Know Your Enemy: The Devil | 1 John 2:14-17

ThornCrown Covenant Baptist Church

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OK, so I don't know if I gave a preface to the series that I started,

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I think, last week regarding knowing our enemy, the world, the flesh, and the devil.

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This series is primarily an overview for understanding and fighting our enemies.

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Each one of these subjects, or enemies, could easily become a separate series.

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It's a very vast topic. They're all very vast topics. Nevertheless, I will try to be as thorough as I can be.

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But this is really to equip you and to encourage us as a church collectively, which is being sanctified, to continue to dig deeper.

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Because we must. That is our role as soldiers of Christ in Christ's army.

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That being said, I need to apologize because today's sermon is actually about the devil instead of the flesh.

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I had really been wrestling with trying to put these messages together. And I thought

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I was going to need more time with the devil. But then it turns out it was the other way around. So you'll have to excuse the sermon title.

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It is going to be about the devil today. I'm going to need more time to flesh out my sermon on the flesh, after all.

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And I'm probably not going to get through everything on the devil as well. I'm probably going to need another sermon for that too.

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There's just a lot to cover. And I don't want to leave anything out that's really important that I don't want us to miss.

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So I'm also going to preach on and deal with very important texts that you might not be familiar with, even though knowledge of this is kind of increasing to some extent.

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But it's still not as familiar. So please pay careful attention and just take notes.

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And be sure to follow up and investigate this stuff as well. But first,

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I also want to clarify something from last week. In my previous sermon titled,

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Know Your Enemy, The World, I presented a challenge question. Who governs or rules this evil world?

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And so the answer is that God is the one who is ultimately in charge and in control of everything, including this evil world.

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Though he also ordained the devil to gain control of this world due to the fall, to Adam's failure in the garden.

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And I really like how reformer Martin Luther brilliantly said that even the devil is

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God's devil. Amen? The devil is still just God's devil.

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And Brandon Adams also explains that when Adam sinned against God by obeying

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Satan instead, he relinquished his dominion over the world to Satan.

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So that is how that specifically came about. And in the sermon,

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I had also quoted Isaiah 45, which says, I am the Lord and there is no other, the one forming light and creating darkness, causing peace and creating disaster.

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I am the Lord who does all these things. Now, what I really want to clarify here is that this does not mean that God himself commits sin.

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God does not sin. God, in fact, cannot sin. God cannot sin.

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Because everything God does is good and right and just and holy.

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Why? Because he does it. It's because he does it that it is good and because of who he is.

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Deuteronomy 32 .4 says, the rock, his work is perfect for all his ways are justice.

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A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he.

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Amen. And the very definition of righteousness is

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God's goodness. As revealed in his law and as honored in Christ's perfect obedience to that law.

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That's from the excellent catechism for boys and girls. And I'm quoting these different sources in order to clearly summarize what the

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Bible teaches on these critical big picture doctrines. These are very important bookend doctrines that we need to balance out properly.

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And God is also, he is goodness and righteousness.

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He is the supreme judge and lawgiver. The righteousness of God is the soul, ultimate perfect standard of what is right and wrong.

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He answers to no one but himself. Not to some higher standard outside of him.

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We can't subject God to anything. Jesus said that no one is good except God alone.

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Amen. And in order to make proper sense of both

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God and evil, including the devil, we must distinguish between primary or ultimate causes by God and secondary causes by creation, by creatures.

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Now, following the recent shooting that took place in the Lakewood church,

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Joel Osteen, his wife, the Spanish speaking pastor, and his wife, and a longtime church member all kept referring to these crimes as senseless acts of violence.

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And our hearts sincerely go out to the victims. That's a tragedy. It's very sad.

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It was an evil thing that happened. But I'm hearing, you hear this phrase more and more these days, senseless acts of violence, including from pastors and church folks, as well as from the world.

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The world says the same thing. So I want to ask ourselves, is

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Joel Osteen's theology biblical at all? Think about it.

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Because I think you all know where I'm going with this. If something is senseless, if something is senseless, then it has no purpose.

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So to say that someone died by a senseless act of violence is to say that someone died pointlessly, without purpose, and for no reason.

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You might as well be an atheist. That's atheism. Beloved, there is no such thing as senseless acts of violence in God's world.

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No such thing. Senseless anything. Nothing is senseless in God's world.

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And in light of the reality that God is sovereignly in control of everything, including our greatest enemies, the world, the flesh, and the devil,

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God also predestined the actions, or secondary causes, the choices, of all creatures, including evil ones like the devil.

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Because God ultimately has a good purpose for everything, no matter how bad it is.

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It is in part, for those of us who are familiar with the reformed faith and standards, to glorify himself and to save, sanctify, and glorify his people to the praise of his glorious grace.

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As the confession says. And of course, to punish the wicked, to punish the wicked to the praise of his glorious justice, to satisfy his justice.

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Romans 828 says, and we know that God causes all things, no exception, all things, to work together for good to those who love

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God, to those who are called according to his purpose. That's going back to that members only thing, right?

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Members only. Believers only. These promises apply only to believers.

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But they are ultimately for good. So we have to remember that there is no such thing as senseless acts of anything in God's world.

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And I want to conclude this section with chapter 3 of the London Baptist Confession, which is of God's decree.

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Paragraph 1 says, God hath decreed in himself from all eternity by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably, all things, good, bad, and different, whatsoever comes to pass, including all evil and acts of violence.

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Yet so as thereby is God neither the author of sin, nor hath fellowship with any therein, that is, with any who are unrepentant evildoers.

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Nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, which means that creatures are not forced to do anything, nor yet is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established in all rational creatures that make their own choices, in which appears his wisdom in disposing all things, and power and faithfulness in accomplishing his decree.

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So God ultimately causes everything, including sin. He predestines it, but he does not commit sin.

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Amen? Secondary causes, on the other hand, do sin. Secondary causes commit sin.

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We sin, not God. And for more on this, you can listen to my other sermon on our sin -bearing advocate,

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The Gospel According to Righteousnesses. And I also highly encourage everyone to read

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Gordon Clark's treatise on God and Evil. That is the very best of the best on this topic, on this issue.

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And if you'd like a copy, ask me after church, and I can get one for you.

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So now, recall that the unholy trinity of the world, the flesh, and the devil are all allies.

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They are allies that conspire to steal, kill, and destroy us.

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And we also learn that the world, in 1 John chapter 12, 15 through 17, is unregenerate civilization.

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It is unregenerate civilization, ungodly, unbelieving society and culture as a whole, as well as the sinful lusts and lifestyles, or rather death styles, that it promotes, which is supposed to be in direct contrast to the church.

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As John tells us, the world is one thing, the church is here. It's separate, it's distinct, it's holy, and it's set apart, and it's different.

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So, because we cannot love both God and the world, they're mutually exclusive.

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Now, as we hone in on specifically the devil, we can also recall that in 1

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John 2, 14, John declares a gospel indicative about our relation to the devil.

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He says, I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one.

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Who is the evil one? The devil. And later on,

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John also warns us against Antichrist in verse 18 and also in chapter 4.

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And in chapter 3, John explicitly refers to the devil in verse 8, which says, whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning.

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OK, that's very important, from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.

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OK, so, perfect segue. In order to know and master our adversary, the devil, we must start with his story from the very, very beginning, including the prequel.

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My desire is to give us a biblically consistent understanding of our main enemies and to equip us to fight back and to defend ourselves against them, especially because there are many different views on several related issues to these things, and so it can get very confusing and overwhelming.

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So, I want to try to give the clearest and the most straightforward meaning and understanding of these passages with the least possible amount of speculation, because you hear a lot of that with respect to this.

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There's a lot of speculation that is just not warranted. And that's what we need to watch out for.

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So, let's search the Scriptures to find out more. And I also want to give credit to Minister G.

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Craig Lewis. A lot of his DVDs have helped me to solidify my understanding of these issues, as well as Pastor Joel Webben of Right Response Ministries, who also has several very useful episodes on the

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Nephilim and fallen angels and that kind of stuff, as well as the late Dr. Michael Heiser, who has also written some useful material on these topics, such as the unseen realm and reversing

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Hermon. So, let's go now to the beginning in Genesis 1, the very beginning.

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Chapter 1, verse 1, where we see the creation of the world. Genesis 1, verse 1.

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In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was already without form and void.

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And darkness was over the face of the deep. And the

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Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, let there be light, and there was light.

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And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. And God called the light day, and the darkness

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He called night. And there was evening, and there was morning, the first day. A few things to note here is that the

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Hebrew word for God here is Elohim. Elohim. It's actually a proper name that refers to one being, and yet it has a plural ending.

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So in Hebrew, I am, when you see a word with I am, it means plural.

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So El would be singular, Elohim, plural. Cherub, angel, cherubim, angels, seraph, seraphim, like that.

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And notice, too, how the earth was covered in water. Water and darkness after God created it.

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And the Amplified Bible has some useful renderings of this passage as well. It says, in the beginning,

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God created by forming from nothing the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void, or a waste and emptiness.

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And darkness was upon the face of the deep, primeval ocean that covered the unformed earth.

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The Spirit of God was moving, hovering, brooding over the face of the waters. So this kind of raises a question here.

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Did something happen on earth prior to verse 2 of this passage?

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Keep this in mind, because it says, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And then it says, the earth was formless and void, or a waste and emptiness.

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And darkness was upon the face of the deep. So the story doesn't end there, of course.

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We have to apply the analogy of scripture now by comparing what other passages say that shed light on this.

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So let's go now to Jeremiah chapter 4, verse 23. Jeremiah chapter 4, verse 23.

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Note that this chapter is about judgment on the nation of Judah.

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That's the context of the passage. In verse 23, we read,

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I looked on the earth in my vision, and behold, it was without form and void.

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Sound familiar? Transition. He's transitioning back to creation and to the heavens.

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And they had no light. I looked on the mountains, and behold, they were quaking, and all the hills moved to and fro.

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I looked, and behold, there was no man. No man. And all the birds of the air had fled.

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I looked, and behold, the fruitful land was a desert, and all its cities were laid in ruins before the

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Lord, before his fierce anger. For thus says the Lord, the whole land shall be a desolation, yet I will not make a full end.

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For this the earth shall mourn, and the heavens above be dark.

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Remember that, how darkness was over the earth in Genesis 1?

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For I have spoken, I have purposed, I have not relented, nor will

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I turn back. At the noise of horsemen and archer, every city takes to flight. They enter thickets, they climb among rocks.

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All the cities are forsaken. No man dwells in them. Now, notice how this judgment vision is clearly establishing a parallel to the creation account.

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It suggests that God had previously judged the earth and its prior residents.

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Very, very interesting how it's shedding light on this issue, on what's going on here, this parallel.

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Now, let's continue comparing scripture with scripture, and jump now with me over to Ezekiel 28.

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Ezekiel 28. So in Ezekiel 28, this is a very, very interesting passage.

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I want to start, I'm going to jump around a little bit. I'm going to start in verse 2 to get the context, and then we're going to skip a little bit.

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It says, son of man, this is, I think this is an angel or something talking to Ezekiel, who is the son of man.

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Say to the prince of Tyre, thus says the Lord God, because your heart is proud and you have said,

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I am a God, I sit in the seat of the gods and in the heart of the seas, yet you are but a man and no

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God, though you make your heart like the heart of a God. OK? So bear in mind that context.

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Now, jump with me to verse 5. By your great wisdom and your trade, you have increased your wealth, and your heart has become proud in your wealth.

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Therefore, thus says the Lord God, because you make your heart like the heart of a God, therefore behold,

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I will bring foreigners upon you to judge you, in other words, the most ruthless of nations, and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of your wisdom and defile your splendor.

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So needless to say, the king of Tyre clearly has a God complex. Now, let's see in verse 11 what else

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God says. Moreover, the word of the

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Lord came to me. Son of man, raise a lamentation over the king of Tyre, and say to him, thus says the

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Lord God, you were the signet of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.

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You were in Eden, the garden of God. Transition, right?

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Now we're back in Eden, back to creation. Every precious stone was your covering.

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Sardius, topaz, and diamond, beryl, onyx, and jasper, sapphire, emerald, and carbuncle, and crafted in gold were your settings and your engravings.

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This translation is a little bit different. Some translate this as instruments, timbrels, tambourines, and pipes.

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On the day that you were created, they were prepared. You were an anointed guardian cherub that covers and protects.

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OK, he's not talking about a man anymore, right? He's talking about a cherub, an angel that covers and protects.

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I placed you. You were on the holy mountain of God. In the midst of the stones of fire, you walked.

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He's not talking about Earth. He's clearly talking about something else.

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You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created till unrighteousness was found in you.

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In the abundance of your trade, you were filled with violence in your midst, and you sinned.

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So I cast you as a profane thing from the mountain of God, and I destroyed you, all guardian cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.

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Your heart was proud because of your beauty. You corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor.

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I cast you to the ground. I exposed you before kings to feast their eyes on you by the multitude of your iniquities in the unrighteousness of your trade.

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You profaned your sanctuaries. So I brought fire out from your midst. It consumed you.

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And I turned you to ashes on the earth in the sight of all who saw you. All who know you among the peoples are appalled at you.

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You have come to a dreadful end and shall be no more forever." Note the similarity here to Jeremiah's judgment vision and Ezekiel's lament of judgment, which all go back to the beginning, to Eden and creation.

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Now, let's read the final parallel in Isaiah 14.

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Isaiah chapter 14, starting in verse 12, where the Lord is taunting the king of Babylon.

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In Isaiah 14, starting in verse 12, this is a very revealing passage here.

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It says, how you are fallen from heaven, O day star.

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What does that mean? Day star means Lucifer, son of dawn. How you are cut down to the ground, you who lay the nations low.

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You said in your heart, I will ascend to heaven above the stars of God.

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I will set my throne on high. I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north.

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I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will make myself like the most high.

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But you are brought down to Sheol, to the far reaches of the pit. So here, you see the devil's sin, his pride, and his desire to be above God.

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Does that ring a bell? I will be like the most high? Does that ring a bell from something a snake once said?

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So Lucifer here is deliberating and conspiring against God. Why?

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Why? Why is he doing that? And note also that the stones of fire that Ezekiel refers to appear to refer to angelic beings.

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And recall how Lucifer was made of stones. Lucifer, the cherub, was made of precious jewels and stones and instruments.

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And it's called a day star. So stars are often symbols for angels, for supernatural beings.

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And it could also refer to supernatural realms. Now, for example,

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I'm going to quote from another book now, not in the Bible. It's the ancient book of 1

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Enoch in chapter 18. This is an apocryphal book, but it's very useful historical work.

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It says, I saw the paths of the angels. I saw at the end of the earth the firmament of the heaven above.

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And I proceeded and saw a place which burns day and night, where there are seven mountains of magnificent stones.

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One was of colored stone, one of pearl, and one of jacinth, and those towards the south of redstone.

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But in the middle one reached to heaven like the throne. But the middle one reached to heaven like the throne of God, of alabaster.

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And the summit of the throne was sapphire. And I saw a flaming fire.

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And beyond these mountains is a region the end of the great earth.

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There the heavens were completed. And I saw a deep abyss with columns of heavenly fire.

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And among them I saw columns of fire fall, which were beyond measure, alike towards the height and towards the depth.

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So this kind of language is not foreign to the Bible. It's actually the same type of language is being used here in this vision.

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And note, now as we jump back to the Bible, note that, remember how

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Jesus also saw Satan like fall, like lightning from heaven.

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Remember that in the Gospel of Luke? Jesus seems to be referring to these

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Old Testament passages about Satan. Why did

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Satan fall? Because of his sin, because of his pride. So now this,

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I wanna go back to explain a little bit what Ezekiel is talking about here.

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So Ezekiel is describing this cherub, this anointed cherub who was

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Lucifer, who was basically the highest angel in God's heavenly courtroom.

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And Lucifer, this cherub, was made of every precious stone and even of instruments, timbrels and pipes and tambourines and stuff.

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He was made of these things. And the purpose of it, so you have different kinds of angels in the

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Bible. You have cherubim and seraphim, those angels typically minister to God.

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And they look very, they're very strange looking creatures. A seraphim are very, they got four heads and eyes and it's all, it's very, very otherworldly.

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But this cherub here literally is made of these stones and jewels. And what's the purpose of that was that, because when

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Lucifer would go up to the heavenly courtroom before God and see

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God, these jewels reflect light. So these jewels, so literally,

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Lucifer would absorb the image of God on his jewels. And then when he would shine to the heavenly courtroom, the heavenly courtroom would see the reflection of God in the jewels.

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That was the purpose of the angel, of the cherub. It was to glorify

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God. But what happened? The heavenly courtroom would bow.

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And so Lucifer started thinking, hey, I kind of like this idea. They should be bowing to me.

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So he was also the choir director in heaven, so to speak. Because again, he was there to glorify

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God and to be his reflection, his reflection. That's very important to remember, especially with the creation of man.

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So Lucifer, of course, started to covet this worship for himself. And that's when

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Isaiah 14 is talking about his pride and wanting to ascend and be like the most high

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God. Okay, so this is how, now we're starting to put the dots together here a little bit, a little bit better.

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So this is why the devil was kicked out. But it wasn't just him that got kicked out.

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Let's read a little bit more from scripture to find out what happens or what happened. Turn with me to Revelation 12.

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Revelation 12, I'm gonna start in verse three.

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Revelation 12. So Revelation 12, verse three says, and another sign appeared in heaven.

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Behold, a great red dragon with seven heads and 10 horns and on his head, seven diadems.

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His tail swept down a third of the stars. Remember what stars can refer to.

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They can refer to angels. Of heaven and cast them to the earth.

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And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth so that when she bore her child, he might devour it.

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She gave birth to a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron.

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But her child was caught up to God and to his throne. And the woman fled into the wilderness where she has a place prepared by God in which she is to be nourished for 1260 days.

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Now war arose in heaven. Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon and the dragon and his angels fought back.

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See, the dragon had his angels, but he was defeated. And there was no longer any place for them in heaven.

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And the great dragon was thrown down. That ancient serpent transition.

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What's this pointing back to? Genesis, right? To the serpent, the ancient serpent who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world.

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He was thrown down to the earth and his angels were thrown down with him. And I heard a loud voice in heaven saying, now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our

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God and the authority of Christ, of his Christ have come for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down who accuses them day and night before our

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God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony for they have not loved their lives even unto death.

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Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them. But woe to you,

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O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath because he knows that his time is short.

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So now we see another part of the puzzle that the devil in heaven had a host of angels that followed him in his rebellion, in his mutiny, his treason.

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So I wanna add a little bit more to this puzzle now to paint a little more color to the picture and go back to what

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Ezekiel was talking about with respect to the instruments and how Lucifer, the cherub, was the choir director.

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And in fact, the word used when it's describing Lucifer as a cherub, it's using a feminine, a feminine gender that describes the covering.

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It's a covering. And sometimes the Holy Spirit was also described with a feminine gender when it's a covering.

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So it's to cover. It's to cover heaven with the glory of God and to reflect his image.

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So Lucifer, who is now Satan, uses what he has.

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He still has what he has. That hasn't changed. And one thing he has is music.

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He uses music to incite rebellion, sin, idolatry, and false worship in the world and to entice your flesh.

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In Exodus 32, verses 17 through 20, for example, we see what a very telling episode in the history of Israel.

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So in Exodus 32, in verse 17, we read how

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Joshua heard the noise of the people as they shouted. And he said to Moses, there is a noise of war in the camp.

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But he said, it is not the sound of shouting for victory nor the sound of cry of defeat, but the sound of singing that I hear.

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And as soon as he came near the camp and saw the calf and the dancing, Moses' anger burned hot.

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And he threw the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain. He took the calf that they made and burned it with fire, ground it to powder, and scattered it in the water and made the people of Israel drink it.

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So Moses leaves to pick up the Ten Commandments. He comes back and there,

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Israel is having a mosh pit. They're having a rock concert in the whole area.

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And it was this music that was being used to celebrate and worship the false god, the calf, the golden calf.

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So the devil here is using music to worship, to get us to worship false gods and take the worship away from the true

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God. Because obviously we sing to God. Singing and dancing is a form of worship to God.

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Psalms, the Bible everywhere commands us to sing and to glorify God by singing. So the devil, unnaturally, wants the same thing.

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He's a copycat. He's a very bad one at that, but he still tries to copy

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God. So now, I wanna help tie these knots together by going back to Genesis account in chapter three.

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This is where we really see a lot of this starting to come together. This is a very important passage in scripture that informs the rest of the

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Bible and the rest of the story of God and his people and our redemption.

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So in Genesis chapter three, beginning in verse one,

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God's word says, now the serpent was more crafty, meaning subtle, skilled in deceit than any other beast of the field that the

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Lord God had made. He said to the woman, the serpent said to the woman, did

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God actually say, you shall not eat of any tree in the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.

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But the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die, for God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be open and you will be like God.

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Knowing good and evil. Does that ring a bell? I will be like the most high

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God. Who is this talking? It's the devil. And the devil was already bad at this point, right?

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This is not a good guy talking. Amen, this is a bad guy. He's a very bad guy.

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At this point, Satan had already fallen and appeared as a serpent.

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The serpent was clearly fallen and evil because it lied, twisted God's words,

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God's words and deceived the woman. So now let's skip down to verse 14.

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Same chapter, chapter three. The Lord, now God is punishing the serpent.

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He's cursing the serpent. The Lord God said to the serpent, because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field.

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On your belly you shall go. Then dust you shall eat all the days of your life.

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I will put enmity, animosity between you and the woman and between your offspring, your seed and her offspring, her seed.

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He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.

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Now, the word offspring here, the word offspring also means seed.

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In the Hebrew, it's a zeta. It means a seed or offspring.

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And in the Septuagint, the word that is used is spermatos. Spermatos, which is the word for sperm.

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It's the male seed. It's specifically talking about the male seed because the woman, in reproduction, the woman has the egg, right?

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Not the seed, not the sperm that comes from the man. This, in other words, is the very first proclamation of the gospel, the

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Proto -Evangelium. And the virgin birth of the serpent -crushing

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Messianic Savior, amen? That's good news right there.

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That is the very first proclamation of good news. But notice, however, that both the serpent and the woman have a seed, okay?

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Both of them have a seed. Keep all of this in mind. As we continue to move forward.

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So, now we're gonna get to the real controversial part.

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Let's look at what happened in the days of Noah in Genesis chapter six. So skip over a few chapters.

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To chapter six, starting at the beginning of that chapter. So, another very key passage that informs our understanding of the devil and his minions.

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So, verse six. I'm sorry, no, verse one.

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Verse one. When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God, of Elohim, saw that the daughters of man were attractive and they took as their wives any they chose.

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Okay, let's stop right here. Here's the key phrase, the sons of God.

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The sons of God. What does that phrase mean? And they saw that the daughters of man, the daughters were attractive.

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And this also is a good opportunity to point out that the angels in the

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Bible are all male. There are no female angels, right? So, take note of that.

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These are male. Now, these sons of God sinned and lusted after human women.

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And Michael Heiser clarifies that the point of the language of Genesis 6, one through four is a sexual relationship.

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It's not about marriage. It's not that they wanted to get married. They lusted and they wanted to procreate and have sexual relations with women.

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Now, continue to verse three. Then the Lord said, my spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh.

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His days shall be 120 years. The Nephilim or the

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Nephilim, men of stature, notorious men, is one gloss, were on the earth in those days.

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And also afterward, when or possibly whenever the sons of God came into the daughters of man and they bore children to them.

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These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown. The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

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And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth and it grieved him to his heart. So the

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Lord said, I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land.

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Man and, listen to this, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens.

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Pay close attention to that. For I am sorry that I have made them. But Noah found favor in the eyes of the

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Lord. Something to keep in mind and to ask yourself as we're dealing with these verses, these passages.

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Why did God also wipe out the entire creation and not just mankind?

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But let's remember first to define our terms, right? So back to the sons of God.

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The sons of God in the Hebrew is b 'nai Elohim, b 'nai Elohim.

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There's different views of what that means and what happened here. I believe that the sons of God are angels, fallen angels who left their original abode and lusted after human women, which resulted in a hybrid offspring of giants, half human, half fallen angel, okay?

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Now you see this stuff in the movies all the time, right? You see the

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Transformers movies, all these movies about reptiles and half breeds and even the

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Transformers, you know, the fallen and all this stuff. All of this stuff, these directors are literally getting it from the

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Bible and from ancient books like the book of Enoch and Jasher.

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It's the same story playing itself out even in pagan myths. And we tend to, in our society, we tend to make this view like it's make -believe.

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Like it's just the movies. That's what the movies, you know, it's just a movie. It's just fiction, it's science fiction.

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But if we look carefully at what the Bible is describing, there is really no other way to understand this passage.

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Now the Nephilim, the Nephilim are these giants, these hybrid human fallen angel offspring that were giants in the land.

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Now, the most common view is not this view. Unfortunately, the most common view is called the

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Sethite view. The Sethite view is like a lot of popular ministries like Answers in Genesis, Jason Lyle, they all take this view.

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And those ministries are generally very good ministries, but unfortunately, they really get this wrong.

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Now, the so -called Sethite interpretation writes, according to Heizer, refuses to take the passage at face value, the one we just read.

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With the sons of God as divine beings or angels and their offspring as giants, the

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Nephilim. This view has been the consensus Christian position since the late fourth century

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AD, possibly starting with Augustine. It is still the predominant approach to Genesis six, one through four in modern evangelical churches.

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In this approach, the sons of God are merely human beings, men from the line of Seth, Adam and Eve's son who was born after Cain murdered

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Abel. Presumably, these four verses describe forbidden intermarriage between the godly men of Seth's lineage and the ungodly women of Cain's line, the daughters of humankind.

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Now, notice that there was no such thing as foreign marriages.

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There was no, that wasn't a thing yet. God had not forbidden marrying foreign people at that point.

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So that itself, it doesn't even make sense. In this reading, everyone who lived on the earth ultimately came from these two lines.

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Both of them descended from Adam and Eve's children. In this way, the

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Bible distinguished the godly from the ungodly. Part of the rationale for this view comes from Genesis 4, 26, where depending on the translation, we read that either

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Seth or humankind began to call on the name of the Lord. The line of Seth was to remain pure and separate from the evil lineage.

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The marriages of six, Genesis six, one through four erased the separation and incurred the wrath of God in the flood.

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So this Sethite view is completely indefensible. It makes no sense and is clearly contradicted by other passages like 2

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Peter chapter two and Jude five through seven, which we will examine later on. The view utterly disregards the express statements of scripture in both their immediate and systematic context, as well as the testimony of church history and of ancient sources.

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The only view that makes sense is that the sons of God refers to fallen angels.

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Now, the sons of God can refer to different things. It can refer to angels in general. It can also refer to men or to rulers.

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But in this passage, there's really no other way to understand it than fallen angels.

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And notice how in this view, the Sethite view, it also says that Cain, well, it takes note of how

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Cain murdered Abel. And so that's something that's gonna be important as well, as we touch on this next part of why.

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Why did they do that? Why did the fallen angels impregnate human women?

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Think about the beginning. Think about what happened when God cursed the serpent.

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He told him something very important. He said that the seed, what did he say about the seed?

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That yes, that the seed of the woman will bruise his head and you shall bruise his heel.

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So God was threatening him with a gospel. He said, the seed of the woman is going to crush you.

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And so naturally, if you're the devil, you're like, well, let's try to end this seed before it even materializes itself.

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So that's part of the game plan. That's always been part of the game plan. The devil wants to destroy and corrupt and eradicate the seed, this promised seed.

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That is why when Cain killed Abel, God was trying to kill and destroy the seed.

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But of course, Seth, the line of Seth came and the seed was still preserved through Seth's line.

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In that regard, that's true. But that is precisely why these angels, they have a perfect motive.

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They wanted to corrupt the seed because obviously the seed of the woman has to be a human seed.

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It can't be some weird hybrid giant seed. That's a corrupted perversion of God's creation.

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So, and notice also how

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God judges the entire creation, not just humans. That's also very important.

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What does the devil do? The devil steals, kills, corrupts, and destroys. That's the devil's agenda.

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It's always been the devil's agenda to do that. Anything that gets in his way, he's gonna try to get rid of it, run it over, corrupt it.

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And the number one threat to the devil is who? Jesus Christ the righteous.

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Amen? The serpent crushing seed of the woman. That is where we see all of this come together.

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Now, Lord willing, I'm gonna pick up on this next week.

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There's a lot of material to cover, as you can tell. And, but at least now, we'll hopefully have a more solid foundation on how to make sense of these scriptures.

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And again, I encourage you all to dig deeper into these matters. It's very important.

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This is something that we still have to deal with today. We still have to wrestle with it today. It is still our enemy.

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The devil is still our enemy today. Amen? The world, the flesh, and the devil are all still conspiring against us to defeat, steal, kill, and destroy us.

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Amen? So let's go ahead and close with a word of prayer. Our precious

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God and heavenly Father, we thank you once again, Lord, for the opportunity to gather today and to receive your means of grace by the preaching of your word.

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Lord, please help us to be faithful and diligent in understanding your word, especially those of us who teach and preach your word.

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Help us, Father, to continue to search the scriptures diligently and to make proper sense of these difficult passages,

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Lord, and to strengthen our faith and our resolve and to equip our people, to equip ourselves with the knowledge and the weapons of our warfare that we need in order to fight against the world, the flesh, and the devil and to defend ourselves from them.

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Father, we thank you, and we ask these things in Jesus' mighty name. Amen. Thank you for listening to the sermons of Thorn Crown Covenant Baptist Church, where the

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Bible alone and the Bible in its entirety has applied to all of faith and life. We strive to be biblical, reformed, historic, confessional, loving, discerning

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Christians who evangelize, stand firm in, and earnestly contend for the Christian faith.

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If you're looking for a church in the El Paso, Texas area or for more information about our church, sermons, and ministries, such as Semper Reformanda Radio and Thorn Crown Network Podcast, please contact us at thorncrownministries .com.