26-0118a Transcript

(1:20) Well good morning once again, (1:23) my privilege, my turn to present the word of God to the congregation today, and it’s going to be (1:32) a two-part lesson this morning, and the conclusion this evening, and this morning’s lesson is kind of (1:39) a setup for the crux of the biscuit, which will be this evening, so I do encourage everyone to (1:45) come back, but I’m hoping that you’ll get plenty of value out of this lesson anyhow with what I (1:53) go over. The title of my lesson this morning, The Eye in Sin and Pride, Part One. And today’s (2:05) lesson is about how I think that our adversary the devil came about, and how that fall similarly (2:15) plays out in each of our lives.

It was there from the beginning, he was there from the beginning of (2:23) the Bible story, having even witnessed, believe it or not, several days of God’s creation process. He (2:34) was also in the Garden of Eden, and we read of him in John’s Revelation at the end of the Bible. (2:41) The Bible has really nothing good to say about him, only that he is a malevolent, murderous, lying, (2:51) and hateful being who is bent on the destruction of mankind.

Who is he? Where did he come from? Was (3:04) he created evil, or did he become evil? First, let’s establish some Bible facts about our God, (3:16) so that we can see that this character isn’t on the same level as God. We’re also going to be (3:27) looking at some of the created beings. So throughout Scripture we read that before anything was, (3:34) God existed in eternity.

Eternity is a timeless, infinite realm where God has his existence. (3:46) Nothing created God, he always existed. God has no beginning and no end.

(3:56) When he was first introduced to us in the book of Genesis, he was called Elohim. (4:05) Elohim is a Hebrew word. El meaning God, and him meaning plural, and it’s a masculine plural.

(4:15) So it’s actually talking about the Godhead. So when we see any time in the Old Testament (4:30) the name God, no, it’s the word Elohim. That’s what the Hebrews called him.

(4:40) This name describes the triune nature of our eternal God. Elohim is the Father, (4:47) the Son, and Holy Spirit. He existed before creation in eternity.

King David touches on (4:56) this fact in Psalm 90 verse 2. He says, before the mountains were born, before you had formed (5:05) the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, you are God. You are Elohim. (5:19) Our God possesses unique attributes.

God is preeminent among all beings. He is superior. (5:29) He is above all.

He is holy and all-loving. He cannot lie or be tempted or become corrupt. (5:39) Plus, what really sets him apart from all other beings, God has three remarkable attributes (5:49) that only he possesses.

The first is omnipotence. Omni meaning all, potent being power or strength. (6:00) He’s all-powerful.

And one of the very names given to God where he calls himself is El Shaddai, (6:12) God Almighty. He is our all-powerful God. Can you imagine the power needed to create (6:24) all that there is in the universe with just a command of mouth to bring it all into existence? (6:34) How can you even wrap your mind around that? That’s our God.

He created all that there is (6:43) in both realms, the spirit realm of heaven and the physical realm here on earth. (6:52) Our God is far greater than Satan because the Apostle John comforts the believers by saying, (6:59) greater is he, Elohim, who is in you than he, Satan, that is in the world. (7:08) Jeremiah 32, 17, he declares in a prayer, Ah, sovereign Lord, you have made the heavens and (7:17) the earth by your great power and outstretched arm.

Nothing is to you difficult. God is omniscient, (7:30) his second attribute. God is all-knowing, having an unlimited knowledge of everything.

(7:40) Since he created everything means not only did he create the physical and spirit realms, but he (7:45) also possessed the intelligence, knowledge, understanding, and wisdom to do it by. (7:52) This is described in the book of Job chapters 38 through 41. It’s a good read.

Both Kings David (8:03) and Solomon wrote about God, knowing them and their entire life before they even lived one (8:14) day of them. And in Psalm 147, 5, it says, Great is our Lord and mighty in power, (8:23) his understanding has no limit. The third attribute of our God is he’s omnipresent.

(8:36) This is a hard one to wrap your head around. He is present everywhere at all times, past, (8:45) present, and future. In Ephesians, Paul says that God is over all and through all and in all.

(8:59) That’s omnipotence, or omnipresence. God can be in the past, present, and future at all times. (9:06) And King David gives the best example of God’s omnipresence in Psalm 139, verses 7 through 10.

(9:17) Where can I go from your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, (9:24) you are there. If I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, (9:32) if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me.

Your right hand (9:40) will hold me fast. Our eternal God loves us and desires us, his creation, to be with him in (9:51) eternity. If we believe in him, Jesus tells us, like in John 10, 28, I give eternal life to them, (10:02) they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.

Those are the people who (10:09) put their faith in the Son of God. He gives us eternity. Since only God is from eternity, (10:18) and the only one that has these three attributes, and having created all that there is, that means (10:24) that Satan must be a created being who had a heavenly origin.

So let’s discuss some of the other (10:35) beings involved in these two realms, the physical and the spiritual realm. (10:41) In the spiritual realm are seraphim, cherubim, archangels, angels, and all the other mysterious (10:51) beings that we read about in God’s word. They have a starting point, they were created.

(10:59) Even though their bodies are spiritual, meaning they can exist now in and for eternity, (11:08) they were created, and they have a starting point. That’s different from God. God always existed.

(11:19) They were also created early in the creation week, when God was busy creating all that there was (11:29) in Genesis chapter 1, and being created spirits, they exist in eternity with God, and heaven (11:37) is their home. They can travel between the two realms, and they are aware of time and can function (11:46) in the realm of time here on earth, but since they are spirit beings, they are not affected (11:52) by time as we are. God created the heavenly host, powerful beings with spiritual bodies which will (12:01) last forever and be with them in eternity.

That’s what’s promised to us, too. (12:11) After they were made, they witnessed the rest of what God had created during the creation week, (12:19) and they cheered and sang and praised God after the creation was completed. We are told that (12:25) in the book of Job.

None of these heavenly hosts, including Lucifer, have any of those unique godly (12:33) attributes. Are they powerful? Yes. Quite powerful compared to us.

They have many abilities that (12:43) we could only imagine, but they are nothing compared to God. In the physical realm that (12:51) we call home here on earth is the human population. We are, believe it or not, the pinnacle (12:58) of God’s creation on earth, having been created in his image.

Since the fall of man in the Garden (13:07) of Eden caused by Satan, whether we are aware of it or not, we are in one of two kingdoms. (13:16) We are either in the kingdom of God, or we are in the kingdom of Satan. God gave Adam dominion (13:26) over his creation on earth.

We are told that in Genesis. Man gave up his dominion over the earth (13:34) when he chose to follow Satan and not God in the garden. Consider the word spoken by Satan to Jesus (13:45) when he was tempting him in the wilderness.

In Luke 4, 5 and 6 he said, (13:52) and he led him up, led Jesus up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. (14:00) And the devil said to him, I will give you all this domain and its glory for it has been handed (14:08) over to me and I give it to whomever I wish. If Satan was lying about this statement, (14:19) Jesus would have called him out on it then and there.

But instead Jesus corrected him and said, (14:27) you shall not tell the Lord your God. But the truth is we gave up the dominion over the earth (14:39) that God entrusted to us. God made us stewards over the earth.

And when Eve was beguiled by Satan (14:49) and ate of the fruit, she was commanded not to eat. And man, like a dope, willingly took the (14:56) fruit from his wife and ate it too. Gave up our dominion.

Okay, Satan, you’re in control now. (15:04) We’ll follow you and what you say. We’re the ones who handed it over to Satan.

(15:12) At Christ’s second coming and at the judgment, Jesus will divide up the human population (15:19) according to what kingdom they belong to. Like a shepherd separating the sheep from the goats, (15:27) those who believe and did good deeds will rise to life, Jesus says. And those who practice evil (15:33) and rejected the gospel will rise to judgment and condemnation.

During the resurrection, (15:42) we too will be given heavenly spiritual bodies that will last forever. (15:50) Then after the judgment, we’ll spend eternity in one of two places. (15:56) Either at peace in heaven with all the church and the heavenly host, or we’ll be punished forever (16:04) and thrown into the lake of fire that was reserved for the devil and his angels.

(16:11) God created man a three-part being. We consist of body, soul, and spirit. (16:22) And we’re told that in the first Thessalonian letter, chapter five.

The first part, (16:31) of course, is our mortal bodies, our flesh. While we live on earth, we live in these bodies (16:38) of flesh. And the apostle Peter refers to them as tents in his letters because of their temporary (16:47) nature.

When we die, the tent of our body goes down to the grave and becomes one with the earth, (16:55) returning back into dust. God said, from the dust of the ground you were made and you will return (17:03) back to dust. We have an expiration date.

God gives the average human about 70 years to live. (17:14) Of course, that is not all we are. Yes, we are dust, but we’re much more than that.

(17:21) The second part of the human is our soul, and it is the eternal part of us that we’ll live on (17:31) after death. And Solomon, in the Ecclesiastic letter, said that God puts eternity in the heart (17:42) of man. The word spirit and soul are often used interchangeably to describe our eternal self.

(17:54) The soul is the intelligent, rational, creative, and emotional part of us that was created in God’s (18:01) image. In Psalm 139, it describes the human baby in the womb and the growth process as God (18:12) knits the flesh around the baby, the baby’s soul. And so the soul was given at conception, (18:26) according to David, in this psalm.

After death, it is our soul that is carried away by angels to (18:35) Abraham’s bosom, which is paradise, as Jesus tells us in Luke 16. And then there’s the third part of (18:46) man, the spirit. The spirit in man is from God, the Creator.

Just as Jesus said to his disciples, (18:57) receive the spirit, then he breathed on them, and they received the Holy Spirit. (19:04) In the same way, it was when Adam was formed out of the dust of the ground, his body was not alive (19:11) until God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, the spirit. It is the spirit that animates (19:22) flesh.

By the way, the animals also receive the spirit of God’s breath, and that’s implied, (19:34) and if you deduce from the flood scene after the flood destroys everybody, in Genesis 7, (19:42) 21 and 22, it’s recorded, and all flesh that moved on the earth perished. Birds and cattle and beasts (19:51) and every swarming thing that swarms upon the earth, and all mankind, and all that was on dry (19:59) land, and all those whose nostrils was the breath of the spirit of life died. Isn’t that interesting? (20:11) So, contrary to what evolutionists say about how life started on earth spontaneously out of nothing, (20:23) the creature has no life into it until God sends his spirit, the breath of life.

Life just can’t (20:34) happen on its own, so when God takes his spirit from any creature, it dies, and when he gives it, (20:42) it lives. Listen to these verses. James 2, 26, as the body without the spirit is dead, (20:52) that’s the main point, and then the rest of the verse goes, so faith without deeds is dead, (20:59) but I want us to understand the body without the spirit is dead.

Psalm 104, verses 29 to 30, (21:10) talking about God, when you hide your face, they are terrified. When you take away their breath, (21:16) they die and return to the dust. When you send your spirit, they are created, (21:22) and you renew the face of the earth.

In Ecclesiastes 12, verses 5 to 7 say, (21:32) then a man goes to eternal, his eternal home, and mourners go about the streets, (21:38) and the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it. (21:46) The eternal part of us, our soul, also departs the body when we die, and goes to one of two places (21:56) in Hades. The faithful children of God will be with Abraham in paradise, the site of Hades, (22:04) to peacefully await Christ’s return.

At the resurrection is when we will receive new (22:14) incorruptible spiritual bodies. To those who reject God in their life, they immediately (22:23) find themselves on the other side of Hades, in agony and flames, (22:31) to show the soul doesn’t stay in the body at death in the grave. (22:37) Genesis 35-18 tells us, and that’s when Jacob’s wife Rachel was dying, (22:46) it starts out as her soul was departing, or she died, and then she named her son, (22:53) Ben-Ami.

Anyhow, her soul departed at her death. It didn’t stay with her body in the ground. (23:03) It went somewhere.

It went to Hades, where it peacefully awaits its spiritual body (23:15) at the resurrection. When God calls us from the grave or on the day in which we’re living, (23:23) where we’re caught up in the air, we get our immortal bodies, the only type of body (23:31) that can inherit eternity, spiritual bodies. We’ll be like him.

We’ll be like the angels. (23:42) So on one side of Hades is Abraham’s bosom. On the other side is torture and flames, (23:50) and the best example of that is found in Luke 16, verses 19-31.

It’s a good read. (23:59) I encourage you to do that, but we’re going to look at verses 22 and 23. It says, (24:04) Now it came about that the poor man, Lazarus, died, and he was carried away by the angels (24:14) to Abraham’s bosom.

And the rich man also died and was buried, and in Hades (24:22) he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and saw Abraham far away and Lazarus in his bosom. (24:32) So when we die, our bodies return to the dust of the ground. God’s spirit in us returns back to him, (24:40) and our souls go to one of two places in Hades, awaiting the Lord’s return.

(24:49) Okay, back to our adversary, the devil. So after God created all that there was, (24:56) he blessed it and said it was very good. So that means that this character Lucifer, (25:06) before he became bad, Satan, he was created very good.

We know that God is the only being (25:15) from eternity existing before creation. We know he created the heavenly host, all the angels, (25:23) cherubim, seraphim, archangels that now live with him in eternity. We know that only God is God, (25:33) and has those three special attributes that no other being has, and that is omnipotence, (25:39) omnipresence, and omniscience.

Satan is not God’s equal. He has none of God’s (25:49) powerful unique qualities. Now I’ll explain my hypothesis as to how he became the bad guy (26:00) in this evening’s lesson, and I believe the answer is in Isaiah 14, 13 and 14.

(26:06) And right now I offer the invitation to anyone who may need the prayers of the church, (26:14) or if you desire to be baptized by answering the gospel call for any kind of assistance from us, (26:22) I encourage you to come forward as we stand and sing the invitation song.