Men in various fields of science are being
forced to admit that there are spirit beings
in this world beyond human comprehension.
And as we have seen yesterday, there is
a tremendous and growing assortment of evidence to
indicate that not only are there spirit beings
in the world, but that they are increasing
their assault upon mankind.
I'd like to quote an article that is
one of the most startling I've ever read.
It's from the Columbus, Ohio newspaper, and it's
dated April 20th, 1970.
On the headline, as you can see, it
says, inventor of Xerox copier got idea from
ESP.
Quote, the Xerox copier, the machine that has
made millions and millions of dollars, is not
an earthly invention.
The idea came to Chester Carlson, founder of
the Xerox company, from the world beyond.
Few people know that records in trust at
Duke University reveal beyond a shadow of a
doubt that Carlson was one of the world's
leading psychics.
Now, a few months after his death, Carlson's
own last will and testament discloses the astounding
news that the Xerox machine is founded on
a brain wave.
While members of the American Society for Psychical
Research praised Carlson for his contribution to the
psychic research, the millionaire's deathbed confession astounded ESP
experts in London.
Carlson poured millions of dollars into psychic research
to repay a debt, claimed Lester Otis, 55,
a long-time friend of the late tycoon.
He owed his entire fortune to ESP.
Before his death, he realized that the dilemma,
the dilemma posed by any psychic discovery, if
he revealed the source of the invention to
the public, the Xerox company could be discredited
and lose business.
So he did the best thing.
He tried to make ESP into a reputable
science.
In this way, he could reveal his secret
as being legitimately scientific and not the half
-baked notion of a crackpot.
But ESP had long been in the hands
of a con, of con men eager to
astound in clever profits, hungry for money.
Carlson countered with huge donations to the Duke
University parapsychology laboratory in Durham, North Carolina.
Just before Chester died last October, he wrote
me a long letter describing how he discovered
the Xerox machine by conversing with a spirit
from the future.
Otis said his wife, who had convinced Chester
of the validity of ESP experiments, taught him
how to meditate and communicate with the spiritual
realm.
One night while working late in his home,
Chester suddenly heard voices.
They instructed him on the principle of making
carbon jump to a charged drum and imprint
copies on other sheets of paper.
When Chester asked the voice to identify itself,
the spirit said he came from the second
millennium.
Rigging up a machine recording to the extrasensory
specifications proved an easy matter, but convincing the
patent office that the machine actually worked was
quite another story.
I think they refused patent on the Xerox
machine three times, Otis said.
The fourth time around, Chester brought the machine
with him and shocked the patent office into
giving him the patent.
After that came the story of a million
dollar empire.
Looking back, I think it was I who
drew my husband into the field of psychiatry,
I should say parapsychology, his wife said.
The psychic phenomena definitely occurred.
There were many aspects of them.
They came one after the other.
During one of these visions, Chester Carlson received
the vision of an empire, for without the
existence of ESP and his utmost faith in
the little understood science, the world might yet
be without Carlson's fabulous invention.
So there is something that is recorded in
documents, which our own trust in Duke University,
assigned to the parapsychology department there, which show
beyond the shadow of a doubt that this
man received a scientific invention from a spirit,
an invention that was so radical in design
that the patent office said it couldn't work.
And yet it did.
I believe that this spirit from another world
was a demon.
We're going to see tonight that they have
great insight into the physical laws behind the
physical existence that we have here on earth
and have that ability to give information about
a phenomena such as a Xerox machine.
What was the purpose?
Well, I believe the purpose was just another
one of the many plots of this arch
spirit being called Satan to set up a
respectability for his supernatural phenomena in order that
he can begin to bring the world over
to supernatural phenomena that will bring them to
finally worship him.
Plus the fact that a machine like this
and Mr. Carlson's dedication to repaying the debt
that he owed made it possible for large
sums of money to be given to a
godless parapsychology study.
I say godless, not because I feel that
these men are necessarily immoral in the parapsychology
departments, but because they reject in the main
the idea of God and yet are trying
to experiment in the field of the supernatural.
Another thing that just came today, and those
from UCLA, I'm indebted to them for bringing
it, this came out in the Daily Bruin
today.
It's called Barbara the Gray Witch, and it's
an article telling about her radio station and
her broadcast.
This is what it says.
It's an advertisement to the students, and obviously
there are enough interested to make an advertisement
like this worthwhile.
Says this, Barbara tells the truth about modern
witchcraft.
This is the first album that gives you
a series of tests to tell if you
were born a witch or a warlock.
Many of the authentic prayers and chants that
help you call forth spirits, achieve prosperity, beckon
and pay homage to Satan and exercise evil
spirits.
Barbara tells you what you can gain today
from practicing witchcraft.
She introduces you to witches and warlocks who
will describe everything from the appearance of a
demon to the everyday problem of witchcraft in
a modern society.
Barbara will tell you how to develop and
practice your witchcraft ability, even if you're only
a mortal."
Some of you may think that's a lark,
but I'll bet you that she gets plenty
of responses from UCLA.
Because as I quoted yesterday from the article
in the Los Angeles Times by a man
who has a PhD from Harvard, there is
virtually an epidemic in the United States of
turning to witchcraft.
I'd like to read something else that will
point out the existence of spirit beings and
particularly how these spirit beings have played a
role in the shaping of history.
Particularly, this has relevance to modern history.
As we're going to see tonight, Satan is
in control of a vast world system that
is made up of all of those who
are not believers in Jesus Christ.
But this is a startling revelation from a
great scholar, William Elshower, and it comes from
the rise and fall of the Third Reich.
Now he shows in this statement what was
really behind how Adolf Hitler got the idea
of a super race and racial supremacy.
I'd like to quote this because it's so
startling.
Quote, it is probably no exaggeration to say,
as I have heard more than follower of
Hitler say, that Chamberlain, that is Houston Stuart
Chamberlain, was the spiritual founder of the Third
Reich.
Hypersensitive and neurotic and subject to frequent nervous
breakdowns, Chamberlain, a famous English scholar, was given
to seeing demons who, by his own account,
drove him to relentlessly seek new fields of
study and get on with his prodigious writings.
One vision after another forced him to change
from biology, to botany, to the fine arts,
to music, to philosophy, to biography, and then
finally to history.
Once in 1896, when he was returning from
Italy, the presence of a demon, he said,
became so forceful that he got off the
train at Gardone, shut himself up in a
hotel room for eight days and, abandoning some
work on music that he had contemplated, wrote
feverishly on a biological thesis until he had
the germ of the theme that would dominate
all of his later works.
The theme, race and history.
Since he felt himself goaded on by demons,
his book on Wagner, Goethe, Kant, Christianity, and
Race were written in the grip of a
terrible fever, a veritable trance, a state of
self-induced intoxication, so that, as he says
in his autobiography, Lebenswege, he was often unable
to recognize these writings though they were his
own works.
But it was on the Third Reich, which
did not arrive until six years after his
death, whose coming he foresaw, that this Englishman's
influence was the greatest.
His racial theories, his burning sense of the
destiny of the Germans, and Germany were taken
over by the Nazis, who acclaimed him as
one of their prophets.
During the Hitler regime, books, pamphlets, and articles
poured from the presses extolling the spiritual founder
of the National Socialist Germany as Chamberlain."
So here's a remarkable thing from the rise
and fall of the Third Reich, where by
Chamberlain's own testimony, he received the inspiration for
the writings about racial supremacy and about the
supremacy of the German people as a super
race from a demon.
And by his own testimony, the chief work
which Hitler used almost as his bible, was
written while almost in a trance-like state,
which after it was finished, Chamberlain himself could
hardly recognize it as being his work.
That's how much he was under the control
of a foreign spirit.
And we all know how history was changed
and how many destinies were changed by the
fact that a demon was able to inspire
Chamberlain to do this and to then put
it into the hands of a madman like
Adolf Hitler.
This more than any other thing shaped the
thinking of Hitler and drove him to become
the tyrant that he became.
Now, I believe that there is all kinds
of evidence in history, and I'll be bringing
out more as the week goes on, to
indicate that there are spirit beings that are
behind the scenes in history.
And as we look at the history of
man, we can see that there has just
been one thing after another.
Even if a man doesn't believe in God,
he's driven to explain why is there such
suffering?
Why is there such evil?
Why does war persist when if there's anything
in history that man should learn, it's the
utter futility and uselessness of war?
But yet, why does it continue?
In the little over 6,000 years of
recorded history, there has been less than 280
years where there was not some clash of
arms somewhere in the world.
All of this done under one system after
another, and yet man still has not learned
to live without war.
I believe that in back of all of
this is an archfiend, a super being, a
spirit being to be sure, but one who
is very real and an actual person, not
just an influence.
And I believe that as we begin to
look into the supernatural, and as we look
in back of the scenes, that the only
way we can really understand the phenomenon that
is more and more coming out into the
open today is to look into the Bible.
Because the Bible looks into the realm of
the supernatural with the same ease that it
looks at any phase of history.
And it gives us the only authenticated and
accurate way of discerning what is in the
spirit realm.
The schools of parapsychology, which reject the Bible,
have no chance of really discovering what is
in the realm of the spirit.
I believe that as we look into the
Bible, we can find where all of these
things really got their start.
Where was the start of evil?
Where did evil really begin?
Why is evil?
Why is man unable to live with his
fellow neighbor?
Why does he continue in war?
Please turn to Ezekiel chapter 28.
Here, God, through his prophet Ezekiel, projects the
light of his understanding into eternity past.
We're actually going to reach back before the
creation of man to see about a being
of super power and super intelligence.
Now, this is couched in a very interesting
way in Ezekiel chapter 28, because the passage
starts off by talking about a historical ruler,
the Prince of Tyre, who was a mighty
ruler of a great empire.
And it talks about how this man had
great intelligence.
He had aspirations of being like God and
so forth.
He was a ruthless ruler.
But then in verse 11, there's a whole
new scope and dimension added to this analysis
of the Prince of Tyre.
So it says in verse 11, moreover, the
word of the Lord came to me saying,
son of man, take up a lamentation upon
the King of Tyre.
First of all, we need to look at
what this word lamentation means.
A lamentation is a song of sadness.
A lamentation is a heart-rending song of
sorrow about something.
It is a lamentation is a song that
you sing in grief over someone that you
love.
And what this is, is God pouring out
his sorrow and his grief over the greatest
created being that ever came from his hand.
And he has to take up this song
of sorrow over the King of Tyre.
Now there's a difference between what is said
in verse two and verse 12, obviously in
verse two, the prophet Ezekiel is talking about
the Prince of Tyre.
In verse 12, he's talking about the King
of Tyre.
And the two words are very significant because
the word used in verse 12 means to
have superior authority and rule over the one
that is called the Prince.
And what Ezekiel does here is show us
who is really behind the ruler of Tyre,
where he got his inspiration, where he got
his wisdom as a man.
And it's really an angelic being that is
described here.
Let's read on and you'll see.
Ezekiel 28, verse 12, son of man, take
up a lamentation upon the King of Tyre
and say unto him, thus saith the Lord
God, thou sealest up the sum full of
wisdom and perfect in beauty.
Now this phrase in the Hebrew seal is
up.
The sum means to be the epitome of
perfection.
So what God is saying of this being
being described is that you are the epitome
of perfection.
And he says, you're full of wisdom, which
means to have super intelligence and perfect in
beauty.
Now, when God describes something as being perfect
in beauty, you can rest assured it's beautiful.
He goes on, he says, thou has been
in the, in Eden, the garden of God.
Every precious stone was your covering.
The Sardis, Topaz, the diamond, the burrow, the
Onyx, the Jasper, the Sapphire, the Emerald, the
carbuncle and goal, the workmanship of that tablets
and thy pipes was prepared in the, in
the day that thou was created.
Thou art the anointed cherub that cover it.
All right, right there.
We know this is not talking about a
human being because in the scripture, a cherub
is the highest order of a, of a
sphere of spiritual beings called angels and cherubs
are the highest among those beings.
And it goes on to say that not
only is he in the highest order of
these spirit beings, but he is the anointed
cherub, which means he has a, the greatest
station among them.
It goes on to say, I have set
these.
So thou was upon the Holy mountain of
God.
Thou has walked up and down in the
midst of the stones of fire.
That was perfect in thy ways from the
day that thou was created.
All right, let's step back and take a
look at this.
This is describing the greatest created being to
ever come from the hand of God.
And he is described as being full of
wisdom, the epitome of perfection, perfect in beauty.
And in verse 13, where it says you
have been in Eden, the garden of God,
this is talking about the place of the
personal presence of God.
And this creature had apparently free access at
any time into the presence of God.
And it talks about every precious stone being
his covering.
Now this would indicate that this creature had
the highest honor.
These stones depict degrees of honor, and he
had all of the precious stones, which would
indicate the highest level of honor that God
could bestow on a created being.
In the latter part of verse 13, it
says the workmanship of your tablets and of
your pipes was prepared in you in the
day that you were created.
Now, in other words, it says this creature
is a created being.
And tablets and pipes refer to the same
thing that you see up there.
It's something that's used of a pipe organ.
And it's describing the fact that this creature
had the most beautiful voice and apparently the
greatest musical ability of any creature that's ever
been created.
And it's describing this creature as being the
first and the greatest of musicians.
Apparently his voice would be like a thousand
pipe organs going at one time, modulated in
perfect unison and harmony.
Now in verse 14, we get something that's
extremely important about this person.
Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth.
Well, this tells us something very important about
this creature.
When it says the anointed cherub, the word
anointed is the same word that's referred to
Messiah.
Messiah in Hebrew means the anointed one.
And to be anointed in the sense of
this Hebrew word means to be appointed as
the sovereign ruler over something.
And when it says the anointed cherub that
covereth, the word cover really means to rule.
And so what it's saying here is this
was the anointed ruler over all of God's
creation, that this was the highest created being
in wisdom, intelligence, beauty, musical ability, apparently had
all kinds of talents of art.
And not only that, this creature was appointed
as the co-regent of God.
This created being was second only to God
in power and in authority and apparently ruled
over all of God's universe.
Given the greatest authority, authority second only to
that of God.
And God says, and I set thee so.
In other words, God said, I'm the one
that gave you this great authority.
And you know, Hebrew, the original Hebrew of
this passage, Hebrew is capable of expressing emotion.
It's a language that's very emotional.
And through here, you can almost feel the
tears and the sobs of God as he
grieves over this creature.
Now, why does he grieve over this creature?
Why does he grieve over this one that
was the greatest and the most magnificent work
to ever come from the hand of God,
the one that had the greatest authority?
Because it says in verse or it says
in verse 15, thou was perfect in thy
ways from the day thou was created till
iniquity was found in thee.
In other words, this most perfect of beings
rebelled against God, the one who was closest
to God and was God's fellow rebelled against
him.
And you know, it's been well said, no
one can hurt you like someone who is
closest to you.
And it grieved the heart of God.
And even here, he expresses the song of
sorrow over this creature.
This is written in beautiful poetic language.
And so he tells us that this creature
was perfect in all his ways.
Apparently, this person is called Lucifer, and we'll
see that name in just a moment in
Isaiah.
But this this great spirit being who had
authority over all of God's creation was named
Lucifer.
And apparently he was perfect in all of
these ways.
He walked in perfect unison with God and
he led all of the angelic realm.
He led them in their worship of God.
He led them in rulership over the vast
universe of God's creation.
And he was perfect in all of his
ways until iniquity was found in him.
Now, this tells us something extremely important here.
Many people say, well, if God knows all
things and if God has all power, why
did he create the devil?
Why did he create evil?
Well, the answer to that is right here.
He didn't create evil and he didn't create
the devil.
He created Lucifer, but he did not create
the devil.
And here's what I mean by that.
This was a perfect creature.
It was created perfect, but God took a
calculated risk.
God created Lucifer, along with all of the
angelic beings, what is called the image of
God.
And God took a calculated risk because in
the image of God, he gave will, intellect,
and emotion.
These are the factors of personality.
Now he gave these creatures, and particularly Lucifer,
he gave these creatures free will or choice.
Now the reason God took that risk, there's
always, when you give free choice, free will,
volition, there's always the chance that the created
being would use it against God.
But God made the calculated risk because he
did not want robots.
He wanted creatures that could respond to him
in love.
He wanted creatures that could love him back.
And unless there is freedom of choice, there
can be no genuine love.
You would just have robots who would have
to do what you told them to do,
and there would be absolutely no spontaneity.
They can only move when commanded.
Well, God wanted creatures that could fellowship with
him and that could, of their own free
choice, have genuine love and love him back.
And so God took this risk for that
reason.
Not only did he give them freedom of
choice, but he gave them intellect and apparently
much higher intellect than the measure that he
has given to man.
These angelic beings have vast and high intellect,
and we'll see this as we study these
creatures throughout the week.
He gave them intellect because he wanted them
to understand his character and his perfection.
He wanted them to be able to have
intelligent fellowship with himself.
And so he gave them the ability to
discern and understand and to comprehend.
He gave them emotion so there could be
fervor in love, so there could be an
aesthetic quality to their personality, so they could
appreciate the beauty of God's creation and appreciate
the beauty of God's plan.
They also had moral reason, and this is
part of the image of God.
They had the ability to discern the evil
of rebelling against God.
And God apparently lavished all kinds of love
and gifts upon all of these creatures, but
none received such a display of love and
affection and of honor and gifts as Lucifer
did.
And yet, in spite of all of this,
it says iniquity was found in this creature.
Now, I want you to turn to Isaiah
chapter 14 where we will see what iniquity
was found.
By the way, hold your place here in
Ezekiel because I want to turn back in
a moment.
Page 765, Ezekiel 28.
Hold your place there and turn to Isaiah
chapter 14.
That's page 634.
Page 634, Isaiah chapter 14, verse 12.
Now, once again, this is in a context
that is talking about a real ruler of
history.
This was talking about the King of Babylon.
It was predicting the licentious and unbelieving King
of Babylon who would be in charge of
Babylon when it fell.
In other words, Belshazzar as Daniel chapter 5
reveals him.
But this prophet, once again, looks behind the
dynamic of this world ruler.
He looks behind the scenes to the spirit
being who is inspiring and motivating this licentious
world ruler.
And he says in verse 12, and here
is another lamentation.
How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer,
son of the morning?
How art thou cut down to the ground
which didst weaken the nations?
In other words, God raises another song of
sorrow.
He says, O Lucifer, son of the morning,
how have you fallen?
The Hebrew word, Lucifer, by the way, is
a word for radiant light.
It means radiant brilliance.
In other words, even the name of this
highest of angelic beings means something of beauty
and honor.
He says he is called the son of
the morning.
He says, how are you fallen?
And then in verse 13, God reaches back
into eternity past and he gives us an
insight into how evil started in the universe.
You want to know where all of the
suffering and all of the murder and the
evil that is in the heart of man
started?
Here it is.
Here is the origin of sin in the
universe.
Verse 13, for thou has said in thine
heart, I will ascend into heaven.
I will exalt my throne above the stars
of God.
I will sit also upon the mount of
the congregation in the sides of the north.
I will ascend above the heights of the
clouds.
I will be like the most high.
Five I wills.
This is when iniquity entered the heart of
Satan, our Lucifer, and he became known as
Satan, the devil, the evil one, Apollyon, the
destroyer.
Up until this time, he was perfect in
all of his ways, but he became lifted
up in his heart with his importance and
his authority.
And it says that behind the first sin
was the desire of this highest of created
beings to exalt his throne above the stars
of God.
That's very significant.
In other words, this being wasn't satisfied with
being co-regent with God, with being second
in command, but as he became impressed with
his importance and inflamed with his beauty and
intelligence, it says he wanted to have it
all.
He wanted to have his throne above the
throne of God.
And then the last faithful I will, I
will be like the most high.
And this has ever been the ambition of
this spirit being this highest of all created
beings.
This is how evil entered the universe.
This is how the devil was born.
This is where Lucifer became the devil, the
arch enemy of God.
From that time on, he's been in a
relentless war against God, seeking to make his
throne above the throne of God and seeking
to be like the most high, to be
worshipped.
Now back to Ezekiel 28 for a moment.
Verse 17, what was the motivation behind Satan's
actual sin in his heart?
Now notice the first sin in the universe,
by the way, happened inside the mind and
the heart.
It was a mental sin because you see,
there's where sin starts in human beings as
well.
In verse 17, here is the dynamic behind
the first scene.
Thine heart was lifted up because of thy
beauty.
Thou has corrupted thy wisdom by reason of
thy brightness, literally by reason of thy brilliance.
It's a word for super intelligence.
In other words, Satan began to cease to
be thankful that God had created him with
that beauty and created him with that intelligence.
And he began to use this very gift
of God as something to say to himself,
I am worthy to be better than God.
In first Timothy chapter three, verse six, there's
a very interesting statement.
It says, as it talks about appointing men
elders in the church, it says, do not
appoint a novice or a young believer to
a position of leadership lest he be lifted
up with pride and fall into the condemnation
of the devil.
Now that tells us what was really behind
all of this.
It was pride that came out of his
great beauty and his great brilliance and intellect.
Well, that's how evil entered the universe.
Now, after this occurred, apparently God, who is
love and he is justice throughout his character,
apparently God gave this creature opportunity to repent,
to change his mind.
And I believe that this is why God
allowed Lucifer who became Satan, which means the,
the resistor or the adversary.
It means he's the adversary of God and
of all those who follow God.
I believe this is why God let him
run loose.
And yet, instead of taking the opportunity to
change his mind about his sin against God
and throw himself upon God's mercy, what this
creature did was begin to run rampant through
the whole angelic realm.
And he began to lead the highest of
the angels after him in a great rebellion
against God.
You see these angelic beings were used to
following the leadership of Lucifer because he had
been the highest arc ruler.
And so he began to lead them off
into a rebellion against God.
Now, what would he have said that would
have caused these super intelligent beings to follow
him?
Well, I believe that he used the same
temptation that had swept him off.
And that was, you will be like God
if you follow me, you'll be like God
and you'll have the intoxicating feeling of independence.
And so in revelation chapter 12, we're told
that a third of the angelic realm called
the stars of God, this is another title
for angel, a third of them followed Satan
in his revolt against God.
Two thirds of these angelic beings remained loyal
to God.
Now, apparently, Satan was trying to gather enough
angelic beings to follow him to where it
would be impossible for God to bring judgment
upon him.
But two thirds of the angelic realm remain
loyal.
And we just have to project what we
know of scripture into this unknown area and
simply deduce what must have happened after the,
after Satan led this third of the angelic
realm in rebellion.
We know from the scripture that God has
already judged Satan and his followers.
Now we know this from Matthew chapter 25,
verse 41, where it says, hell was created
for the devil and his angels.
We also know this from other passages in
the gospels.
Jesus spoke directly to a spirit being that
he called a demon that was inside of
a man.
And this demon said to Jesus, we know
who you are.
You're the Holy one of God.
And then it said, have you come to
torment us before the time?
Now this indicated that this demon knew that
there was a time set when it was
going to be judged and put away.
Now also it's obvious that Satan knows that
his, his doom has been sealed by what
is said in revelation chapter 12.
It says that he knows his time is
short when it grows near the second coming
of Christ.
Now we know then that Satan was judged.
And as we look into the scripture, we
find that apparently what happened was that God
rounded up all of the angels that had
followed Satan and he brought Satan into judgment
with them.
And sentence was passed upon these rebels.
And apparently when God told Satan and his
followers that they were banished from the presence
of God forever, and they were going to
a place of torment forever and ever, apparently
Satan said to God, you're not just, and
you have no love.
And because at that moment, God wanted to
bring about a plan that would have much
greater implication.
God chose to set forth another plan that
would demonstrate not only to Satan and his
angelic beings, but to all of the angels
called the angels of God and the elect
angels, that he was both just and that
his love was incomprehensible.
It was so great.
And so this was the point when God
elected to start a whole new program, God
elected to create a whole new realm of
beings.
And he started what we might call operation
man, because God elected to create man in
his own image, just as he had created
angels.
There would be a difference in this in
that man would have will intellect and emotion,
just as the angelic beings have.
They would not have as much intelligence as
the angels, but they would have the same
capacity for understanding and for making choices.
The difference would be in the area of
their corporal being.
Man would be mortal, that is subject to
physical death, whereas angels are not subject to
physical death.
He would have the limitation of having a
physical body.
Now, angels apparently have a form of being,
but it is not the kind that limits
them to the planet earth or limits them
to the things of physical existence.
And so man was created with this limitation
and he was created with the image of
God in himself.
Now the test was set up.
God created man in his own image.
We read about this in Genesis.
I'd like for you to turn to Genesis
chapter one for a moment.
Page one.
Genesis chapter one.
And we read of how God created man.
We know at this time that probably there
were many galaxies in the universe that existed
before Genesis chapter one.
We know this from Job chapter 38 verses
one through seven, where it talks about a
sequence of creation.
And it talks about the fact that God
created the material universe and the angelic beings
called the sons of God shouted for joy
when this occurred.
So we know that there were, there was
a created universe before the creation of man.
And it happened at some time after the
angels were created, but apparently God created the
galaxy in which the earth dwells.
And he set apart one of the planets
in this galaxy to be the stage of
testing.
And in a sense, this would become like
a giant, well, like a giant Super Bowl
where man was going to be tested under
certain conditions.
And God was going to demonstrate certain things
about himself to both the good angels and
the fallen angels.
And so we read of the acts of
creation.
God chose to create the world in six
days.
And on the sixth day, we read about
the crown of his creative, creative activity.
And this galaxy, he says in verse 26,
and God said, let us make man in
our image after our likeness and let them
have dominion over the fish of the sea,
over the fowl of the air and over
the cattle and over all the earth and
over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the
earth.
So God created man in his own image
in the image of God created.
He, him male and female created, he, them
and God blessed them.
And God said unto them, be fruitful, multiply
and replenish the earth and subdue it and
have dominion over the fish of the sea,
over the fowl of the air and over
every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
All right.
Now God created man in his own image.
And the important part of this statement here
is that in man, immaterial being, he had
the very image of God.
He still has it.
He has the factors of the image of
God, which is will, intellect, emotion, moral reasoning
power, and everlasting existence.
Once man comes into existence, his immaterial part
will always exist.
It will always live.
And so in that sense, man is in
the image of God.
Now, one of the tremendously important statement here
is how God tells us that he gave
man authority over himself and also over all
of the earth, over every created thing.
And God gave him the legal right over
himself and over all the created things, over
the earth itself.
Now that's very, very important to keep pegged
up here.
All right.
After God had given man the power of
attorney legally over himself, because he had freedom
of choice, and God had committed to him
the legal right of ownership of the earth,
the legal right of having dominion over every
living thing on earth, he was put into
a garden where God gave him every conceivable
need that he could ever experience.
When God created man, he saw that he
was going to need companionship, and so God
created the most beautiful creature that he could
create in the form of a woman.
God saw that man would have that need,
and so he created.
And Eve must have been the prototype of
the most beautiful of female existence.
And he brought her to Adam and gave
her to him.
And he gave this pair a garden that
was a paradise.
There was nothing that God held back from
them that would be necessary for their pleasure
and enjoyment, for their well-being, for their
satisfaction and feeling of completeness and so forth.
Everything was provided.
And God himself came to have personal fellowship
with these two every day.
And so they had the highest conceivable fellowship
with God.
Now, into this situation, God allowed Satan to
test man.
Because God ordered that there would be one
test, and that is that in the midst
of this paradise there was one tree that
God told man and woman they were not
to partake of, they were not to eat
of it.
And this would be the test as to
whether man and woman would want to continue
in fellowship with God or not.
Now, the test here was to set the
stage for God to demonstrate his justice and
his love to the angelic realm.
And yet Satan misunderstood what was the nature
of the test.
Satan thought that if he could get man
to fall and follow him, that this would
be to win the whole battle with God,
and God would no longer be able to
judge him because this great undertaking that God
had set forth in man would be proven
to be phony, and that man would prove
to be a rebel just like Satan was,
and therefore Satan would win the battle and
God would be proven to be unwise in
what he had done, and he would show
that any created being under certain temptation would
rebel against God.
And so Satan thought that was the test.
And actually, in Genesis chapter 3, when Satan
comes to test man, Satan was actually unwittingly
playing right into God's hands and setting up
the thing God had planned all along.
We begin to see the tremendous wisdom of
God in all that takes place here.
Because you see, it was only after man
rebelled against God and fell that God could
really demonstrate the unimpeachableness of his justice and
the unfathomable love that he has.
Because it would be only then that God
could bring his real plan into action and
show how that an absolutely unworthy creature, such
as a man that had rebelled against God
in spite of all that God had given
him, was still going to be the object
of God's love and God himself would come
down and bear the consequences of that sinful
act.
God himself would bear the full brunt of
his own justice upon himself.
Well, let's look at it for a moment.
Genesis chapter 3 is probably one of the
most important chapters in the Bible, and you
must understand this to even have a clue
to history.
You must understand this chapter to have a
clue of what is really behind the conflict
that's going on in the world today.
So let's take a look at it.
We probably won't be able to finish it
tonight, but we will at least get into
it.
It says in verse 1 of Genesis 3,
Now the serpent was more subtle than any
beast of the field which the Lord God
had made.
And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath
God said, Ye shall not eat of every
tree of the garden.
All right, there are many things behind what
is written here.
First of all, it's obvious that Satan began
to study man and woman very carefully.
He began to study them to see how
he could make them fall and rebel against
God, thinking that he would win the battle
against God.
And as he analyzed the situation, he saw
that the weakest of the two was the
woman.
She was more emotional.
The second thing that Satan apparently saw was
that Adam loved Eve so much that if
he could get Eve to fall, Adam would
probably choose Eve and follow after her rather
than follow God.
Now those things seem to be at the
base of what happens here in Genesis chapter
3.
Also, it's obvious that Satan waited for the
perfect moment to spring his temptation.
It's obvious that he is a super intelligent
being because he knew that if he fired
his temptation on these creatures, on man, and
it didn't work, it would be twice as
hard to fool them the second time.
And so he waits until just the right
moment.
And another thing that Satan shows his great
intelligence on is the fact that he didn't
come directly to tempt Eve, but rather he
used what was apparently her pet.
The serpent at this time, according to Genesis
3, was not in the form that it
is today.
The serpent apparently could stand on its two
legs because it's only after the curse that
it was made to crawl on its belly.
And it's indicated here by the name serpent,
which in Hebrew is related to the word
Lucifer.
It means the radiant, beautiful one.
It's a word which means something of great
beauty.
And apparently this was the highest of the
animal kingdom because it says the serpent was
more subtle than any beast of the field.
Now, the word subtle simply means intelligent.
It was more intelligent than any beast of
the field.
So apparently this had become a very endeared
pet to the woman.
And apparently it could talk.
At least it could talk in a vein
that a minor bird or a parrot could,
only probably much better.
And so Satan waits until Eve departs from
her husband and goes with her pet to
take a look at that strange tree in
the midst of the garden, which God said
they couldn't eat.
That tree that God said that if you
eat of it, you'll die.
And so Satan waits until she goes alone
because he knew that if Adam was there,
they might strengthen each other.
But he waits until he gets the woman
alone with her pet.
Shows great intelligence.
And so the woman is there staring at
the tree.
And I'm sure by what is said here,
that one of the most powerful drives of
human nature was set into operation.
She began to be curious.
Women have often gotten in trouble by curiosity
as well as men.
But I'm sure she was standing there wondering,
I wonder why God won't let us eat
of this tree.
What's so, what's so bad about this tree?
I'm sure she was trying to figure out
what was behind all of this that God
said.
And it was in that, just that opportune
moment that Satan came in and took possession
of her pet.
And she unwittingly couldn't see what was probably
a new and sinister glint in the eye
of her pet.
And it wasn't surprising to her that this
creature could speak.
So apparently it could speak.
But now it starts speaking in ordered thought.
And she should have been wary of that.
And little did she know that all of
the angelic realm were breathlessly watching as this
test began to unfold and take place.
Now look at how Satan using an indirect
method, which would catch her off guard, comes
in with just the right degree of question.
You know, a question is one of the
most powerful ways to inflict doubt.
And so Satan doesn't come in immediately with
a frontal attack.
He comes in with a question and he
says, Yea, hath God really said, ye shall
not eat of every tree in the garden?
Now I'm seeking to bring out the inflection
that's in the original.
It literally says, yea, hath God really said?
Because he intends here to inflict doubt by
the very question.
And so Satan using this creature says, yea,
hath God really said, ye shall not eat
of every tree in the garden?
How clever.
How adroit.
Because you see, by saying, has he really
said, he's beginning to capture her curiosity that's
already there.
And begin to put a sinister motive behind
what God had said.
And furthermore, look how clever it is.
He says, of every tree.
Now, he is beginning to focus on the
one prohibition.
He is beginning to focus all of her
attention, not on the fact that she could
eat of every other tree, but the fact
that there's one that she couldn't eat of.
And Satan has ever used that tactic.
How he likes to use questions that bring
about doubt, and how he likes to focus
our attention on the one thing that we
can't have.
And Satan likes to take the children of
God, those who really belong to Christ, and
focus on the fact that God hasn't let
you have this one thing, and make you
forget all of the wonderful blessings that God
has given you, and begin to make you
think, oh, isn't it awful that I can't
have everything that I want?
Well, he focuses the woman's attention on that.
And the woman said to the serpent, we
may eat of the fruit of the trees
of the garden, but of the fruit of
the tree which is in the midst of
the garden, God has said, ye shall not
eat of it, neither shall ye touch it,
lest ye die.
Now, the woman shows that she doesn't quite
understand the command of what she says in
verse 3, because she adds to what God
had said.
God had said, ye shall not eat of
the tree, lest ye die.
He did not say, neither shall ye touch
it.
He didn't say anything about touching the tree
at all.
He just said, ye shall not eat of
it.
So she shows that she doesn't quite understand
the command.
She shows that she thinks there's something materially
evil about the tree.
You see, the evil was not in eating
of the fruit.
The fruit in its material form was not
evil.
It was the choice of rejecting God's word
that was evil.
She didn't quite understand that.
Now, by this time, Satan sees that he
has got her at the right place, and
so the serpent said to the woman, ye
shall not surely die.
He comes in with a bold, outright denial
of the word of God.
And this is something that Satan will follow
all the time.
Here is some of the stratagem of Satan,
and we can see it here at the
very beginning.
And you will see it in your life,
and we're going to go through a lot
of this in the next couple of nights,
because I want you to know the strategy
of Satan and the plan he's got for
your life.
But first, Satan waited until the woman had
the wrong thing on her mind, until she
was thinking about something that she shouldn't have.
And so he comes in with a powerful
suggestion and a powerful question, which caused her
to begin to doubt.
And after he had gotten her disturbed and
confused and doubting, then he came in with
a bold attack on the word of God
itself and denied it.
Now, after he did that, then he attacked
the very character of God, and you can
see that Satan follows the same pattern over
and over again.
Look at how he attacks the character of
God.
He said, ye shall not surely die.
Then he gives the reason why they wouldn't
die by attacking the character of God.
In verse 5, it says, For God does
know that in the day that you eat
thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and
ye shall be as God, knowing good and
evil.
It's not God's plural.
It's the word Elohim, which is the same
word for God everywhere else in the Old
Testament.
What Satan was saying here is, look, you're
not going to die.
The reason God has told you not to
eat of the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil is because he knows that
your eyes will be opened, and you shall
be as God, knowing good and evil.
In other words, God's holding out on you.
The reason God doesn't want you to eat
of this tree is because it's going to
give you knowledge of good and evil, and
that will make you like God himself.
And God's jealous.
He doesn't want you to be like him.
You can see the philosophy that brought about
the fall of Satan himself and his tempting
of man.
Well, you see, there's truth mixed with error
here, and that's where Satan is hardest to
find.
He's an angel of light.
It is true that their eyes would be
opened if they ate of this fruit, and
that they would know good and evil, experientially.
Now, they knew theoretically about good and evil,
but the word used here, knowing good and
evil, means to come to know it experientially.
And that, God never wanted man to know
experientially.
So it's true that their eyes would be
opened.
They would experientially come to know good and
evil, but it is not true that they
would be like God.
And so Satan flicks in the barb, he
puts in the bait to make her think
that God is not really trustworthy, that he
really wasn't looking after her best interest, and
that he was holding out to keep her
from being like God himself.
What a tremendous fiendish intelligence this creature with
whom we deal has.
Now, you know, Satan uses this same thing
today.
How many religions today are based on a
lot of truth, but just enough fatal error
to lead people straight to hell?
Think of the tremendous influx of false religions
today that have a lot of truth, but
just enough error to lead people straight to
hell.
I think of religions like Jehovah Witnesses.
There's quite a bit of truth, but just
enough error about the person and work of
Jesus Christ to send people to hell.
The Mormon Church, which has mixed some truth
with a lot of error, and they even
got their Bible from the angel of light,
and even Joseph Smith admits that, sure, I
believe he really did have a vision.
I believe that he really did see an
angel of light appear to him.
But it was Satan.
That shouldn't be surprising to anyone today with
the invasion of spirit beings that we're seeing
come about today.
But injected in that was the venom of
error.
And so we see that Satan hasn't changed.
He's still the father of lies.
The woman was far enough along now to
where the passions of her own flesh could
take over.
Says, when she saw that the tree was
good for food, that it was pleasant to
the eye, and a tree to be desired
to make one wise, she took of the
fruit thereof and did eat.
Now, you know, that's not nearly as staggering
to me that she ate as the next
statement.
It says, and gave also unto her husband,
and with her, and he did eat.
And you know, the scripture says that Eve
was deceived, and even though she's in the
transgression, even though she is guilty of sin,
God did not hold Eve legally responsible for
sin, because she was deceived.
But in 1 Timothy chapter 2, it says
man was not deceived.
He knew exactly what he was doing.
Why did he then, with his eyes wide
open, probably already seeing what sin had done
to his wife, why did he eat?
The only thing that I can see, with
such abruptness of following after here, is that
this beautiful woman that God had given man
had become so dear to him that he
would rather follow her in the disobedience than
the loser.
Apparently, he did what so many of us
do today.
We take the gifts of God, and the
gifts become more important than the giver to
us.
And so he rebelled, and he did eat
too.
Well, when this happened, man brought about a
tremendous dilemma for God, which we will take
up tomorrow night.
But I would like to just summarize what
happened at that point.
The instant that man sinned by disobeying God,
he died instantly.
Spiritually, that basic part of his being, the
most important part of his being, died.
That sphere of existence, that higher order of
life, which was at the very center of
man's being, called spiritual life, died.
That's what God meant when he said, in
the day that you eat of the tree
of the knowledge of good and evil, you
will die.
He died instantly in his spirit.
And he lost that dimension of life by
which alone he could know and understand and
fellowship with God, because the spirit had its
own sense, its own means of perceiving God.
And man instantly lost this.
In its place, he received the nature of
the one that he had followed.
He received a nature of self-centeredness and
rebellion against God.
And all of us, since that time, have
been born without a spiritual life and with
a nature that's in rebellion against God.
Now, this is why you see the tremendous
evil in the world throughout the history of
man.
Because we are spiritually dead, cut off from
communication with God, cut off from the ability
of fellowshipping with God, separated from God because
of sin, and we have a nature that
is self-centered.
And rebellious.
And that nature is capable of all kinds
of evil.
That's why it says in Jeremiah 17.9,
the heart of man is deceitful above all
things and desperately wicked.
Who can understand it?
That's why the scripture says there's not a
just man upon earth who does good and
sins not.
Now, the third thing that happened immediately was
that man gave the legal right of himself
over to Satan.
And Satan became his master.
Acts 26 verse 18 tells us that Satan
is the master, the slave master of all
of those who haven't believed in Jesus Christ.
You see, Adam had power of attorney over
himself.
And when he followed Satan in his lie
against God, then he put himself in the
complete authority of Satan.
And he cut himself off from help from
God because sin now made it impossible to
have fellowship with man.
The fourth thing that happened immediately was that
the world and all of the living creatures
in it were handed over to Satan, and
Satan became the legal owner of the world.
This is brought out in many passages.
One of the most clear passages on it
is in Luke chapter 4, verses 4 and
5, when Satan offered to Jesus ownership of
the whole world.
He bragged that he had all of this.
He said, it's been turned over to me,
and I'm able to give all of the
world to whomever I please.
Well, Jesus never disputed the fact that Satan
owned it.
And so we see then that the legal
ownership of the world was turned over.
And beside that, Satan is called the God
of this world in 2 Corinthians 4.4.
He is called the ruler of this world
in John 14, verse 30.
And he is called the prince of the
power of the atmosphere in Ephesians 2, verse
2.
So these are all things that man turned
over to Satan.
When this happened, man became the Benedict Arnold
of the universe because he betrayed God.
God had entrusted man with the legal right
over himself and over the world and over
all of the descendants that he had because
he turned over all of his descendants that
would be born to him.
To Satan.
And that includes us.
And God had to honor that legal transaction.
It's just like if a man would today,
let's say that here's a man that owns
great property, and he turns over this property
to his son, and he goes on a
long trip abroad.
And he turns over the legal jurisdiction and
the legal rights to all of his property
to the son.
And he gives him the power of attorney
while he's gone.
And while he's gone, let's say that this
son begins to commit adultery with a woman.
And she, through this adulterous relationship, brings him
to sign over legally all of his father's
property.
Well, when the father gets back, what's the
case?
All of his property is gone.
He can't take the property back because the
son had legal authority to sign it over.
And so the father comes back and finds
he's been betrayed by his son, and a
prostitute owns all of his property, and it's
legally binding because the son had the legal
authority to do it.
Well, in a much greater sense, that's what
man has done.
He has turned over the whole world and
himself and all men in it to Satan.
And this set up the stage for the
greatest act of God that God would ever
bring into action.
Because God then was in a position to
demonstrate that he is absolutely just and that
he has love beyond all understanding.
Tomorrow we're going to see how that what
God did at the cross taught the whole
angelic realm the fantastic lessons about himself.
Because you see, God was so just that
he wouldn't compromise his justice in order to
just forgive man and let bygones be bygones.
God is so just that he has to
judge the sin of man.
And yet God is so much love that
he was willing to come into this world
and become a man just like you and
I.
But he was born of the seed of
the woman, and he wasn't legally culpable for
the sin of Adam because he had no
human father, and the legal culpability for sin
was passed on through Adam and through man.
And so God took a form of a
man, became a true man and was born
as a free man, not under the dominion
of Satan because he had no sin.
He was born without a human father, that's
the importance of the virgin birth.
And so therefore here was another man for
the first time since the creation of Adam
who was free of Satan's dominion.
Satan had no legal authority over Jesus.
And then he showed the greatness of his
justice and his love by living a perfect
life.
Never did he yield to Satan, although Satan
tried relentlessly to get this man to follow
him as he had all other men.
And yet here was one that Satan couldn't
make fall.
And Satan was beside himself because he was
trying so desperately to make this man fall
because he realized if he couldn't make him
fall that this man could qualify to bear
the sins for all of the human race.
Because he had no sin of his own,
this man would be able to bear the
wrath of God against the sin of the
rest of men and pay for it and
bring about forgiveness.
And that's why it says in John, chapter
15, Jesus says, I will not speak much
more to you because the ruler of this
world is coming and he has nothing in
me.
In other words, he said he has nothing
that he can lay hold in me.
He has nothing on me, but he's going
to try.
And that's when Jesus went out and swept
blood in the garden.
Why?
Because he was under such tremendous and relentless
pressure from Satan trying to break him as
a man, trying to make him fall so
that he could follow him.
So that he would never get to the
cross and take the wrath for the sins
of mankind.
And yet Jesus said before he went, he
said, now is the ruler of this world
going to be cast out.
Now is he going to be judged.
Why?
Because at the cross, Jesus, as a sinless
and perfect man, took upon himself the full
unbridled fury of a holy God against the
sin of every man who had ever lived.
Now in that he showed the greatness of
his justice and the greatness of his love.
You see, God showed his justice there because
he did not let sin go unpunished.
God showed that he was absolutely just and
he bore the wrath himself in the person
of Jesus Christ.
All of the just punishment that was due
to the rebellion against God, he took upon
himself.
Now can you find any greater love than
that either?
There is where justice and love met together
and flowed together as the blood of Christ
streamed down that cross that he shed for
us.
And when he did that, he wrested from
Satan's control the legal authority and the legal
right to have control of the world and
to have control of any more men.
And it was there that Jesus broke the
power of Satan.
He demonstrated to all of the angelic beings
the greatness of his justice and his love.
Now, do you know what happens, and we'll
see this tomorrow, there are all kinds of
scripture which say that angels, both good and
bad, watch every move that human beings make.
You're on candid camera, let me tell you.
A secret sin on earth is an open
scandal in heaven, because angels watch every move
we make.
And that's why it says in Luke 15,
verses 7 and 10, that there is rejoicing
among the angels of God over one sinner
that comes to repentance.
Why?
Because every time anyone believes in what Jesus
did for him at the cross, he is
adding to God's case that he was absolutely
just in sentencing Satan to eternal banishment.
And he is showing that here is a
vastly inferior creature to angels, man, who yet
will respond to the love of God.
Something that Satan should have done because he
was given an opportunity to repent and he
didn't.
And so God is demonstrating to the angelic
realm that he is perfectly just and he
is perfectly loved.
Now, there is another reason why God is
doing all of this, because he wants the
possibility of any further sin and eternity future
put away forever.
The angelic realm that followed God is seeing,
through the demonstration of sin, the utter folly
of walking independent of God.
The utter folly of sin.
The history of the world will be proof
positive of how foolish it is to walk
independently of God.
And there is one final reason that God
is permitting all of this.
Satan led the rulers of the universe among
the angelic realm in rebellion against God.
1 Corinthians chapter 6 verse 3 says that
of everyone who believes in Jesus Christ, they
are going to be kings and priests with
Christ forever.
And it says, know you not that you
shall rule over angels.
In other words, what God is doing, he
is not just using the human race as
pawns to show something.
He also had the purpose from the beginning
to take those who would believe in him
and to put them in the place that
Satan and the angels that followed him had
once kept, and that is to be co
-regents with him forever.
And now we are lower than angels, Hebrews
chapter 2 says, but there is a day
coming when we will be even higher than
the angelic realm and be co-regents with
God, ruling this vast universe.
And I'll tell you, it's going to be
a lot more exciting than just sitting around
playing a harp on a cloud somewhere.
I'm very sorry that I've gone so long
tonight.
I got into this and I just didn't
know where I could break it.
But in closing tonight, I would just like
to say this, that what the great conflict
that's gone on down through the history of
man is a great conflict that began in
eternity past, and Satan brought it into the
realm of man.
And it is a conflict which continues today
and the temple of the conflict is greatly
accelerating in this generation.
And you and I are going to see
open warfare with Satan.
And I want you to know what's behind
all of it.
I want you to know that Christ has
defeated Satan, that we don't have to be
afraid of him, and that every time we
choose to depend upon Christ in our daily
life as a Christian, we're bringing glory to
God.
We're showing here's a creature with freedom of
choice who will choose to depend upon Christ.
And that further strengthens the case against Satan.
That's why he constantly tries to get Christians
to sin.
And every time someone believes in Jesus Christ,
they're adding to the case, and that's why
the God of this world blinds the minds
of those who believe not, lest they see
the glorious truth of the gospel.
He doesn't want anyone to see what Christ
has done.
He doesn't want us to respond to this,
and he's jealous.
He doesn't want anyone to be put into
the place that he wants held.
And he knows that everyone who believes in
Jesus Christ is going to be a ruler
where he once was.
You think all of this is far-fetched?
The Bible says it's true, and I believe
it.
Right now there's a lot going on in
this auditorium.
Some of you have not believed in Jesus
Christ.
Some of you are probably bewildered by all
of these things.
All I can say is that God has
revealed in his word a realm of existence
that we can't know by human intelligence.
And I believe that he speaks the truth
in everything he tells us.
And I believe that if you're having trouble
right now accepting Jesus Christ, it's because the
God of this world is trying to blind
your mind, lest you believe in the wonderful
good news of Jesus Christ.
But you can fox him.
Right where you sit in the quiet of
your heart, you can believe in Jesus Christ.
Right where you are, you can accept the
gift of forgiveness which Christ gave his life
to make a free gift to you.
And as we close in prayer, you can
make that decision.
For all of us who are Christians, let
me say that Ephesians 3.10 says that
the principalities and powers, referring to the leading,
ruling angels, that they're learning the manifold wisdom
of God through the way God is dealing
with us, the Christians.
And every time you choose to depend upon
Christ in any daily situation, that you are
doing something for God, you're teaching angels the
manifold wisdom of God, and God is going
to give you great rewards for it.
So I believe it's a time when we
need to realize that there are no insignificant
decisions that we make, and that living by
faith is a very important and precious thing
to God.
Let's bow and close in prayer.
Our gracious Heavenly Father, we thank you that
you have revealed things in the eternity past
that we could not have known.
We thank you for showing us where the
conflict began.
But most of all, we thank you for
Jesus.
We thank you for that greatest of all
demonstrations of your unimpeachable justice and of the
unfathomable love that you have for all beings,
and especially for us who have rebelled against
you.
Father, I pray that if there's one here
who has never received Jesus Christ, that he
might right now pray a prayer with me
like this.
Thank you, Lord Jesus, for dying for my
sins.
Thank you for forgiveness.
Come into my life.
Make my life what you want it to
be.
May that one that prayed that prayer know
that according to the word of God, right
now he has forgiveness, and he's entered into
the family of God.
He has been wrested out of the authority
of Satan.
As he depends upon Christ, he continues to
be delivered from that authority.
For us who know you, Father, we pray
that we might live a life of utter
abandonment to you.
And as Satan begins to up his activity,
may we hold forth as lights in the
midst of a perverse generation.
May we bring many to know Jesus Christ.
We ask it in Jesus' name.
Amen.
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