Incarnation, Part 1

All right, let's go to the Lord in prayer. We will be studying the incarnation today. So Father God, thank you so much that you would send your one and only

Son, first of all, to be conceived of the Virgin by the Holy Spirit, and then for nine months to be in the womb of the

Virgin Mary, where John the Baptist let for joy as Jesus was in the womb, and then to be born at Christmastime into this world that you would live a perfect life and die for sinners like us, rise from the dead for our justification.

We give you all the praise and all the glory, and Lord, help us to just marvel at this miracle that God would become man.

Help us, Lord, to think about incarnation today in Jesus' name. Amen. So here's the plan.

I'm going to take this kind of at a, maybe a 10, 15 ,000 foot level. I'm gonna look at four different topics, and then

Jeff said he's gonna pay attention. Yeah, I said, I'll pay attention this week so I can know what to talk about next week.

Just kidding, I always pay attention. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Meanwhile, I'm like picturing a bee dunking in my head.

No, I'm just kidding. I'm always paying attention. So the plan then, he's gonna deep dive. He's gonna pick out the appropriate spot, because he's really good at the deep dive.

I'm gonna look at it from four different directions. One is, we're just gonna describe what is the incarnation, go through some passages.

Specifically, Philippians 2 is the big one for that. And then the idea of what is the incarnation in God's glory story?

We've kind of taken to calling scripture God's glory story from Genesis all the way through Revelation.

How does the incarnation fit into the overall glory story? And why is it important for us to study?

And then the last one is, really, why does the world deny the incarnation?

And so I'm calling that topic, the incarnation is a focus of Satan's attack.

Because the reason why the world doesn't go there is because Satan is encouraging them to not go there.

So that's the plan. And so we're going to start out with incarnation described.

And Judy, if you'd be willing to read Philippians 2, six through eight, and Sian, get

John 1, 14 ready, please. Thank you. Read it right away?

Thank you. Check the names. I can read sometimes without.

It's two. Let us, I think it starts at six. Let us each, have you look on, is that it?

Only the ages of others, or no, am I wrong? Two.

Two. Two, six, right? Yes. Two, six through eight. Yeah, oh, that was four. Okay, see,

I didn't see it right. Okay, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God as a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taken the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of man, and being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, amen, the death of the world.

Give me a definition of incarnation. Enfleshment. I've never heard that word.

I just made it up. And you're an English teacher. English teachers are allowed to do that.

Because who's going to correct you? It is enfleshment, yeah.

Yeah, I like that. Is it Ian or Ian? Enfleshment. Ian, enfleshment.

So the idea is it's the hypostatic union. That made a whole lot of sense, didn't it?

I like enfleshment better. Yeah. Fully God, fully man.

That's what it is. Fully God, fully man. This is one of our professions here at Cornerstone.

It's one of the EFCA's professions. Fully God, fully man. So when you go into Ephesians 2, it's all there.

Starting out at the beginning of the passage, it says that he existed in the form of God. Now, we, without reservation, we've described the

Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And the Son of God is one of the three members, three in one.

One of the hard ones to really describe, three in one. But he is fully

God, has always been fully God, and he existed from time past. We were talking last night in our small group about this concept, and that as fully

God, he is eternal. Which says that from eternity past, there is no beginning to God.

God always existed, was not created. He is eternal in the past.

But he is also eternal in the future. So as God, the incarnation is the full man, the full

God. Eternity past. In the form of God, there is nothing about the incarnation, there is nothing about Jesus that in any way limits his fullness as a member of the

Trinity. And you're gonna ask about Philippians. No, I'm gonna say, it says existed eternally, it would be exists eternally.

Mm -hmm. Oh, you're right. That's right. Huge teacher.

Whoa. Which is gonna force me to see what existed. Existence suggested it happened in the past and it is not ongoing.

Which is not gonna make me go back to the Greek and find out how that, to parse out that.

I don't know. What does the ESV say there? Huh? What does the ESV say there? Though he was in the form of God.

Was. Okay, you gotta understand the flow of Philippians two. It's going to take the reality of a fully

God, second person of the Trinity in eternity past, and then it's going to set the beginning of a vector.

Oh, I love to use those kinds of terms. Amen. I like that. A line has eternity in both directions.

A vector has a start point and an eternity in one direction. The incarnation is not eternal in both directions.

The incarnation is eternal from a starting point into one direction. So before this vector, if you would.

I like that vector. Before this vector, he actually was God throughout eternity in full form of God.

But at some point in time, he emptied himself. Now this becomes a fun question.

What does it mean when he said he emptied himself? He spit out a human.

Okay. You never know what's going to come out of it. You never know what's going to come out of it. They say lawyers should never ask a question unless they know what the answer will be.

Not exactly the language of Grudem and Piper, but okay, we know what you're going for.

Jesus comes in the form of man, and it's going to say there he took on the form of man.

That is the first time in eternity past that God existed in the form of flesh.

Now there are, what do you call those, epiphanies? No. Where he appeared.

A Christophany. Christophany, yeah. There are those. But he specifically took on the form of flesh for the first time at the incarnation.

At that moment, it says that he emptied himself. What did he, of what did he empty himself? Rick, I didn't leave that participle dangling.

Of what did he empty himself? Of total power, of unlimited everything. He emptied out his power.

He, at that time, being fully man and fully God at the same time, he had some, in some way, it's inexplicable, he was fully man and limited.

It's a tough question. So as a man, as such, he had to grow in wisdom, so his brain is developing, but in the hypostatic union, he is simultaneously fully

God with the full range of, and all the prerogatives of his divinity still intact. So this is the mystery that in some sense the scripture speaks to him through his humanity or his deity, but he never actually leaves that behind.

I think what he empties himself of is the worship and adoration of angels, the comforts of heaven, and things of that nature, without, see, the problem is if you take, if you go that direction, you can end up in canonic theology, which is the word faith teaching that what he's emptied himself of is his divine attributes, his power.

When he does a miracle, is it that he's relying on the Holy Spirit, or is he acting as the

Son of God walking among us? The answer is both.

He's depending on the Spirit, and yet he's also displaying his absolute power, his omniscience, his power.

Go ahead, Bob. That's how he proves that he's God, that is the whole. Yes, otherwise his miracles wouldn't be a sign of his divinity.

Correct. Is it better words, he suppressed his divinity versus giving it up?

No, it's a both and. The idea of a hypostatic union is that you're not gonna diminish either.

He is fully God, fully man, and sometimes you'll see displays of one aspect or the other, but it's never apart from the other.

So, yeah. I think you got your topic for next week. Well, I don't know, we'll figure it out. He only demonstrates that between the ages of 30 and 33.

We don't know, when he was seven years old, how he. How he reacted.

Yeah, how. Well, yeah, no, we're told, though, that the beginning of his miracles is, as a child, he wasn't like making birds out of mud and then blowing on them and they fly away, like it says in the

Quran, Surah 19. That doesn't happen. He doesn't do miracles till the wedding at Canaan. But he had some good questions when he was 12 years old.

Yeah, he did. He did, and if I take Scripture at face value, which

I obviously do, he lives without sin. So that means, as a teenager, he never talked back to his parents.

Yes. So there are things that are miraculous in that regard. You used the word suppression.

Anything that God, that Jesus chose not to do, even though he could as God, that was a voluntary submission to allow that attribute.

There were times where he was being attacked and he just walked through the crowds.

There's no explanation except that, as God, he could walk right through the crowds and then not be able to stop it.

But then there were times where he said to Peter, I need to be arrested.

They're going to take me. So he's fully God, but there are times the word suppression isn't that bad.

He surrendered. He willingly surrendered certain aspects of his deity.

He clearly could still tell the beginning from the end. Was it Nathan? He said, I saw you when you were sitting under the fig tree.

The woman at the well. He already knew about what sins, he had all this knowledge.

But he intentionally did not use all of the attributes, including the glory, he intentionally did not while he walked on earth for those 33 years,

Rick. Yeah, we just don't know when he became aware of his divinity. Yeah.

That's an interesting question. That's an interesting question. That's a mystery. Yeah, as a man, because as God, he's still holding the world together.

And so again, it is a mystery that in some, as you look at him as a man, he's developing and learning, growing in wisdom and stature before men.

Meanwhile, he's still holding the world together in his divinity. So Philippians is going to teach us eternity past form of God, that never changes.

There is a point in time, this vector starts if you would, where the hypostatic union is established, fully

God, fully man. And while he walked fully God, fully man, he intentionally on his own chose not to use all of the attributes that he could as God.

Never stopping to be God, even to the point that he took, willingly went to the cross for death.

These are all out of Philippians 2. That's kind of, it's one of the great descriptions of it.

Then John 1 .14, Stan, you got that? The word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.

We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only who came from the

Father for grace and truth. It is God's eternal plan that his son would come to the earth in the form of flesh with a mission that had to be accomplished.

The word became flesh and dwelt among us. It is not, the teachings out there that he really wasn't

God there are so many teachings against the reality of the hypostatic union. But scripture is very, very clear that the word, and we get that from earlier in John chapter one, what the word was, became flesh.

There was a point in time where there is no, well, maybe he really wasn't, maybe he just seemed like, it's clear, he became flesh and actually dwelt among us.

That is the incarnation. Now, one of the things that I found interesting as I was looking at this was to see how the reality of the incarnation is so vital to the thread in God's glory story, the

Bible. It's, you don't have the fullness of God's glory without this thread that goes through it.

John one, verses one and two is going to say, in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was

God, that from the very, very beginning, this

Jesus. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Yeah, what do you have to apologize for?

I'm going to let that one go by. This Jesus, from the very beginning, was the word, the word was with God, the word was

God. Now, this particular reality is that all things are made by him.

So we go back into Genesis one, in verse 27, the sixth day, he created man in his image and likeness.

And I find it kind of fascinating to think that as he created man in his image and likeness, he already knew that he was going to take on that form.

There are so many things to the infant knowledge sovereignty of God that are just amazing.

And then it says at the end of chapter one, he looked and every other day he said it was good, this time he said it was very good, this emphatic reality.

That this unique creation, man, woman, was very, very good, different from all other created beings.

But the story goes on, because Adam and Eve were deceived and they disobeyed God. This is all going to lead to the need for a hypostatic union.

Romans 3, 23 and 24, Sandy, I'm going to ask you, did you read already? No. 3, 23.

But I read Genesis, so I'll do this after all. Yeah, you know what, if I read every passage here, we're not going to get out of here in time.

So I'm picking certain ones. And the 3, 11, Barb, if you would have that one ready,

Ephesians 3, 11, Romans 3, 23 and 24.

For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by his grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom

God displayed publicly as a propitiation in his blood through faith. This was to demonstrate his righteousness because in the forbearance of God, he passed over the sin previously committed.

So there is a problem, there was a creation that was very good, sin comes in. And everybody is guilty of that sin and their only solution would have to be that there would have to be, through the grace, through the redemption of the son.

That was going to be the only solution. If we go to Ephesians 2, it starts out with some pretty bleak descriptions.

And you had the quickened who were dead in your trespasses and sins. When in time passed, you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air.

And it goes on to describe how desperate we are, lost, and the two most beautiful words of transition are in verse four, but God.

This all is now going to point on to the need for something to happen. Ephesians 3, 11,

Barbara? Yeah, our paper leads into it by saying, although man is full of sin, and I'm sorry,

Jesus came to die for man's sin according to, and then 11 says, according to his eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our

Lord. This is one of the most beautiful realities is that billions of years before Genesis 1, can't even put a time marker on it, but billions of years before Genesis 1,

God purposed that he would send his son to die for the sins of man who had not yet been created.

Do you believe in pre -evolution? No, I believe in creation.

You said billions of years before. That's eternity. Yeah, in eternity before creation.

Eternity is better than billions of years. Yeah, it was, thank you. I'm sorry. Thank you, that's true.

Five seconds before he created the world, he already knew that he was gonna send his son because that man and woman which were created very good were gonna sin and they were going to disobey and be totally without hope until but God.

So it was according to his eternal purpose that it would happen. And Carol, if you would read

Galatians 4, if you already have that, 4 and 5. So as time progresses, we go through the book of Genesis and we see how the world got totally, totally messed up.

Noah was close enough, he was not perfect. But Noah was close enough that God saw him and through him, he allowed the world to start all over again.

And then it gets so bad that they start to build a tower thinking they could reach heaven. And then it gets so bad, it just goes on and on and on.

But all of this does not come as a surprise to God. And this thread of the incarnation has to work its way through history in Galatians 4, 4 to 5.

But when the right time came, God sent his son, born of a woman, subject to the law.

God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law so that he could adopt us as his very own children.

And when it was the right time. You've heard explanations as to why was that the right time when the

Roman, Pax Romana, the Roman road, everything. No, this was God's right time when he was supposed to come.

And it was already planned from the very beginning. All of this was known. So when Jesus hangs on the cross and he says, to tell us that it was the right time to say to tell us that.

The thread of the incarnation, you can go through the Old Testament and see all of the prophecies about the incarnation.

And they all point to that one event that ends up with John 3, 16, for God demonstrated his love.

Okay, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. And then in John 12, to everyone who receives him, to them he gives the right to become children of God.

So this thread of incarnation goes from the Old Testament creation through the sin, which is evident to that perfect moment,

God sending his son in his love through his eternal purpose at the right time so that man through him could become children of God.

And this is the story that goes on through it. The reality of the incarnation does not end at the cross.

Now the reality of the incarnation was necessary for the cross, but it does not end at the cross.

Now if we go into Revelations 11, you're gonna get that, Revelations 11, 15. If we go into the

Old Testament and we study and we understand how

God, okay, I'm gonna backtrack a little bit.

When the nation goes into the promised land, they are a theocracy. They are ruled by God, not by man.

And God gives them judges and prophets to keep them on the straight and narrow. And how did the

Jews respond to that? They wanted a king. They wanted a king. Yeah, they did. And it's even uglier than that.

They said, we want to be like the other nations. Oh yeah, that's even more powerful.

We want a king who will judge us and who will go before us in battle.

Don't they already have a king who judges them? And who goes before them? Yeah, but they said, we want to be like the other nations.

We want that. Yeah, like Satan said, I'll be like the one beside God. We want to be like the other nations.

Absolutely. I never looked at that one. You're absolutely right. Well, this didn't come as a surprise to God because God had already planned in 2

Kings 2, it talks about the throne of David will be established forever. And we know that's

Jesus. So this did not come as a surprise to God. It wasn't like, well, my plan

B is we'll have, no, that was not plan B. That was already in His sovereign knowledge,

His sovereign will that this would happen. Now, that doesn't mean that man isn't held accountable for his sins, but God is

God. And then in Revelations 11, 15. Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet and there were loud voices in heaven saying, the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our

Lord and of His Christ and He shall reign forever and ever. Ever and ever.

One of the beauties of this incarnation in God's glory story is that it starts out with creation.

With Jesus was there in the creation story, all right? And then, but then it goes through man's just a disobedience and, but God is going to continually preparing that.

Eventually David is continually preparing that. Then eventually He brings Him according to His eternal purpose, according to Ephesians 11.

And then according to Galatians, in His fullness of time, it was going to come.

And it wasn't that He had, we had to have Pilate there and Herod there.

That's true, but it was in His time. So that we accept

Him, we become sons of God. The vector starts at that moment of incarnation and it goes throughout the rest of eternity.

How does that impact us today? The fact that Jesus is still there today.

How does that impact you now? Hebrews tells us

He's our intermediary. He's our high priest. He's our king too.

He's our king too. He's all of this. If we look to Him, we have nothing to worry about.

Absolutely, and it's not like we have a high priest who does not know because he was tempted in every way.

That blows my mind. Yeah. I know how God allows me to be tempted because He allows me to be tempted.

I know that from 1 Corinthians. No temptation has overtaken you, okay? But such as you're able, but with the power of God, you're able to endure.

I don't get tempted beyond what God knows. Through His power, you know,

I can be tempted. We have this high priest who is sitting at the high throne and in Revelations, he is there and he will be there forever.

Yeah. So this incarnation is a true reality for those 33 years, but it's another true reality even today, and it will be a new true reality in the millennial kingdom, and it'll be another true reality in the new

Jerusalem for all of eternity. So is He still enfleshed, to use

Rick's word? Ooh. Or when He was resurrected, is He no longer enfleshed?

He's in a glorified flesh. He's in a glorified, it's different flesh because this flesh can walk through walls and do stuff like that, but He's still enfleshed.

But He's forever a man. Yes. Yes. He's forever hypostatically unified enfleshed.

Oh, boy. Yeah. Woo -hoo. And don't forget it. Yeah. Yeah. I like that enfleshed.

Jesus concarnate. That's right. Concarnate? Concarnate. Concarnate. That's right.

Why is this important to us? What, that He's only human?

Yeah, why is the incarnation important? Because He was tempted as we are, and yet did not sin.

That shows His superiority. That's incredibly true. Why else is this important?

You want like four words, like He's, don't have four words. According to 1

Corinthians, I'm gonna let you read that if you would, Jill. 1 Corinthians 15, three and four.

For I deliver to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the

Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.

According to Paul, all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, I'm delivering unto you for first importance that which

I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that He was buried, that He was raised on the third day according to the

Scriptures. Those three messages of first importance cannot happen unless the incarnation.

If He does not become fully God, fully man, then

He doesn't die on the cross. The teaching that He never really died,

He just swooned, He never really died, blah, blah, blah. Forget all of that, He died. Literally, He died because He was a man.

And when the Romans, when the Romans put Him on that cross, when

He allowed them to put Him on that cross, and many years ago,

I had the privilege of directing and producing a dramatic presentation.

It was called The Choice. And it talks about the life of Christ up to the cross, and then beyond that, with full choir, it was amazing.

The folks that I had doing the makeup and stuff like that hid from me things that were going to happen.

So I was standing out front directing the choir while 14 scenes of drama were unfolding.

And when the gentleman that we had portraying Jesus came out after having been scourged and everything, they did a makeup job on him, and it took my breath away.

We cannot, we cannot ever minimize. He became man, and what

He experienced through that scourging, and I love the way you've taught that, is you cannot minimize it.

Although He was fully God, He had to endure what He had. This is my personal belief.

You can chime in against me if you want. I think the thing that hurt

Him the most when He was in the garden, if there's any way that this cup can be passed by me, be it not my will, but thine, be done.

I think the thing He feared the most, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? The wrath of God, the wrath of God.

That one fraction of an instance in eternity past present when sin was on Him and the

Father had to turn away. But He cannot die on that cross unless He comes as a man.

Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins. This required a true, true flesh person.

And so when you get to where Paul says, first important, and he's already presuming that you know

Jesus was man. He already knows that. That did not have to be proven. One of the things,

I look at your three points there. The vector begins when He was born. He was born, He lived,

He died. The three is a nice number, but I see that it all began.

The vector all begins when He was born. It has to begin when He was born. Then your question, when did

He, as flesh, know that He was God? That's an intriguing question. Yeah, that's an intriguing question. That is intriguing.

As God, He always knew He was God. Now, John has got a couple of things to teach us.

First John 4 -2, it says that every spirit that confesses that Jesus has come in the flesh is of God.

It is important for us to know that if you don't, because John 7, second

John, verse seven, those who don't acknowledge Jesus came in the flesh are deceivers and the antichrist.

This is not a secondary issue. I think for us to be truly reformed, salvific, born again, salvific,

I love that word too. It's almost like in flesh. If we believe the truth of scripture, we have to believe

Jesus came in the flesh. And if you accept any teaching that deviates off of that, it says you are a deceiver and you are an antichrist.

And just as we don't know how Jesus became aware of his

Godhood as a child, think of his parents as well and what they had to deal with.

Did Mary have full knowledge after the visit from the angel?

Did Joseph have full knowledge? I don't know if they have full knowledge, but they definitely had enough.

I think of James. Did Mary ever say, can't you be more like your brother,

Jesus? Yeah. Uh -oh. Well, he was better.

The answer is no. Yeah. You know,

I can't make wine. And that teaches us not to compare your children. There's a lesson behind that.

I'm gonna close off this morning with perhaps a different look at this because I don't think anybody in this room has any problem accepting the reality and the fullness of the teaching of the

Incarnation. I'm not giving you anything you've never heard before. Why does the world oppose it so?

You have sinned. Again. That's definitely true. They want to live like the world and as long as we keep professing that that's not the right way, they don't want to hear it so if they push us out of the way, they can continue on doing what they want.

A little bit like Jeremiah, you know, and you go back to Joshua, what we studied last night.

People didn't follow. They didn't follow God. It sort of upsets me that God gave

Moses the word to pass down to the Israelites. Somewhere along the line, the priest, the prophets, went astray.

Okay, and now that word was not given. I look at them as their punishment's going to be mighty.

Okay, because they led the people in the wrong direction. So sin had a big part here to do where we're talking about here this morning.

When sin entered in, okay, and it entered in right from Adam and when

God gave his word to Moses and we had it, all we had to do was follow him and obey it.

Right on through, the scripture did. Man became self -centered among themselves and wanted to do things their way and that's where it broke down.

Even the prophets, even the priests got self -centered on themselves. Maybe they wanted to gain, you know, money values or maybe prestige or maybe power and they went towards what the people wanted.

I'm gonna throw this out as a thought. It comes down to Satan all the way back in Isaiah 14.

Yeah. In Isaiah 14, why don't you read that from 13 to 14 in Isaiah 14.

You said in your heart, I will ascend to heaven above the stars of God. I will set my throne on high.

I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds.

I will make myself like the most high. From the very beginning, Satan opposes

God and sets himself up. He wants to be God. I think some of the most frightening words in scripture are in James 2 .19.

Satan believes, but he trembles. What is probably the biggest agenda that Satan has and has had throughout all of recorded history?

Okay, this is an aside. My understanding would be that that scene in Isaiah 14 occurred somewhere during the six days of creation.

Yeah, I think so. Because after Satan proclaims, I will make myself like the most high

God. What did God do? He kicked him out. Kicked him out to where?

To earth. So earth hadn't been created already. Yeah. Okay, that's why

I believe that it occurred somewhere during the first six days of creation and it occurred somewhere between day one and the day of the fall, which we don't really know how long

Adam and Eve lived in the garden before the fall. We don't know because they, by routine, would walk with God in the cool of the day in the garden until that day.

But somewhere in that time. Anyway, from the time Satan said,

I will make myself like the most high God and he was banished. And then God basically said, you will bruise his heel but he will crush your head.

Satan knew that the end was coming. And it says in James two that Satan believes, but he trembles.

And because he cannot accept God, he wants to replace God, his agenda had to include denying the occurrence of Messiah.

Mm -hmm. The Old Testament is filled with stories of Satan working to deny the coming of Messiah.

Haman the herald, who wrote an edict that would be given for the king to sign, all

Jews would be killed, stopping the coming of the Messiah. And if we go to Matthew two,

Judy, I'm gonna ask, go ahead and read Matthew two, verse 13 to 16, if you would.

He didn't know it, but this was actually his last chance to stop the presentation of the hypostatic union.

But go ahead. Matthew 13, now then, they had departed. Behold, the name of the

Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, rise, take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt and remain there until I tell you coherence about.

Okay, stop for a second, I'm gonna let you finish. That says for Herod, but I put in parentheses,

Satan. Right. Okay, so read that phrase and then go on. Okay, remain there till I tell you.

For Herod, or Satan, is about to search for the child to destroy him. And he rose unto the child and his mother by night.

This was the attempt, and then Herod is going to go on in that passage. Have all youth, all boys under the age of two killed because I can't happen.

And yes, this is Herod doing it, but that's why I put in parentheses, this is Satan. He says, this child being born of the prophecies, the wise men coming and searching the scriptures, et cetera, et cetera.

This is Satan, I cannot let this happen. All men child on the age of two, this is

Satan stopping it. Didn't work, did it? Yeah, I must have blinded Satan at that point because he didn't know that Christ left the area.

He's not omniscient. And that is one of the most encouraging things is that Satan is not omniscient, right?

He's tenacious, he is not going to give up, but he's not omniscient. He didn't know what he really needed.

So he has this feeling, and it continues on, of Stalin wanting to kill all the

Jews, mysteriously dying that night before he signed the edict. This continues to go on,

Satan is not gone. And I think that Satan is working really hard right now from the river to the sea.

But it's not gonna work. This is Hamas, but again, put that parentheses after it,

Satan. And there's a lot of Jews that are going home now, from all over the world.

So that river to the sea gets to be a good story. It does, yeah,

Rick. I was just saying, you know, Hamas, Iran, Great China, Satan is at work.

He's working really, really, really hard. But he's not very bright, because he still keeps trying, and he keeps getting defeated.

He hasn't learned his lesson. He hasn't learned his lesson. What's the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different answer.

There you go. Yeah, yeah, that's insanity. Now, I think about Satan. He does not know

English, or Greek, or Hebrew, because he doesn't know how to read the Bible, because the

Bible already predicted everything that's gonna happen. He hasn't read that yet. You're gonna read for us the end of this thread that goes through the glory story about the incarnation, because Satan has this agenda, and he is going to lose.

Revelation 20, seven through 10. When a thousand years are over,

Satan will be released from his prison, and will go out to deceive the nations in the four corners of the earth,

God and Magog, to gather them for battle. In number, they are like the sand on the seashore.

They march across the breadth of the earth, and surround the camp of God's people, the city he loves.

But Pharaoh came down from heaven, and devoured them. And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown.

They will be tormented day and night, forever and ever. Eternity.

Satan loses, we win. God wins. Unfortunately, he doesn't understand.

He's dumb to the words. It says that he believes, but trembles.

He doesn't believe to changing his heart. He can't deny

God's, the reality of God, but he's gonna fight against it. Do you wanna close us in prayer?

Father, it is so good to be reminded of these things, Lord, from the theological aspect of incarnation,

Lord, to the story, the meta -narrative of scripture, that all of it is centered on the incarnation, and then death, burial, resurrection of Jesus Christ, to the end of the story, where our enemy, our foe, is thrown into a lake of fire, and there is no more suffering, and pain, and heartache in this world.

No more evil, no more sin, or even temptation to sin for us who are with you forever. So Lord, we know that all of this centers on the incarnation of your son, that you sent your one and only son, born under the law, born as a man, and ever to be a man, and fully

God as well. So we thank you for this revelation of this mystery that we could not have known. And Lord, help us now to live our lives in light of this truth,

God, that we would go forth today reminded and encouraged to remember the incarnation of Jesus, and to focus our lives on who he is, and what that means for how we are to live.

So go with us now, and we devote this Christmas season to you. Lord, as we're looking for December 25th, we see all the

Christmas lights, and we have family and presents. Lord, let the Lord Jesus Christ be first and foremost, and central, and over everything else in our minds.

In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Amen. Thank you. And he does not know yet what he's going to deep dive, but he's going to deep dive.