Systematic Theology (part 10)

Bethlehem Bible Church

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Alright, so by way of review, what was probably the most, what did we spend the most time on last week?

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What was the most important maybe thing that I wanted you to remember or think about when it came to the study of angelology?

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Not necessarily what's the most important thing to know about angels, but what's the most important thing about the study of angelology?

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Anybody remember? We went through that whole long list at the beginning of the history of everything.

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What was kind of the big takeaway from that? If there may, oh that's the second big takeaway.

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That's about angels themselves. What about the study of angelology though? There is, correct, a definitive answer is missing.

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There is no definitive answer. There have been a lot of evolving beliefs over the history of the church in terms of the details, anyway, about angels.

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There's never been a time where the church did not believe in angels. That would be patently ridiculous as long as you at least subscribe to some level of biblical truth, since angels are all over the

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Bible. Only the most liberal of theologians will dismiss them entirely as some sort of symbolism for something else.

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But otherwise, all the details about them, including, as she just mentioned here, whether or not they are made in the image of God, all of those kinds of details have been debated and argued over, and theologians have gone one direction and the next over the course of all of church history.

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So we're not going to really be able to come to a definitive answer last week or today about all of this stuff.

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I'm simply mostly presenting to you all the different points of view, just for your study and edification.

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It is also interesting, though, we had a conversation at the end of, after class last week, about how a few of us, about how it's interesting how

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God tells us a lot about angels, but not enough to give us the definitive answer.

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There's a lot of things that God tells us almost nothing about, and it's pure, it's in sort of the, you know, there's a hint of it and we don't really know.

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So for example, like, what is heaven like? There's only the hint of hints in terms of what eternal life is like.

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The Bible just doesn't really describe much of it at all. And from that we can infer that we, since we believe that the

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Bible is sufficient and complete, that we just simply don't need to know in this earthly life about those details.

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And then for something like, say, where we really, it's really important that we need to know, of course, the Bible has tons and tons of information about it, say, for example, the plan of salvation, right, obviously the most crucial thing for us to know, and there's lots and lots and lots in the

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Bible about the plan of salvation. But angelology kind of falls in this weird little middle gray area where the angels appear a lot, we get told a bunch about what they do, they seem like they're important, but God doesn't really give us a lot of the definitive answers on this.

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The other branch of systematic theology I think that falls in this category, which we're going to do in a few weeks, is eschatology, right, that would be the other one where we hear a whole lot about future things, but not enough to actually be able to say this is for sure how it's going to go down.

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So angelology and eschatology kind of fall in this camp. All right, so yes, we did spend a good bit of time about whether or not angels are made in the image of God, and that's a good place for us to come back and review very briefly because we're going to get into now fallen angels after this.

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But if you remember that when we were thinking about angelology, I'm sorry, when we were thinking about whether or not they were made in the image of God, we went through the list of things that when

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Andrew had done two weeks ago about, or three weeks ago now, about man in the image of God, we said like, okay, well, what did it mean when we said that man was in the image of God?

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The biggest, there was a whole list, and we talked about the existence of a spirit or soul in a man, that soul has simplicity and immortality and invisibility, and we're like, well, angels are spirits that are simple and invisible and immortal, so okay, check.

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Also man has intellect and will, right, and the ability to discern and make decisions, and we certainly see examples of angels doing the same, so okay, angels have will, angels can make decisions, check.

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We said that man in the image of God has morality and integrity, right, righteousness, and at least, or capable of righteousness and capable of holiness, angels, check, right?

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So, so far, angels are keeping up. But, and just from those three alone, there are some theologians,

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John Calvin including, who say, who conclude from this that angels are made in the image of God, that it's not an exclusive thing to just man, but Birkhoff disagrees.

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Birkhoff had two more boxes to check, and he mentions about man's position of having dominion over the earth, and that man has a body that's an organ or a tool to exercise said dominion, and then many other theologians keep going with the list, and they say that, you know, another part, the two other things that make us imago dei is that we have creativity like our creator, we like to make and shape and invent, and we also have relationality, and that we are made to relate to God in a very unique way, and that unique way, of course, in the

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Bible is anthropomorphized in those familial terms of God is our father, and we are his children,

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Jesus is the bridegroom, the church is the bride, right? Jesus is also described as our older brother, where he's the eldest, the first heir, and we are the joint heirs, okay?

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So we have dominion, creativity, and relationality. Angels, no.

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Angels, there's not much in Scripture that angels do any of these. Now, very interestingly, hang on,

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I want to get to my point. Very interestingly, there was a medieval theologian argument which

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I think holds a lot of water, which is that Satan's rebellion was rooted in envy over these three, and that what he and his demons do now is a perverse twisting of these three, that they can't do, that they were not gifted to do.

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They are trying, and in some way having, wicked dominion over the kingdoms of the earth.

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They are inventing, they're being creative, they're inventing false teachings, and also they are establishing fake relationships with people through false religions, okay?

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So, let's talk, that's my segue into the false, or the fallen angels, alright?

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The fallen angels. Because when we talk about the fact that there's, we certainly know that there are holy angels, and we also see evidence of and description of in the

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Bible of fallen angels, of demons. You'll remember that we did have one other interesting little problem that Calvin and Luther tried to grab us with, which was that they both asserted that Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 do not refer to Satan and the fallen, alright?

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That they do not refer to Satan and the fallen. Can somebody please read for me Ezekiel 28?

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So, that whole section, I didn't have Mark read the whole thing, it's actually all of 11 through 19, but there's a pretty good highlight.

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There are many theologians who, and before Luther and Calvin, all through medieval time, and the church fathers, all picked up on that, and also picked up on Isaiah 14 as a prophecy against Satan.

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A description of Satan's fall, and a prophecy against him. What was

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Luther and Calvin's problem with that, though? Look up at the top of Ezekiel 28,

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Mark. What's the heading for this section? Lament over the king of Tyre.

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It doesn't say lament in the first few verses, right? Specifically call out the king of Tyre.

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Now flip back to Ezekiel 27 for us, Mark. What's going on in Ezekiel 27? A lament for Tyre, the city, right?

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Keep going back. 26. So, there's this whole long section where he's very clearly dealing with the earthly kingdom of Tyre, which was a real kingdom that was a real enemy and a real thorn in the side of the people of Israel.

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And Isaiah 14, that particular one prophecy, comes in the midst of a whole bunch of little oracles against all sorts of different kings who surrounded

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Israel. In the same way, it's not against the king of Tyre. I think it's against the king of Babylon in Isaiah.

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But, like, it's surrounded by all these other, like, and against the king of Egypt, and against the king of the

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Moab, and the king of... And so it's like... And so Luther and Calvin both said, to say that these are somehow to pick out from the middle of all this context, in this historical grammatical context, and say that these are about Satan or about the fallen angels as kind of to do injustice or disservice.

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It's a bad hermeneutics. So, yeah, Brian. It does say, O guardian cherub, though.

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Yes, correct. Which is why, as much as Luther and Calvin want to, there's like...

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Man, how can that not be? Yeah, David. Yeah, right.

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Exactly right. Because then you... Or, I'm sure they would...

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I'm sure Luther would, if he were here, would give you some big fancy reason as to why he thinks that one's okay, and not

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Isaiah 14. But, yes, I'm with you. Well, let's just first... To the point being that, like, when

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Isaiah prophesies about, say, the virgin birth, there is also historical grammatical context of the fact that he's also just talking about probably referring to his own son, that his wife is going to give birth to a child soon, and we're going to name him

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Emmanuel, and that there's going to be things that are going to happen to the kingdom before he's even old enough to walk and talk, right?

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And that is true, but then the New Testament obviously takes... Very clearly, it obviously takes that prophecy and applies it to Jesus.

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So, let's just humor Luther and Calvin here for a few moments, and just say, like, if Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 do not refer to Satan, then what are we left with?

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The truth is we're left with very, very little after that point. We would know that they exist.

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There's plenty in Job, right? And we certainly see all sorts of stories in Acts and the

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Gospels of demonic possession. So we know they're active. We know they're against Jesus and his church and his work, and we know that they accuse him from the epistles, too, in the

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New Testament. We know that they're constantly trying to deceive us and tempt us and lead people astray and work against God.

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But we know very little about their history. We would know very little about their fall, about why, what happened to them, so on and so forth, right?

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We have very little. All we would know, really, at that point, the only thing left would be two places, that in Revelation 13, in which it talks about the dragon, right, which

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John very clearly labels later on in John 13 as Satan, that the dragon that he rebels in heaven and he sweeps a third of the stars with his tail and they all fall out of heaven, okay?

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And that is pretty obviously, if you study it, that the stars refer to other angels, and so thus we get the notion that when the rebellion happened, that it was a third of the angels who fell.

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So two -thirds stayed holy, chose to remain loyal to God, one -third chose to follow

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Satan. So we have that, but even there it doesn't really say why, just as they do. And then the other one is really, really,

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I'm typing it in so I can remember the actual, right, Luke 10, which is almost a throwaway line when

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Jesus is sent out, the 72, to go preach and they come back with their report on how it went and they're all excited because they're like, the demons are even, they're obeying us, we can cast them out of the people and they're listening to us because we invoke your name.

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And Jesus, almost as just a sort of a bit of a quick aside explanation about why that's possible, says,

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I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. But then he immediately moves on.

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So that's all we got, right? So if we take away those two, that's all we would have. But there are a lot of theologians besides Luther and Calvin who really do lean in and think that Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 can be that dual kind of prophecy in which they have a historical context, the prophecy was against the king of Tyre, but also has a bigger picture spiritual prophecy to it, component to it, just like the

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Emmanuel prophecy in that it can also be an oracle against Satan and against his followers.

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So from that, if we're going to take that, we're going to roll with it. What Mark just read for us is that in verse 17, this is what we would kind of have to go on about why they fell.

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That Satan became proud of his beauty. He was created as the most beautiful of all the angels, and he became proud of his beauty.

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And he became violent in verse 16. And it talks about, you can see in there about how he was in Eden and how he was covered in jewels, right?

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That was part of why he was so beautiful, and that his power and his intelligence were so great, right?

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And possibly even all the angels, that their power and intelligence were so great that it was conceivable to them, wrongly but conceivable, that they could replace

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God, right? They at least convinced themselves that it was possible that they could replace

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God. Or if we don't want to go quite that far, at least they would say that they wanted to have free will, they wanted to have no authority over that.

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And Burkhoff and others say that, you know, this seems like the most likely of the temptations to which the fallen angels succumbed because Satan, that's also the angle he uses in the first temptation of humanity, right?

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That he appeals to Eve and to Adam a possible similar ambition,

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Burkhoff says. That they also would like to have no authority over them, perhaps, did

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God really say, questioning him. Now, before we leave the holy angels, let me just say that those who refused the temptation became confirmed in their position.

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Whatever the temptation was, they became confirmed in their position. They are now called holy, right?

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There's almost this sense that only after this great choosing moment did they become the holy angels.

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And from that, Burkhoff and other theologians kind of extrapolate this idea that they enjoy perseverance, okay?

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That God has given them the gift of perseverance just like he's given to those who are saved in such that there is no future fall of additional angels, okay?

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They are preserved and preserved for eternity. In fact, we are now encouraged to follow their example.

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In the Lord's prayer in Matthew 6 .10, he wraps it up with what? What's the last few words?

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No, not the last few words, the first few words, right? Matthew 6 .10, let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

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Who is doing God's will in heaven? The angels, right?

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It's the angels. They're the ones doing his will. So we're being encouraged, even in the Lord's prayer, to follow their example.

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Now, the current state of the fallen angels, on the other hand, is kind of the reverse of preservation.

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There is no plan of salvation for them. They are confirmed damned.

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I already mentioned Revelation 12 .4 about how it probably indicates this notion that it was one -third of their original total, is the number of them who fell.

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And the thing is about their current state, and this is maybe one of the most important things for you to get, because the world doesn't get this, is where are they right now?

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Where are Satan and the demons right now? Where can they go? Anybody?

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On earth and heaven. They are not kicked out.

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They at least have the ability to go back for a visit, so to speak. Yes, Job makes that very clear.

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Satan is spending time, at least some time, in the throne room, in the presence of God, in which he is accusing us.

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Paul tells us that he accuses us day and night. And it's

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Jesus who has to advocate for us, on our behalf, and say, yes, but.

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Essentially, that's the defense. The defense of Jesus is, yes, they did do all those sins, but I paid for them.

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My blood pleads on their behalf. Pleads their innocence. So they are present on earth, and at least sometimes in God's throne room.

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Where are they not? Hell. Right now, in their current state, they are not in hell.

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And that's probably the mythology around angels and demons. The most popular mythology of it is that hell is where the angels are,

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I'm sorry, where the demons are hanging out right now. And they rule over it, or they have a party down there, or something.

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And they're torturing all the people who've gone down to hell. Thank you, Dante. Right? No!

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The Bible tells us that hell was created for Satan and his demons.

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That is not going to be the place where they're having a good time. It is not going to be the place where they are in charge in any way, shape, or form.

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It is going to be the place where they are going to be eternally punished, just as the unsaved, those who never repent and follow

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Christ, will be eternally punished. It is not going to be a party for them down in hell.

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They do not want to go. They are, in fact, all of their activity now can basically be seen through that lens of them kicking and screaming and railing against what they know to be their future.

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And they're just trying to get whatever they can get before that happens. They are completely fallen and desperately evil.

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Right? And, by the way, they're not just present on earth, but also ruling.

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Satan is referred to as the prince of the air, the prince of this world. And remember that when, in the two gospel accounts, when

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Jesus is out in the desert, and Satan comes and tempts him directly in the desert, it features this one offer, one of the temptations is

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Satan offers to give him all the kingdoms of the earth. And please note that in that temptation, in his response to that temptation,

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Jesus does not refute that he has that ability. He doesn't say, you're lying, you can't give me the kingdoms.

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He says, no, I'm supposed to worship God and him only. That's his correct response, and that is the right response.

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But it's true, Satan could have. Otherwise, if he couldn't, that wouldn't have been a temptation. Right? The idea was, what

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Satan's idea was, was Jesus, you are supposed to eventually end up with all the kingdoms. We know that.

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You and I both know that. You're going to end up ruling. But in order to do that, you're going to have to go through this horrific, you're going to have to live amongst all these people for another few years.

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You're going to have to put up with all their garbage. And then you're going to have to die this horrific, torturous death.

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And you're God, and how can you even think about dying? Right? Or go through such a thing? Let me give you a shortcut.

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Why don't we just go straight to the part where you're in charge of all the kingdoms of the earth? Right? That's the temptation.

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So he's anyway, so Satan, he's ruling. He has ownership of the kingdoms of the earth now.

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All right. So, we talked about the timeline a little bit. Do you remember last time when I said, when were angels created?

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All angels. Do you remember? Just, like, within Genesis bounds.

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Between day zero and day three, right? Like, on day one, or the moment of the initial moment of day one, and day three, right?

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Because, and we can say day three. Do you remember why? Because day three is when the land,

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God makes the dry land. And there are verses in Job and Psalms talking about the chorus singing as God establishes the foundations of the earth, and sets the land, and bounds the oceans, and whatnot.

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So, that could also just mean day one, but the latest it could possibly mean is day three.

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So we're going to put them in somewhere in there. Okay. So, and if I just said we didn't, there's only been one creation of angels, only one fall of angels, so all the fallen angels were also created during that time as well.

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When did they fall? Is an interesting question. Can we put, within the context of Genesis, can we put some bounds on when they fall?

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Maybe a minimum. Brian? Less than a week.

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Okay. Okay, that is true.

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Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay.

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Very good. All right. I like where you're tracking with that. So, earliest he could have possibly fallen is what?

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Dave? Day seven or eight. Yeah, because what happens on day six?

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Very good. God looks at all that he has created, all, which should include the angels, and it was very good.

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Okay, so on day six, at the end of day six at least, everything was very good. No fall yet.

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Okay. And, just as Brian said, because he saw my notes, probably not too long after that.

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Right? Because Genesis 128 commanded Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth, and if they weren't doing that, then they would have been sinning.

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Okay? Now, yes, they were perfect people, but does that mean that she should have gotten pregnant right off the bat?

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I don't know. Right? The Bible is certainly full of all sorts of situations in which

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God closes the womb, opens the womb, dot, dot, dot. It could very well have just been that they could have lived for months or years, or we don't really know, in bliss, in Eden, where God simply just did not allow

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Eve to become pregnant. Right? But we do know, for sure, that Eve did not become pregnant until after the fall.

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If she was pregnant before the fall, we've got all sorts of theological problems. So we can be definitive about that, too.

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Right? All descendants of Adam created were born after the fall. That way, they all inherit original sin.

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But, so somewhere in that zone, right, is where we can say.

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The demons fell after Satan. Okay? There was

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Satan, and then the demons fell. We know that the

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Bible talks about Satan as the author of sin, and then also that reference in Revelation, I mentioned,

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Revelation 12, about him being the dragon and then sweeping the third of the stars out of the sky.

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We get this sense that he fell first, and then the others followed after him.

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Okay? All right. I already covered that. Okay. So, so that was question eight.

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Right? That the earliest the demons and Satan could have fallen would be day seven, because we know that day six we're told that he all was very good.

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All right. So last time we talked about the fourfold mission of angels, and interestingly, there's a fourfold anti -mission of demons.

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Okay? In verse, and that's, sorry, question number nine on the worksheet, as we finally get into filling out the rest of this worksheet.

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What is the fourfold anti -mission, or anti -ministry, of demons?

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All right. Number one is deception. Deception. 1

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Timothy 4 .1 tells us that they are the source and inspiration for many, maybe most, maybe all, false teaching.

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Okay? I didn't, I kind of wanted to say to you all, but I wanted to leave open the possibility that certainly false teaching, that man,

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I think man is wicked enough to come up with our own false teaching without demon help. But, yeah.

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But 1 Timothy clearly tells us, Paul clearly tells Timothy that, that they are the source and inspiration for at least much false teaching.

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Their primary goal is to, in this ministry, is anti -ministry, is to turn people away from the truth.

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They are the ravens eating the seed in that parable of the sower. Right? The seed in the sower.

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When Jesus talks about the, someone, the farmer casting the seed and it falls on the wayside, and then the ravens come and scoop it up and eat it.

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Right? That's them. They're the ravens. Most, I would say the consensus amongst modern theologians, even reformed theologians, reformation time theologians, is that every false religion has a demon or demons working together as its fount.

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Okay? That everyone, and my personal opinion to kind of put an even more modern spin on this is that I believe that they are behind many of the unexplained phenomenon of modern times and even

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UFOs. All right. Now I know I'm not to get too geeked out on you all, but there's a lot of people, there's a lot of UFO kooks out there who read

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Ezekiel, the early parts of Ezekiel, and they say Ezekiel saw a UFO like they're like, that sounds just like a

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UFO. There's like spinning wheels and bright lights and they're floating around. And that's just like when people describe

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UFOs. And I say to that, no, I'm going to flip that around on you that what

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Ezekiel saw were angels. And that what you're seeing now, when you think you're seeing

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UFOs are also a certain kind of angel. Right.

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And so that, that I think is that they're, they're behind much of that because any of that stuff and all of that stuff and especially false religions, obviously all are a distraction.

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They all are to lead you astray, to get you thinking about other things, to blow hole, try to blow holes in God's truth and God's theology and, and his message.

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Right. All right. So it's all deception. Number two, possession, possession.

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There are numerous examples, can't deny it in the Bible of them being able to control the bodies, minds and, or hearts of unbelievers.

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Okay. Now, the good news I have for you is that they are unable to possess believers.

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And I can say that definitively. They are unable to possess true believers.

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Why? Because we're already possessed by the

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Holy Spirit. That is right. Correct. We are indwelt by the Holy Spirit and it would be impossible for a demon and the

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Holy Spirit to occupy that same space. You can imagine how quickly the demon would be blasted right out of there if they tried.

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Right. So while possession is a real thing and really happens, um, and, uh, probably still happens even to this day, it is not something that you, a believer need to worry about happening to you.

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You do not need to fear that. And I've met people who do fear that or who then when they fall into some kind of sin or temptation or particularly like, like a long season of it, they want to, they've with their very poor theology wanted to blame it on the idea that they were being, uh, possessed by a demon.

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The demon is the one who did it. You know, that kind of thing. Okay. Number three, attack, attack.

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They are the root of many. Again, I'm not going to say boast or all, but many evil occurrences in the world.

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Okay. In this life, they are the root, the power behind many evil occurrences. And the reason

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I'm going to say many is just like false teaching. I'd say that people don't need a demonic influence in order to do bad things.

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They are perfectly capable of doing bad things all on their own. And also remember that the

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Bible never excuses people for following demonic leading either.

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Right? So even if that is true, it doesn't mean that they get some kind of pass for what they have done and all the blame falls only on the demons.

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Yes, Dave. Yeah. Yeah.

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So, uh, medieval theologians in particular. And I think really all the, and I think up until the point where we meteorology became a well -studied science, um, they, they took the title of him being the prince of the air and turned that into the notion that he was in control of the weather, that Satan was the one in control of the weather.

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Um, I personally don't love that because I think that ascribes way too much power, like near omnipotence to him that I just don't think he has.

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Um, I think it's possible that he could do something and influence something.

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And I even think that he, he and the demons are capable of the miraculous, right?

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Um, of making things happen that will go against natural law. Uh, so again, as part of their deception, but they can only do it when

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God allows them, permits them to do it. Yeah. Brian. Yeah.

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Yeah, exactly. Yeah. God, the Bible never says it rained. It always says God sent the rain, right?

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And it never says Satan sent the rain. So, yeah, also correct.

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Yes. Taylor, that little bit. Yes. Weather does not have intent. It does not have moral, right?

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Um, it's really only our relation, our reaction, what it, what it does to us, right?

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That is bad or good. And in fact, you know, we, we can complain about when it rains because it's ruining our plans, but we should be really, but we really needed that rain, or the plants really needed it, or the, you know, all sorts of things really needed it.

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So, um, we shouldn't really complain of it. Okay. Um, so they, uh, and then number four, right?

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I didn't do number four yet. Number four, accusation, accusation. Uh, and especially, of course, this is the ministry, anti -ministry of Satan himself, whose very name means accuser.

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Okay, accuser. By the way, um, who here knows the supposed other name, like Satan's other name or original name?

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Lucifer, right? Lucifer. Do you know where that comes from? Beelzebub.

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Yeah. Okay. That's another, but where does Lucifer come from? Anybody know the word light?

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Yeah. Well, so it comes from, it means morning star. Uh, and it comes from Isaiah 14.

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Um, so, but the thing is, it's just a word that means morning star.

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And there's really, even if we go with the, Isaiah 14 does refer to Satan, it doesn't really use the term as his name.

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Right? So, we're really stretching things to say that Lucifer is his name or was his name beforehand.

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The Bible completely always only refers to him as the accuser. Okay? So his name, his very name means the accuser.

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Uh, in fact, in the Hebrew, he's almost always called, like, if you really look at the Hebrew, it's the

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Satan is how he's spoken of, not just Satan. He is the Satan. He is the accuser.

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Um, because again, it's his title rather than his actual name. Um, and, and what's going on is just what we see in job.

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Okay. What we see happening in the early chapters of job, the new Testament reveals to us is happening all the time, especially in Hebrews.

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We hear about how the Satan is doing the same thing to us all the time. Um, uh, all potentially all believers, right?

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Or at least anyone's that come under his notice. Okay. That accusing, uh, railing, uh, against us, accusing us directly, perhaps, um, uh, the demons might also be where they are trying to, you know, sort of whisper into our conscience accusations against us, uh, where we ourselves would question our salvation.

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Or our belief or our commitment to the Lord, right? All that kind of stuff. Um, and ultimately it is

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Jesus who is our advocate and our defense to his accusations. And as I already said, he does not defend us on our merits, of course, but on the merit of his own work on our behalf.

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So James Boyce asks, why does

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God tell us so much about angels? And even especially fallen angels, why do we need to know what is

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God's warning to us? And he puts it, I think, pretty starkly.

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He says, what God's warning to us is there is a war going on, and it's a war that we cannot see, but we can very much feel the effects of.

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And we have a host of spiritual enemies that are always set against us and always working to undermine us, damage us, or straight up kill us.

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Second Corinthians 2 11 warns us not to be ignorant of Satan's tricks and schemes, right?

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Of his devices, the KJV used the term. Okay, but basically we could say his tricks and his schemes, or, uh, since it's football season, his playbook.

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Okay, his playbook, starting with, by the way, his very appearance, because he is no horned half goat.

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Okay, nor is he some slick coated, trench coated, thriller man, right?

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Like, I think the modern TV shows, that's how they like to portray Satan now, right? He's like these men in black.

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He's got the big, long trench coat, slick back hair, sunglasses, or something like that, right? Like, he's not that cool, dude, either.

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Okay, he is, there's, the Bible doesn't really, and the way

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Paul talks about it, I don't think his image changed when he fell. He's still the same gorgeous, beautiful, bright angel he always was, in appearance.

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And remember, when John sees angels, remember from last week, when John sees an angel in Revelation, what's his first temptation?

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What does he do? He drops to the ground to? Try to worship him.

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So what do you think unbelievers do if Satan appears to them, in all his beauty and splendor?

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Only Satan will not stop them. Right? The Holy Angel said, no, no, wait, wait, don't worship me, worship

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God. Satan soaks it all up, right?

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So to think of them as the goat guy, horned goat guy cartoon, right?

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Of, of college mascots everywhere, or, you know, or Looney Tunes cartoons, and far side cartoons, right?

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To think of them as that, or as, you know, one of the agents from the matrix, like, to think of them as either of those is really to discount him, and give him the advantage.

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It's what he wants you to think. So we not be ignorant.

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We are warned of his tricks and his schemes. All right. So our proper response to wrap it up, to what

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God has revealed about demons is a, do not underestimate

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Satan and the demons. All right? Do not underestimate them.

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Matthew 6, 13, in the Lord's Prayer itself, the prayer that God, that Jesus tells us to model all of our prayers after.

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He tells us to pray not to be led into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

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All right? Do not underestimate him. You do not want to be delivered into his hands. But be, do not overestimate

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Satan and his demons either. Okay? Do not overestimate them. They're not omnipotent.

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They're not omniscient. They're not omnipresent. The devil didn't always make you do it.

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It's impossible for him. Okay? So don't overestimate them either.

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Not everything that bad that happens to you is because a demon was attacking you. Sometimes it's just your own dumb sin that puts you in that situation.

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Okay? Number three. Recognize that two -thirds of the angels are still on our side, and they also are mighty.

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They are mighty in battle. God tells us a whole lot about how mighty his host is.

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And I think he wants us to know that too, to know like, one, hey, good news. We outnumber them. It's two -third to one -third.

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And two, we're mighty. I've got a really big army on my side fighting in this war for you.

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Number D. Number D. Do not blame Satan and the demons for your sin.

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Okay? Do not blame them. First Corinthians 10 .13 tells us that no temptation has come to you that is not common to all men, and none that God has not made a way of escape for you.

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So even if Satan himself, which I hope is not true, but even if Satan himself did ever decide that you were worth his time to come to tempt you directly, even that temptation

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God promises that there is a way out for you. Okay? There is a way out.

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You do not. You can escape. You don't. You can't blame him. And then finally,

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E. Please take comfort in the promise of their final judgment. The book that we gave the teens from Nielsen makes a lot about this.

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We ought to take great comfort in the notion and the remembrance that while they might have a lot and they might be causing a lot of trouble now and might be a real problem for the church and antagonists to God now, their loathe, their doom is sure, as Luther put it in his great hymn.

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Okay? All right. Any last thoughts or questions about angels?

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Something I didn't cover? Brian? Yes. Angels don't die.

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But there's still judgment. Yes. Yes, that's right. Yes. There is this strange reference in Peter, 1

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Peter, in which Peter talks about spirits in prison. And I won't get into it today.

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If you want to come talk to me afterwards, I'll come talk to you. The theologians are all over the map on this one as to whether or not those spirits in prison refer to demons or just to people who are already in hell.

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But it's possible anyway that that could refer to some small subset of demons who have already been imprisoned in hell because their crimes were so heinous.

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But, yeah. But otherwise, no, they're not in hell today. All right.

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Great. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you that you are the Lord of hosts.

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And you do indeed have an army mighty in battle that you have ordained to be fighting on our side throughout this whole church age.

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And we look to you, Lord, in celebration and are comforted in the knowledge that your angels are constantly there to minister to us.

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And as we learned last week, that because we have gathered here, even now they are in our midst and observing this very gathering.

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And, Lord, we thank you for their ministry to us and all the forms that it might take.

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And certainly you've not. It's a mystery to us much of what they do for us.

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But we are comforted in knowing that they are doing things for us at your command and that they are indeed mighty.

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And we pray, Lord, that you would lead us not into temptation, but deliver us, Lord, from Satan and from his demons, from their attacks, from their deception, from their accusations.

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Thank you that your son continues to plead on our behalf through his great finished work on the cross.

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And in his resurrection, we know that he lives again to be our defender and to see us through safely into heaven someday, to live with you forever.