the Lord that are going to be evangelists and missionaries or frontline current serving missionaries, church planters, and those on the front lines doing all types of relief work in medical missions. What we do is, because of COVID-19, we’re tuned into their campus, but we’re recording this, and all of the classes are available on their own channel in YouTube, and you can actually watch, take notes, and just join us in this journey.

We encourage you to take your Bible chapter 14 of Isaiah. So, you open to the middle. That’s Psalms and then go to the right, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon and there it is, Isaiah 14 verse 12. “How you are fallen from Heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you were cut down to the ground, you who weakened the nations! For you have said in your heart: ‘I will ascend into Heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.’ Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, to the lowest depths of the Pit.”

Now, one thing that we’re going to do in this class is help you understand some of the details of these words that are in God’s word. Basically, this right here, this region here is called the Pit in the scriptures, what you just read. It says that someday, Satan, Lucifer is going to be brought down to this pit. Now in the New Testament, this place is also called Hades, or it’s called the Grave, or it’s called the Abyss, and in Jude it’s called Tartarus.  Right here and in many other places in Isaiah and Ezekiel, it’s called the Pit. What’s interesting with all of them is it says that it’s in the Earth. That’s really interesting. We won’t talk about that right now, but someday Satan, during the thousand-year reign of Jesus Christ, that Isaiah spends about one fourth of the whole book of Isaiah talking about during that time, while the millennium the thousand-year reign of Christ is on the surface of the Earth, down here chained, see those chains right there, Satan is going to be bound. They’re already angels bound there; we’ll talk about that later.

But you say, wait a minute, is that Hell? Oh, I’m glad you asked that. I heard that through the cameras. No, Hell is over here. Hell is not on Earth. Hell is somewhere that, Isaiah chapter 66 says, can be seen from Heaven. They can see it. So, somehow when all the redeemed, when we who know Jesus Christ, who have called on the name of the Lord are in Heaven, will be able to see the Lake of Fire, also called Gehenna. There is no one in Hell right now. Now, a lot of people I hear them say oh, I’m going through hell. They have no idea. What they’re going through is nothing like the blackness of darkness, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.

First the false prophet and the Anti-Christ, they are the first two that are thrown into that place, at the same time. Then, Satan is chained up down here and then at the end of the thousand-year reign at the great white throne judgment, which we’ll be talking about at other times in this class, the third occupant of the Lake of Fire will be Satan. Then all those who refuse to call on the name of the Lord and be saved.

Let’s go back to our slides. What you’re looking at there is the story of Lucifer. Real aliens, all the alien reports you read about, we’re going to show you where they are in the scriptures.

The next slide, I’m just reminding you that this course has 15 hours.

Where does Satan come from?  You notice on the screen there are two passages, Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28. Now, look up for just a second from the slides.  What I’d like to tell you is that for every doctrine in the Bible, there is a key passage where that is presented by God and it’s open to us, the scriptures, everything God wants us to know about that. What’s fascinating is that most people don’t realize that you can just take a little bit of time and memorize the passage address, like Isaiah 14 on the slide says, or Ezekiel 28. So, for those of us that teach the Bible, one of the things… you ever wonder what you do in Bible school? In seminary? You memorize the address, the scripture reference where all these events take place. So, if you want to know where the rebellion, the cosmic war began, where the demons became demons, where Satan became Satan, from Lucifer the highest created creature of God; there’s only two passages you have to learn and they are, Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28. Look back at your slides, that’s where Satan came from.

Now we’re going to walk through chapter 14, and as we walk through Isaiah 14, what I encourage you to do is take your pencil, or pen, or whatever, and write down some of these details.  What we’re looking at are the scriptures that explain that.

Now, to help you look at my Bible, I just took a picture of it. So, right there, it’s on the screen in front of you.  The Lord begins to tell us about the fall of Lucifer, right here in verse 12. Now you say, wait a minute, what’s the context? I’m glad you asked that. Look up from your slide for a second. Do you remember the key to understanding any portion of the Bible? To interpreting the Bible correctly? The key to interpretation is the context. So, to interpret… interpret is the theological realm of hermeneutics, it’s proper interpretation of the scripture. Do you remember from class one, that interpretation, there’s only one for every scripture in the Bible. There are many applications, but there’s only one interpretation, and we’re going to see those today. Do you want to see an application? The only defense against the demons and the cosmic war is in Ephesians 6 and it’s the armor of God. So, that’s an application. Is Ephesians 6 in Isaiah 14? No, but let me show you something else over here.

There are 31,000 verses in the Bible. We’re looking at just one little passage right here. There are two ways that you can study the Bible. The first one is that you can let the weight of all 31,000 verses of the Bible rest on the passage we’re looking at, or what you can do is take all 31,000 verses and just cover one. This is called textual teaching. You might have heard of textual. The person announces their texts, and they stay in the text and they teach from it. This where the one verse in the Bible has the weight of the entire Bible on it is called exegetically teaching.  Another word for it is expository or another word is explanatory. So, there’s actually three ways that you can describe what this class is. Either, you can say that I’m executing the scriptures that means opening them up or I’m expounding them. That again means opening out. Or I’m explaining them. When I do, I’m referring to all 31,000. I draw from all the rest of the Bible on whatever topic we’re on. That’s a little different than just staying in the text. If we just stay, look back at that slide, if we just stay in chapter 14, we will have great difficulty understanding that verses 12 to 15 have anything to do with Satan. We would wonder, we’d say wow, I wonder who he’s talking about. I wonder if someone else was called Lucifer. I wonder if that is like Satan Lucifer.

When you read it, look at what it says in verse 4, I will “take up this proverb against the king of Babylon.” So, in chapter 14 of Isaiah, Babylon is the present illustration of Satan. In Ezekiel 28, it’s Tyre and Sidon, we’ll talk more about that later. This is the fall of Satan.

Satan said five things.

  • I will ascend.
  • I will exalt.
  • I will sit.
  • I will ascend and then the last thing he says is right here,
  • I will be like the most high.

Now, look up for just a second. Did you know that’s perhaps one of the clearest proofs that that’s a divinely inspired passage? Do you know why? If I was writing, if it was a script for a science fiction movie and I was making the beginning of the cosmic war against God, I would not say that if I was the character Lucifer, that I want to be equal with God. Who wants to be in an endless struggle where it’s equality? I would want to be what greater than God. If a man, a human inspired the scriptures, they would have said in verse 14, I will be greater than the Most High, but you know what? Satan realizes he’s a created being.

Now, he’s the highest created being. He’s the most powerful created being. He is the smartest creative being. He was the most honored of all created beings, ever. He was the top of all God’s creation, until he fell.  He knows he can’t be greater than God. Looking back at the text, see what it says in verse 15? “Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, to the depths of the Pit.” Now remember, over here on our chart, that the Pit is the Netherworld. You’ve heard of the Netherworld. You’ve heard of Hades. You’ve heard of the Grave. That’s where he’s going to be brought and in a few class periods from now, when we look at that plan of the future, we’ll identify this over and over again.

Back down at your slides. This chart I’ve shown you many times, and I want to remind you about. Isaiah is writing, this is just a portrayal of Isaiah, and Isaiah is writing about all of these events, all the way to the end. By the end of Isaiah in chapter 66, he is writing about Heaven. In Isaiah 53, he’s writing right here about the cross of Jesus Christ. In Isaiah 14, he is looking back to one of the first events in creation. You understand that? You see, the book of Isaiah goes from the two furthest points. Way back at the very beginning, all the way to the very end. Now, if you look up, that is a huge span. Isaiah, as you’ve learned in class one is the fifth largest book in the whole Bible. It takes three hours and 45 minutes just to read every word, let alone study. Over here, Isaiah was writing between 740 and 680 BC. We learned that in the first class. He’s describing future events, as well as past events, which is the fall of Lucifer. Such things as the fall of Jerusalem, the coming destruction of Jerusalem. And about one fourth of the whole book is about the day of the Lord.

What’s the day of the Lord? The day of the Lord is all of this climactic ending. Back to that slide. So, when I talk about Lucifer, Isaiah right here, didn’t have any idea about what he was writing about. You said, wait a minute, what do you mean? Look up for a second. The Bible says that Peter said, that he said the Old Testament prophets that were writing the scriptures they wrote, wondered what they were writing about. They did not fully understand, Peter said. God just revealed a tomb and said, write it down. Now, some parts they understood, but much of it they didn’t. Now that we have the entire revelation of God, we can take a look at all 31,000 verses and let all of the Bible speak to whatever topic we’re understanding, rather than limiting ourselves to just what the text says. We can, through study of the Bible, let all of the Bible fill in the pieces so we understand.

Go to the next slide. We’re passing the prophetic view of Isaiah and we’re continuing in chapter 14. So, you notice, some of you wonder what that is… look at this. What is all that? Babylon destroyed is what this section is about. Now, the Bible publishers have added all of these little markers for us to help us understand what we’re reading, but they try and put them, see, this is not connected to the verses, they’re above it. So, those are little headers they’re called. Now, look up for a second. Let me give you a quick explanation.

Did you know that the Bible was written over 1600 years by 40 different authors? That it was inspired? So, 1,600 years, 40 authors. It ended up being in scrolls, written.  Those scrolls at first were uncial and then minuscules, which are Greek terms for capital letters and lowercase letters. So, these are uncial, and these are minuscules. I’m talking specifically about the Greek text right now. The Hebrew text was always in block capital letters, they didn’t have small letters.

By the time we get to the New Testament era, an entire book would be written continuously like this. You would have the book of Acts with no divisions. Just constant words to the end. When we came to the 11th century, the church of England, the Archbishop of Canterbury was noticing that when he assigned readings to people in English or when they did any kind of readings within their assembly or whatever they did, people couldn’t find it because you had to go through all the words of that book to find where he was. So, Stephen Langton was his name, the Archbishop in the 12th century that divided the Bible into chapters. Now, those were not inspired. The Bible doesn’t say anywhere, Isaiah 14, it was just in Isaiah.  That was a big help.

By the time we get to the 16th century and Gutenberg had his printing press in the 15th century, they were starting to print more and more Bibles in the 16th century. This Swiss printer took it upon himself to add verse numbers within the chapters. His name was Robert Estienne. So, Stephen Langton put in the chapters and Robert Estienne put in the verse numbers.  When we’re looking, and look back at the screen at verse 22, always think about how much you’re thankful for that printer that put those in.

This talks about the destruction of Babylon. This section talks about the destruction of Assyria. This section talks about Philistia being destroyed. Now look up, why are all these in there? Babylon wasn’t even an actual empire at the time Isaiah wrote this. It’s actually prophetic. Isaiah is writing here, looking forward to the destruction of Babylon, which was a future event. Actually, it was in 539 that that took place, BC. Now, when was he writing? Look at this, 200 years before. He was looking at the destruction of Assyria, when was that? 612 BC. You say, how do you know that? Go to any museum, any major museum of the world. In fact, Bonnie and I were just teaching in Europe and we taught in the UK and we taught in France. In the UK we took the students touring around the British museum. We actually did a course for those students in the British museum. Did you know, there’s an entire room in the British museum that is devoted to the destruction of Babylon and another whole room that’s devoted to the destruction of Assyria? We took another group of students on a video tour through the Louvre. You know what the Louvre is? It’s not just the Mona Lisa. There is an entire room of the Louvre devoted to Babylon and another one devoted to Assyria. These are huge historic events, but Isaiah is looking prophetically forward. Look at your slide there, Babylon being destroyed, that’s 539 BC. 200 years.  612 BC, now this is much closer, Philistia. What’s going on here is, Israel is wanting to work with the former enemies, the Philistines, and wanted to get their help as others attack them. The Lord says, Philistia is going to be destroyed, don’t trust them as help.

Look back at your slides, let’s keep going. God explains Satan’s origin and nature to us. Let me go through that with you. I’ll just combine, if you look up from the slide, I’m going to do an example of these 31,000 verses touching on one point. Satan’s original state is reported to us by God. He was the only witness to the spiritual world. You understand that God is the only one that witnessed all this and that’s why when He inspires Isaiah to write, all the sudden, we can start understanding this invisible world, the spiritual world. Lucifer was the supreme angel called Lucifer, which means the son of the morning or the morning star or the son of dawn. That’s what Isaiah 14:12 says. He had the exalted position, that’s what Ezekiel 28 tells us. The brilliance of Heaven was his setting it says in verse 13 of chapter 28. He was full of wisdom, beauty, and was blameless. That’s also in Ezekiel 28. By the way, Ezekiel 28 is about Lucifer before his fall, and then it describes more about him before his fall. Chapter 14 of Isaiah is the event of the fall. Those two are like two pieces that fit together nicely. Ezekiel tells us Lucifer was the anointed covering cherub and once he fell God calls him in Hebrew śāṭān, which means adversary.

Now the next slide, after God explains what I just read to you, Satan’s origin and nature. In Ezekiel 28 what we have is, and if you want to… in just a minute… turn there, what it tells us is; behind the proud king of Tyre, was Lucifer who fell to become Satan. Turn there with me, really quickly, if you’re in Isaiah go to the right. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel and then get to 28.  In 28 it says this starting in verse 11, “Moreover, the word of the LORD came to me saying,” verse 12, “Son of man, take up a lamentation for the king of Tyre.” Now look up. Tyre, we’re going to see that on a map in a second, but that’s the capital, the area of the Phoenicians. They’re the people, have you ever heard of Hannibal and the elephants fighting the Romans? Those were the Phoenicians. They were from the Phoenician city of Carthage. This king that was the greatest king of them all, was in their prime city which was called Tyre. I’ll show it to you on the map a little bit later. The Bible has much to say about that.

What it says in verse 12 is, “You were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.” Verse 13, uht oh, “you were in Eden, the garden of God.” Was the king of Tyre in the garden of Eden? No. This is Isaiah, do you remember under the power of inspiration Isaiah can look back as well as into the future? These are all future events. He’s looking back to the garden of Eden. He is looking at a current king. Actually, the king of Tyre was living right here. This is Tyre, it was current with Isaiah, he was contemporary. All of a sudden, his prophecy goes back to the garden of Eden.  So, that’s how we know when the fall of Satan was.

People have always asked me, when did Satan fall? Was it long before creation? No, no, no. It was after creation because Genesis 1 says, that when God created, at the end of His creation of the universe everything was good. He says that it was good, and it was good, and it was good. Satan hadn’t fallen, it was after God rested on the seventh day. Sometime after that this happened.

Ezekiel 28 goes on to describe all of those events of the garden of Eden and him walking in the fiery stones and being perfect in his ways. Here, let me illustrate why Satan fell. People ask me this all the time. Why did Satan fall? Watch this marker, my dry erase wide tip marker is Lucifer. Lucifer was created at the hands of God and all the rest of creation. God holds it together. You know what it says, all things were made by Him and by Him all things consist, literally hold together.

If God does not hold creation together, because it’s imperfect and not holy like He is, nothing is holy except for God and what God holds on to, if God doesn’t hold something it goes like this.  Lucifer just fell out of my hand. He’s Satan, now, down there on the floor. Let me get him, Lucifer. God, let go of holding him, he fell. That’s the fall of Satan. That’s where evil came from. That’s where all the problems came from. It was, God removed His hold. That hold is called, in the Bible, glorification. Did you know that all of us who have come to know Jesus Christ are being progressively sanctified through life until the instant of our death or at the return of Jesus Christ. He isn’t just holding us and letting us wobble around. He’s going to perfect us and make us holy eternally. So, the fall of Satan, God just let go.  We want to know where the origin of evil is, and how all this started, and how the whole universe started falling apart. Think of my marker falling on the floor, anything not held by God falls apart. By the way, 2 Peter 3, which we’ll see in our class about God’s plan of the ages, did you know that God takes His hand off of the universe in 2 Peter 3?  It says the whole universe dissolves, it explodes, and burns.  What we would call thermo nuclear explosion and it’s reconstituted into a new Heavens and new Earth. Wow, but that’s coming.

Back at your slides. Ezekiel 28, behind the proud king of the city of Tyre was Lucifer. In revelation 12:9, and we’ll just have to stick with the slides now for a little while, so that we can get through all this because we’re only on the 13th slide and there are 32 of them. In Revelation 12 verse 9, this is a fascinating verse. “So the great dragon,” this is a future event, “was cast out,” and look at what God says. He is the “serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the Earth,” that’s a future event in the tribulation and look, “his angels were cast out with him.” In one verse, this is the most important verse about understanding demonology and Satanology.

The dragon of Revelation, is the serpent of Genesis of the garden of Eden, is the devil of Matthew’s gospel tempting Jesus Christ, is Satan of the New Testament constantly hindering everything God is doing, and the Old Testament for that matter. The angels here are the demons that you read about all the way through the scriptures, especially in Christ ministry. Look how this one passage ties all of these together.

In the next slide, the demons and their origins and powers. Where did all that come from? By the way, all you’re seeing right there is a video game character. Isn’t that amazing? Look up from the slide for just a second. Do you think God likes it, that some of you that are actually watching this right now, perhaps you’re in the Bible Institute or maybe you’re on YouTube, you know more about your favorite video game than you know about the living and eternal word of God? And you’re comfortable playing games with creatures in the games that are named after demons and satanic monsters that are in the Bible, like Apollyon, like the destroyer, like all of those. It’s amazing that young people today are comfortable playing occultic, satanic, demonic video games. Can you tell that’s not a positive thing, did you know you’re wasting your life? If that’s what you’re doing, if you know more about your favorite game, or your favorite sport, or your favorite movies, or musicians, than you know about God’s word, I can assure you, you are wasting your life. You will not have eternal rewards from playing videos games.

Let’s go back to the slide, that’s about as corrective as I can get for today. Demons and their origins and powers. We’re going to go through this. Let’s go through the doctrine of the creation of angels. That’s called angelology. First of all, God created all angels. From them, two thirds obeyed and served Him. That’s what Revelation tells us chapter 12, one third of them rebelled and went with Satan. Some of those are so bad that they had to be imprisoned. They’re actually in here, if you want to look up, here is this Tartarus. That is the prison house where the angels were, that were in the time of the flood, in Genesis 6. Some of them, the angels at the time of the flood, were so bad that God sends them in chains, and they’re chained down there. So, that’s one group. That Genesis 6 group can never get out. They’re waiting for the lake of fire. They were so bad, they’re in chains, and every day they’re counting down until they’re thrown in the lake of fire forever. By the way, that’s what Hell was made for, those. Jesus actually said that, He didn’t make it for people, it was made for the Devil and his angels.

There’s another group that we’re going to meet right here in Revelation chapter 9, that are so malignant, so lethal, so deadly, that God keeps them in here because if they were loose, they would kill all the people. They’re like the ultimate monsters from any movie you’ve ever seen. Back to the screen, God created all, and two thirds obey and serve Him. One third rebelled and some are in prison. Look at this, most of those myriads of angels are not, and those are the demons.

The next slide, when the demon prison is opened, you get a preview of Hell with relentless terror. Now, just take a minute and look with me in Revelation chapter 9. See right here is Revelation 9. This is what it says is going to happen. That’s the very last book of the Bible, Revelation chapter 9, and it says, and I saw “the fifth angel sounded: And I saw a star fallen from Heaven to the Earth.  To him was given the key to the bottomless pit.” The abyss. So, he’s given a key. He comes from Heaven to Earth, gets a key, goes down here to the bottomless pit and in Revelation 9 he unlocks the pit. Let me keep reading. What happens is, “he opened the bottomless pit, and smoke arose out of the pit like smoke of a great furnace. So the sun and the air,” the sun and the air on the Earth. The people that are on the Earth are noticing the sun is blocked, the air was dark because of the smoke.  “Out of the smoke locusts came upon the Earth. And to them was given power, as the scorpions of the Earth have power.  They were commanded not to harm” anything on the surface of the Earth, “but only those men who do not have the seal of God on their foreheads.” Whoa, what’s that? Did you know, there’s actually going to be during the tribulation, that’s why I can’t wait till hour 11 when you understand and put all this together, but there are going to be people alive on Earth during the tribulation that are Christians, that are saved. Now, most of them are not going to be there because before the day of the Lord, which is the tribulation, there’s going to be this event called the rapture. That’s when all believers in the Church are taken out of this world so that, Satan is no more restrained from doing his thing and he just unleashes his plan with the Anti-Christ. That’s all a future class.

Keep reading, but the non-believers, those who do not have the seal of God on their forehead, verse 4, those, these monsters were not given authority, verse 5, to kill them but to torment them for five months. Their torment was like the torment of a scorpion when it strikes a man. In verse 6, “In those days men will seek death and will not find it; they will desire to die, and death will flee from them.” Back to your slides. When the demon prison is open for just that little bit, it’s a preview of Hell. It’s relentless terror.

The next slide, each of the angels we read about in God’s word has power that exceeds anything we can humanly understand as even possible by the laws of the physical world as we know it.

Here’s the good news, God is absolutely all powerfully greater than everything that is anywhere.  This word all is, omni. This word powerful is potent. That’s one of the, those two put together, omnipotent, is one of the attributes of God, that’s who we serve.

The next slide, angels are supernatural and super powerful creatures. As far as we know, they’re indestructible, they can’t be killed or destroyed, they can travel the universe effortlessly, they have no spaceships, they don’t have to rest or sleep. In fact, it doesn’t even seem like they need to eat according to the scriptures, they’re supernatural, super powerful creatures. Now, look up for a second. Those are the aliens. Those are what all the scientific science fiction movies are about. These creatures with glowing eyes, with powers that they have, those are angels and the fallen angels. The demons are what we would call the extra-terrestrials, the UFO’s, and all that. Satan is doing everything he can to get people to doubt God’s word. If you doubt God’s word, if you think there are other planets out there; there are other planets out there but there isn’t other intelligent human life that are in the image of God, there are demons. So, there’s all kinds of activity in the universe. The real aliens that fill this universe and that all of our science fiction movies, that everybody immerses themselves in or about are products of Lucifer’s rebellion, they are Satan’s demons. They’re part of this cosmic war against God.

Back to your slides. So, they’re supernatural, super powerful creatures, but God is greater than the sum of all. He created the universe, plus the Earth, plus the spiritual world. He made all three. He made the entire universe, He made the whole Earth and all these creatures, and He’s greater than the sum of all of them.

The Bible does say this, that there are angels and demons. Lucifer was an angel. See, the angels are the good guys, and the demons are the bad guys. So, these are the positive and these are the negative. The positive team Lucifer, he’s called the guardian cherub. He was a cherubim. There are other cherubim. In fact, a cherub is one and cherubim, the -im is Hebrew for plural. There are seven archangels, the seven spirits that stand around the throne of God. There are also these seraphim that minister in the Heavenly temple. We see them in Isaiah 6, we already saw them in an earlier class. Then there are just angels and they’re lots of them. They’re all through the scriptures.

Next slide. Let’s look at the opposing team, the bad guys. The angel of light is Satan. His highest angel is called the destroyer, we’ll meet him in a minute. There are horrible monsters of the destroyer. Look up here, they’re the ones that are being kept in the abyss. Those, the destroyer, and the accompanying monsters are there right now on Earth in the pit called the abyss, chained up. Some of them and others just penned up. Back to the slide, the doomed angels. They’re the ones that are chained up and can’t get out, from Genesis 6, Daniel chapter 10.  Daniel 10 tells us that there’s a prince of Persia, there’s a prince of Greece, these are the nation princes. Then Paul introduces us to principalities, powers, rulers of darkness, spiritual hosts of wickedness. Then there are tons of just, plain old demons. You see them all the way through the gospels.

Now, do you see this drawing? Let me real quickly take you on God’s tour through the underworld.  I’ll use the death and burial and resurrection of Christ on the cross to share some things. This is the cross. In John 19:30 it says, Jesus cried “It is finished.” He died and what happened? The Bible tells us, the Bible tells us that Jesus went from the cross and took the thief, what did He say to the thief on the cross? Today, Luke 23:43, “you will be with Me in paradise.” Now we already know from Luke 16:23,26, that paradise and Hades are in the same area, but there’s this big Gulf between them. Jesus said that, when he was talking to Lazarus in Hades or the grave or Abraham’s bosom it’s called. So, this is called Abraham’s bosom or paradise or the grave. There’s a happy side, this side, and there’s a tormented side. So, the rich man was over here in torment in Luke 16:24 in the grave. Jesus comes down and actually scoops up all of the Old Testament saints that have died. Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Noah and all the rest of them. He goes from the cross to paradise. It says in 2 Peter, that He comes here and declares, and that’s also Ephesians 4 and 2 Corinthians 2, that He comes with the redeemed proclaims the work of the cross, the payment is finished. He rises from the dead on the third day, and He ascends to sit on the throne, the ascension. It says that He proclaimed captivity captive. He takes those saints, now that they’re redeemed, and He takes them to Heaven where He sits at the right hand of the Father.

Now, what’s interesting is, look at this. In Genesis it says Eden was the paradise of God, but the paradise of God moves because the thief went to paradise, so was Abraham and the rich man. But then somehow the next time we see paradise in Revelation 2, it’s in Heaven, up there with the throne of God. All of a sudden all we have left on Earth are, in the grave, the lost people are still in the grave. Ezekiel 32 is all about them. They’re quite conscious and they’re watching people come.  They’re in torment, pain, but they’re conscious and feeling it, and aware of what’s going on. The redeemed are in paradise with the Lord awaiting their resurrection bodies. Now, that’s going to be connected in the 11th lesson. The lake of fire is not even populated yet. That’s enough to blow your fuses, so let’s go back. God’s tour through the underworld, in this slide. You can take a screenshot of that, it’s in your notes, those of you that are in the Bible Institute.

Just for a minute the Destroyer. One of those in the pit. He’s mentioned here in Exodus, 2 Samuel, 1 Corinthians. His name is Destroyer, Abaddōn in Hebrew or Abaddon and Apollyon in Greek. He is so powerful that in one night, you can look up from your slide, this is the one God brought to Egypt. In one night, this angel of death the Destroyer, went to every Egyptian home, looked them over, found the first born human and firstborn animal, and killed them both that night. America’s $600 billion military couldn’t do that in one night. You cannot genetically DNA code and find from sleeping people, their age, and their family connection, and do it with humans and animals in one night, in every home without them waking up. That’s the power of one angel.

Look back at your slides. The big picture is, God’s absolutely powerful.  We need to not fear, but we need to, look at this, resist. Just how do we resist?

God says, Satan’s alive and well on planet Earth. They’re shooting arrows at us.

God says be strong and, look at this, put on the whole armor of God. What is that?

We listen to God; we know He’s greater. We know that angels are just created beings. We need to repent of our sin because God only protects from the Devil, Destroyer, and the demons in hell, those who are His children.

Now, I want you to look right now at what’s in my pocket, see it on the screen. I’d like to challenge you to take the ultimate challenge, grab your most valuable space in your life, the back of your smartphone. This is my iPhone, see right there, there’s my little camera that I take pictures of my Bible pages with. What’s this? My notes, taped. You can see the tape. That is my current verse I’m memorizing. “Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Wow.

Next slide. Luther was translating the Bible and Satan was tempting him in Wartburg. He wrote a hymn. You’ve heard of it; A Mighty Fortress is Our God. Remember that one?

Look at this, our ancient foe does seek to work us woe; his craft and power are great.

Look at the next stanza, though this world, with devils filled.  They want to fire those arrows. Don’t fear. God’s truth can triumph. One little word shall fell him. What does that mean? Look over here. Our only defense is Ephesians 6, the armor of God. We have to take the word of God. We have to study the word of God and we study it until we find verses like the one on the back of my phone, I just showed you. That we memorize, we meditate on them, and that becomes our weaponry. We know the truth of God, so when Satan fires those arrows, we lift up our shield of faith. What is the shield of faith? Believing what God said, believing God loves us. He’s greater than the devil, that His plan is better than all of Satan’s temptations. We hold up that shield and all those arrows are extinguished. The real aliens are the ones shooting arrows at you. They came from Lucifer’s rebellion. They became Satan’s demons.  The cosmic war is whether or not you and I will repent, come to know God personally, calling on the name of the Lord, and then start believing God enough to put up that shield and say, I believe God more than this temptation to disobey, to displease, to dishonor Him.

Let’s pray.

Father, I thank you for this hour we’ve shared, and I pray that you would bless to our hearts your truth. In Jesus’ name. Amen.


Check Out All The Sermons In The Series

You can find all the sermons and short clips from this series, Exploring The Book Of Isaiah here.

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