SPEAKER_00: Matthew 10, or Matthew 12, verse 27, Jesus asks, If I cast out demons by Belzebel, by whom do your sons cast them out?
SPEAKER_00: Therefore they'll be your judges.
SPEAKER_00: We looked at that verse last week, but that's our transition to this in verse 28.
SPEAKER_00: If it is by the Spirit of God I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.
SPEAKER_00: How can someone enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods unless he first binds the strong man, then indeed he may plunder his house.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever is not with me is against me.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever does not gather with me scatters.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven, people, but the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.
SPEAKER_00: In my California days, I taught at a Christian high school, a village Christian was its name, and one of our alumni went on to become somewhat of a well-known uh director and producer of of movies, and he used his new influence to make a documentary, and he asked if he could film it at our school during a chapel, and they of course said yes, because he was, you know, in in LA, being a movie producer is a bigger deal than it is here.
SPEAKER_00: Just substitute the word senator, and you have the idea.
SPEAKER_00: They came and filmed in chapel, and eventually the movie was released, and the title of the movie was The God Who Wasn't There.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't expect you to remember this is 20 years ago, but it was the kind of movie that made like a splash in Christianity's day in relevant magazines and that kind of place.
SPEAKER_00: Uh but it was an argument against Christianity.
SPEAKER_00: He filmed part in chapel where he zoomed in on the pew that he sat in when he was a second grader, he said, where he said the sinner's prayer.
SPEAKER_00: And it was told after chapel that because he said that prayer and meant it, that he was a Christian now, and that you can't lose your salvation, that nobody ever questioned it, and there you go.
SPEAKER_00: And then after the room had cleared out, he went back to the chair.
SPEAKER_00: The adult Brian went back to the chair and sat there and sat down in the chair and said, Uh, I hereby deny the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And so then he says, here's his logical construct if Christianity is true, then I can't be saved, and so leave me alone.
SPEAKER_00: And if Christianity is not true, then I can't be saved, so leave me alone.
SPEAKER_00: And that was kind of how the movie ended.
SPEAKER_00: That reflects a sentiment that I've often heard asked many, many times uh, can someone say that they've committed the unpardonable sin?
SPEAKER_00: Can someone put themselves outside the reach of the gospel?
SPEAKER_00: I've even had people with somewhat sensitive consciences come and uh ask me along the lines of, I think I may have committed the unpardonable sin accidentally.
SPEAKER_00: Like I may have accidentally blasphemed the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Is there any hope for my salvation?
SPEAKER_00: Kind of question.
SPEAKER_00: And some of you, some of you laugh, but I've had people seriously ask me that.
SPEAKER_00: You can frame the question this way: Are there any sins so severe that forgiveness ceases to be a possibility?
SPEAKER_00: And the short answer to that is yes, there is one sin.
SPEAKER_00: We saw it described in the text we just read this morning.
SPEAKER_00: It's referred to as the blasphemy against the Spirit, and Jesus says it cannot and will not be forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: But to understand what that sin is, you need to have a more holistic understanding of what the scripture is describing in terms of a battle between the devil and between God.
SPEAKER_00: That's the battle that's described in verses 27 down through 32.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a battle that we often talk about, and some of it is just assumed.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus doesn't teach on it here in this section of Matthew 12 as much as assume that you know what he's talking about.
SPEAKER_00: There is a pitched battle between God and the devil.
SPEAKER_00: There is open warfare between the angels of heaven and the demons of heaven.
SPEAKER_00: And it's a battle that is described throughout the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: It's a battle that begins in Genesis 1, verse 1, where it says, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
SPEAKER_00: Now that that verse right there is going sequentially.
SPEAKER_00: God created first the heavens and then he created the earth.
SPEAKER_00: That is one after the other.
SPEAKER_00: And when he created the heavens, he created all the angels that would populate the heavens, just as when he created the earth.
SPEAKER_00: He populated the sea with fish and the sky with birds and the earth with animals, according to their kind.
SPEAKER_00: In the same way, when he created the heavens, he populated the heavens with the angels.
SPEAKER_00: So that when he creates the earth, the angels are present.
SPEAKER_00: They have a front row seat.
SPEAKER_00: They observe the creation of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: That's described in Job 38, verses 6 through 7.
SPEAKER_00: When Yahweh is asking the question, who laid the earth's cornerstone?
SPEAKER_00: Obviously he did.
SPEAKER_00: When the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy.
SPEAKER_00: That's describing the creative act where God creates the earth.
SPEAKER_00: The angels were already present and they were rejoicing.
SPEAKER_00: They were celebrating.
SPEAKER_00: Now, in the context of Job 38, they are celebrating the beauty and the wonder and the grandeur of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: We won't go all the way through Job 38, but it's describing the mystery of the heavens and the skies and the lightning and the animals and the beauty and the intricacy of the natural worlds.
SPEAKER_00: And the angels saw that and rejoiced.
SPEAKER_00: They saw that and celebrated.
SPEAKER_00: They applauded.
SPEAKER_00: And that's because the earth was beautiful.
SPEAKER_00: It's often, skeptics will often say today that we live in a universe with so many galaxies and so many solar systems and so many other stars and planets.
SPEAKER_00: How can there be anything special about the earth?
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's a question that is easily answered.
SPEAKER_00: The earth is just fundamentally different than every other place.
SPEAKER_00: Even what we've explored, there's nothing like the earth anywhere.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing as beautiful and as habitable and as suit for living as this world is.
SPEAKER_00: Why did they rejoice over it?
SPEAKER_00: Well, because the earth requires dominion.
SPEAKER_00: The earth requires somebody to rule it and subdue it.
SPEAKER_00: The animals are going to be multiplying.
SPEAKER_00: There's vibrancy on the earth that is not like any other planet.
SPEAKER_00: You understand that?
SPEAKER_00: What's happening on the earth is unlike anything else in the universe?
SPEAKER_00: The angels recognized that and this would be the place to exercise dominion.
SPEAKER_00: The question hanging in the hallways of heaven, so to speak, is who would be able to rule the earth?
SPEAKER_00: Why did God make the earth and who would have dominion on it?
SPEAKER_00: That is what the angels wanted.
SPEAKER_00: They wanted to be the rulers of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: Specifically Satan, who is the head angel.
SPEAKER_00: Angels you know come in ranks and hierarchies, and Satan is the highest ranking of all of the angels.
SPEAKER_00: He was the anointed cherub.
SPEAKER_00: It's described, his office is described this way in Ezekiel 28, verse 14.
SPEAKER_00: You were an anointed guardian cherub.
SPEAKER_00: I placed you.
SPEAKER_00: You were on the holy mountain of God.
SPEAKER_00: In the midst of the stones of fire, you walked, which means Satan can walk in and out of God's presence.
SPEAKER_00: You are blameless in your ways from the days that you were created.
SPEAKER_00: There are other passages that describe Satan as having command over other angels.
SPEAKER_00: They describe the angels by their rank and time would get away from us if we gave a full taxonomy of angels this morning.
SPEAKER_00: That's not exactly what I'm after.
SPEAKER_00: But understand the point the devil was high and exalted, and he wanted to rule the earth.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah 14 implies that he wanted to rule it.
SPEAKER_00: But instead it went to mankind.
SPEAKER_00: God made Adam out of earth, and he made Eve out of Adam, and he put the earth under their authority and gave them dominion.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 8 captures it like this, and I put it on the screen for it.
SPEAKER_00: It's a longer passage, but beginning in verse 3 of Psalm 8, when I look at your heavens, this is David describing it, the work of your fingers.
SPEAKER_00: It's David here, going back to Genesis, going back to when God made the heavens and when he made the earth, with his hands, how he crafted things, so to speak.
SPEAKER_00: And David has the same question.
SPEAKER_00: What is man that you are mindful of him?
SPEAKER_00: And the Son of Man that you care for him?
SPEAKER_00: David looks at the earth and he too wonders, why did you make mankind have dominion on the earth?
SPEAKER_00: Angels are powerful, they can fly.
SPEAKER_00: They should have dominion.
SPEAKER_00: What's up with people?
SPEAKER_00: God made people out of dirt to rule the planet of dirt.
SPEAKER_00: And dominion is just the word that David uses here.
SPEAKER_00: Dominion is the word for ruling.
SPEAKER_00: Some sense of sovereignty, not sovereignty like God, but sovereignty over your sphere.
SPEAKER_00: That we can have dominion and rule the earth.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not going to be the angels, it's going to be mankind.
SPEAKER_00: And David asks in Psalm 8 verse 4, why people?
SPEAKER_00: Why would God set his heart and his mind to us?
SPEAKER_00: What's the Son of Man that God would care for him?
SPEAKER_00: Verse 5, you've made him a little lower than the heavenly beings.
SPEAKER_00: A little lower than the angels.
SPEAKER_00: That's hyperbole if there ever was one, or I guess the opposite of hyperbole.
SPEAKER_00: An understatement.
SPEAKER_00: Somebody can tell me later what the word for that is.
SPEAKER_00: You've made people a little lower than the angels.
SPEAKER_00: The angels can go in and out of heaven.
SPEAKER_00: The angels can fly.
SPEAKER_00: They walk the streets of all the gold, so to speak.
SPEAKER_00: The angels are amazing.
SPEAKER_00: We are made from dirt.
SPEAKER_00: So, yes, David, we're a little lower than the angels.
SPEAKER_00: And yet God crowns mankind, verse 5 says, with glory and honor.
SPEAKER_00: You've given him dominion, verse 6 says, over the work of your hands.
SPEAKER_00: Again, that word dominion means we have ruling power, ruling ability over the earth.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, verse 6 says, you have put all things under his feet.
SPEAKER_00: The whole planet.
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't mean all things like the heavens.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean God is under our feet.
SPEAKER_00: All things here is described, all things literally under our feet, the planet that we walk on.
SPEAKER_00: And verse 7 lets you know we're talking about nature and creation.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 7, all sheep and oxen, all the beasts of the field, the birds of the heaven, the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the sea, mankind has dominion over that.
SPEAKER_00: Not the angels.
SPEAKER_00: And David wonders, why?
SPEAKER_00: Well, the devil also had that question.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Why mankind?
SPEAKER_00: And the fact that God made Adam and Eve and bypassed the angels to have dominion over the earth fills the devil's heart with rage and jealousy.
SPEAKER_00: After all, Satan was stronger and more powerful than people.
SPEAKER_00: And it is worth asking the question that David is asking here.
SPEAKER_00: Why did God choose Adam instead of angels?
SPEAKER_00: And the answer, which the devil does not understand, is because God's purpose in creating is to magnify his glory through redemption, which is going to magnify his glory through weakness, not through strength.
SPEAKER_00: I'll say that one more time.
SPEAKER_00: God's purpose in creating the universe was to magnify his glory by displaying redemption, and his redemption magnifies his glory not through strength, but through weakness.
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't redeem the strong but the weak.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't magnify his glory through the proud, but through the humble.
SPEAKER_00: This is a basic theme of scripture.
SPEAKER_00: God is glorified through the low, not through the exalted.
SPEAKER_00: And when I say magnified his glory, I don't mean adding to his glory.
SPEAKER_00: I mean revealing it, displaying it, making it visible.
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't magnify his glory through the strong, because that would magnify his glory less or less abundantly or less paradoxically or less evidently, however you want to say it, than him magnifying his glory through the weak and the low.
SPEAKER_00: When God's glory is displayed to the low, it is more apparent than it would be had it been displayed to the strong.
SPEAKER_00: This is the basic theme that is throughout Scripture, and it is the very heart of the wisdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: Now, of course, to mankind it is foolishness.
SPEAKER_00: People hear that and it is foolishness.
SPEAKER_00: People vote for the strong and they exalt the proud and they want to be protected by the fierce and the strength.
SPEAKER_00: But God exalts himself and displays himself through the low, the proud, and the weak.
SPEAKER_00: To the world's wisdom, that is foolishness.
SPEAKER_00: But to God, it is the very heartbeat of all creation.
SPEAKER_00: He will magnify himself through the weak.
SPEAKER_00: And so he bypasses the angels, specifically Satan, and chooses to display his glory through mankind.
SPEAKER_00: Psalm 8 begins this way.
SPEAKER_00: I can save the first two verses for last for effect here, but Psalm 8 begins this way, O Yahweh, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth.
SPEAKER_00: You have set your glory above the heavens, and yet out of the mouth of babies and infants you've established strength because of your foes to still the enemy and the avenger.
SPEAKER_00: Do you see that?
SPEAKER_00: His glory is so high and so powerful.
SPEAKER_00: And yet he's going to display it to the mouth of babies, bypassing his avenger, bypassing his enemies, bypassing his foes, which become, in short order, the devil.
SPEAKER_00: Who obviously does not take this well, though he was the signet of perfection.
SPEAKER_00: We looked at that verse earlier.
SPEAKER_00: Full of wisdom and perfect in beauty, he rebelled.
SPEAKER_00: He lashed out, he determined to conquer the earth and be like God.
SPEAKER_00: He rebelled and was expelled from heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah 14 describes it this way.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, how you've fallen from heaven, O daystar.
SPEAKER_00: Son of dawn.
SPEAKER_00: He's so exalted.
SPEAKER_00: Daystar is the more the first star that you see, the brightest star in the sky.
SPEAKER_00: That was the devil, the chief of all the angels.
SPEAKER_00: And oh, how he has fallen from heaven.
SPEAKER_00: He has been cast down to the ground.
SPEAKER_00: There is the word for earth.
SPEAKER_00: He's heaved out of heaven down to earth.
SPEAKER_00: No sign that any other angels went with him initially.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus says it more succinctly, Luke 10, verse 18.
SPEAKER_00: I saw Satan fall like lightning, Jesus says.
SPEAKER_00: Thrown out of heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Like lightning to the ground.
SPEAKER_00: God did not tolerate rebellion in his presence for more than the flash of lightning.
SPEAKER_00: Ezekiel 28 explains why Satan rebelled.
SPEAKER_00: Your heart was proud because of your beauty.
SPEAKER_00: He was proud.
SPEAKER_00: His wisdom was corrupted for the sake of his splendor.
SPEAKER_00: He could not tolerate being bypassed.
SPEAKER_00: Especially for Adam.
SPEAKER_00: He was so proud, he was so beautiful, he was so wise, and yet his beauty and his wisdom were corrupted for the quest of his own power.
SPEAKER_00: And so from his fallen position on earth, Satan purposed to take on God.
SPEAKER_00: And he took on God, expelled from heaven, of course, he took on God by taking on mankind.
SPEAKER_00: And he attacks mankind right at the heart of Adam and Eve, right at the heart of their own marriage, of their own ability to repopulate the earth.
SPEAKER_00: His goal in attacking Adam and Eve is to corrupt mankind and to exalt himself as the dominion of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: And this is, again, is said in Isaiah 14, verse 13.
SPEAKER_00: You said in your heart, I will ascend to heaven above the stars of God, I will set my throne on high, I will sit on the Mount of the Assembly in the far reaches of the north.
SPEAKER_00: This is God like language.
SPEAKER_00: This is what Satan is saying in his heart.
SPEAKER_00: I want dominion.
SPEAKER_00: I will be the ruler of this earth.
SPEAKER_00: I will be the God of this world.
SPEAKER_00: And so from that spot, he immediately attacks Adam and Eve.
SPEAKER_00: He goes after them at marriage, he goes after them with the ability to procreate.
SPEAKER_00: God designed Eve to be the helper of Adam, and Adam and Eve together to have dominion over the earth.
SPEAKER_00: Adam had the calling to the job, Eve had the calling to the man, and this is what the devil attacks.
SPEAKER_00: The devil didn't deceive Adam because Adam had headship here.
SPEAKER_00: The devil deceived Eve by attacking her.
SPEAKER_00: It's not that women are more gullible, it's that women were supposed to be wives, were supposed to be under the protection and leadership of their husband.
SPEAKER_00: Satan subverts that by offering them the so-called ability to see the difference between good and evil, to be like God without God, to have the wisdom of God without going through God.
SPEAKER_00: That's how he tempts Eve.
SPEAKER_00: And Eve takes it.
SPEAKER_00: And Adam, of course, is complicit.
SPEAKER_00: He eats as well, and the devil is triumphant.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord steps in, I'm sure you recall, with consequences.
SPEAKER_00: Now on, Adam's leadership and his family will be difficult.
SPEAKER_00: The ground will not willingly give up its fruit.
SPEAKER_00: From now on, childbirth will be painful.
SPEAKER_00: The very things Adam and Eve are called to do, because people have to procreate to have dominion over the earth.
SPEAKER_00: The animals are going to multiply, people better too.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, how many sheep do you think Adam and Eve could care for by themselves?
SPEAKER_00: They're going to need a family, and now it is going to hurt.
SPEAKER_00: Then on top of that, God deals with Satan and tells Satan the punishment that I don't think Satan understood the full depths of, that he will be defeated by a descendant of Eve.
SPEAKER_00: You want to look up irony in the dictionary?
SPEAKER_00: There's a Bible dictionary that had the word irony, and it should be that.
SPEAKER_00: Satan hates mankind for having dominion over the earth, so he attacks mankind.
SPEAKER_00: God will defeat Satan through mankind.
SPEAKER_00: It will be a child of Eve who will defeat the devil.
SPEAKER_00: From that point forward, every angel has a choice to make.
SPEAKER_00: Are they going to serve people or rebel against people?
SPEAKER_00: This is why angels, so many angels, hate people.
SPEAKER_00: Because they hate God and they hate that people have dominion over the earth.
SPEAKER_00: Angels don't just hate Christians.
SPEAKER_00: Angels attack every kind of human being.
SPEAKER_00: At least some of them do.
SPEAKER_00: They join the devil in their rebellion.
SPEAKER_00: And other angels choose to be obedient to God.
SPEAKER_00: And their obedience to God is expressed in the service of people.
SPEAKER_00: Good angels serve people, bad angels fight people.
SPEAKER_00: That's the bottom line.
SPEAKER_00: This is an analogy.
SPEAKER_00: It's helpful for me to understand this.
SPEAKER_00: You understand that people have their relationship with God and in eternity determined by what they do with Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Angels have their relationship with God and in eternity determined by what they do with people.
SPEAKER_00: Fallen angels hate people and attack them.
SPEAKER_00: They attack around the time of the flood by again trying to corrupt the promise, the promise of the human offspring, by trying to intermarry with people.
SPEAKER_00: And God takes some of those angels and throws them in prison.
SPEAKER_00: That's 1 Peter 3, 19 and 20, describe that.
SPEAKER_00: I affectionately call that place angel jail.
SPEAKER_00: Some angels get thrown into angel jail, and yet still more and more angels, it seems, keep joining the rebellion.
SPEAKER_00: Other angels serve mankind.
SPEAKER_00: That's described in Hebrews 1, verse 14.
SPEAKER_00: Angels are ministering servants, sent out to serve for the sake of those who will inherit salvation.
SPEAKER_00: The good angels serve people, the bad angels fight people.
SPEAKER_00: If good angels serve people, do you see the temptation?
SPEAKER_00: You need to get back to Matthew 12, you need to appreciate why the devil and demons are fighting people.
SPEAKER_00: Because they were called to serve people.
SPEAKER_00: And the whole point of their rebellion is they didn't want mankind to have dominion on the earth.
SPEAKER_00: So imagine then.
SPEAKER_00: Fine, making giving the earth to Adam and Eve, that's one thing, but now making angels serve them.
SPEAKER_00: That's outlandish.
SPEAKER_00: 1 Corinthians 6 verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: Don't you know that we are to judge angels?
SPEAKER_00: Because ministry angels are sent to serve us, we will judge them.
SPEAKER_00: And so then every angel has a decision to make.
SPEAKER_00: Spend his existence serving man, serving dirty, stinking, reproducing, falling, frail, no flying man.
SPEAKER_00: Or strive to steal man's ability and authority to have dominion on the earth.
SPEAKER_00: That's the pitched battle on mankind.
SPEAKER_00: And you see this throughout the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: We don't know how many angels had joined the devil initially.
SPEAKER_00: We know that some did by Genesis 6, of course.
SPEAKER_00: Course.
SPEAKER_00: We know that more will later.
SPEAKER_00: By Revelation 12, it says a third of the angels join the devil by Revelation 12.
SPEAKER_00: The promise goes on of the gospel to Christ, but the battle goes on as well.
SPEAKER_00: And you see angels fighting throughout Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Angels appear to Abraham to ensure the line goes through Isaac and not through Lot.
SPEAKER_00: Angels come to try to rescue Lot.
SPEAKER_00: Angels come to part the Red Sea to free Israel from Egypt.
SPEAKER_00: They come down to deliver the law to the Israelites, let them know how to live according to the promise of God.
SPEAKER_00: They come down to bury Moses.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, Moses died in isolation, and the Jews would have worshipped his bones and corrupted everything.
SPEAKER_00: Angels bury him to protect the Jews, constantly serving mankind.
SPEAKER_00: But other angels are constantly fighting, trying, you know, they they imitate the plagues.
SPEAKER_00: They imitate God's plagues.
SPEAKER_00: They imitate God's miracles with their own their own so-called miracles.
SPEAKER_00: It's the miracles of demons.
SPEAKER_00: They fight over Moses' bones.
SPEAKER_00: They try to take Moses' bones.
SPEAKER_00: Angels fighting over his bones.
SPEAKER_00: In the meantime, there's the devil who, through him and his demons, kill countless people is the angel of death.
SPEAKER_00: Masquerading is an angel of light.
SPEAKER_00: But the main tool, understand this.
SPEAKER_00: The main tool the devil and demons use is false religion.
SPEAKER_00: The main activity of demons is not fighting over Moses' bones.
SPEAKER_00: That's a side hustle.
SPEAKER_00: The main activity of demons is instigating, inspiring, empowering false religion.
SPEAKER_00: Getting people to worship false gods.
SPEAKER_00: Getting people to worship.
SPEAKER_00: It's the first sin.
SPEAKER_00: Getting people to think they know right from wrong without going through the mediator.
SPEAKER_00: Deuteronomy 32, 17 says it this way people who sacrifice to false gods and idols are sacrificing to demons who were not God.
SPEAKER_00: That's Deuteronomy 32.17.
SPEAKER_00: Whenever somebody worships a false God, any false god, they're worshiping a demon.
SPEAKER_00: And they don't say it's a demon.
SPEAKER_00: Whether it's the God of the Amalekites, whether it's Dagon of the Philistines, whether it's Moroni on the top of a golden spire, it doesn't matter what false object it is, it is in fact a demon.
SPEAKER_00: And it is the first sin, thinking that you can know good and evil without the mediator.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not just true of the Philistines and the Amalekites, it's true of the Gentiles as well.
SPEAKER_00: This is Paul in 1 Corinthians 10, verse 20.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says, I imply that what pagans sacrifice, they offer to demons and not to God.
SPEAKER_00: That's pagans plural.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we're talking any generically.
SPEAKER_00: Any religion outside of Christ does their sacrifice, they do their offerings, and it is false.
SPEAKER_00: It's to demons and not God.
SPEAKER_00: By the way, they're doing so with the Jewish influence behind them.
SPEAKER_00: That's demonic, Paul says.
SPEAKER_00: It is the doctrine of demons.
SPEAKER_00: What are those people like?
SPEAKER_00: Well, they're religious.
SPEAKER_00: They proclaim good works.
SPEAKER_00: I've heard people say so many times, oh, we have so much in common with these other religions because ethically, you know, they're against same-sex marriage, they're against sex before marriage, they're blah, blah, blah, they're all these things, just like we are.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, just like we are, except they're demonic.
SPEAKER_00: Like that's a big difference, you know.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, they proclaim righteousness, but this is how John says it in Revelation 9.20.
SPEAKER_00: The rest of humanity refuse to repent of relying on their own works.
SPEAKER_00: That's the key phrase.
SPEAKER_00: Anybody who relies on their own works, who thinks I'm good enough to figure out right and wrong, listen, I just try to do as good as I can.
SPEAKER_00: I know I'm not perfect, but I do the best that I can.
SPEAKER_00: I'm relying on how good I am.
SPEAKER_00: In Revelation 9.20, it says they continued to worship demons.
SPEAKER_00: That's it.
SPEAKER_00: If you think that you're going to heaven when you die because you're basically a good person, because you try to navigate this world as well as you know how, you're believing the lie of demons.
SPEAKER_00: It's the lie of the devil in the garden, and it is in every other religion outside of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: It is the doctrine of demons.
SPEAKER_00: They're linked here in Revelation 9.20.
SPEAKER_00: Trusting your own works for salvation is demonic.
SPEAKER_00: And listen, the demons are effective when a culture or a religion wholeheartedly buys in their lives.
SPEAKER_00: It's so common to say you do as in Mormonism, you do as as many works as you can, and then your faith and grace kicks in.
SPEAKER_00: You're storing up a treasury of merit for yourself that you can draw from later.
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't have enough merit, other people can deposit merit in your account too.
SPEAKER_00: That is the doctrine of demons.
SPEAKER_00: Even if it has Jesus in it.
SPEAKER_00: And you can see that by the time of Jesus' life, this is a pitched battle.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, Jesus is born and his birth is celebrated by angels.
SPEAKER_00: It is demonic to slaughter all the infants, of course, which Herod the butcher of Bethlehem did.
SPEAKER_00: Trusting in himself rather than what was revealed by angels.
SPEAKER_00: This is throughout Jesus' life, of course.
SPEAKER_00: You see this constantly.
SPEAKER_00: The angels serve Jesus, the devil tempts Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Demons afflict people, Jesus rescues people.
SPEAKER_00: It's they're on opposite sides doing opposite things.
SPEAKER_00: Angels minister to Jesus in his weakness, the devil inspires Judas to kill him.
SPEAKER_00: This is the battle throughout Jesus' life.
SPEAKER_00: You see it, you get a glimpse of it in Matthew 12, don't you?
SPEAKER_00: With the demon-possessed man in verse 22 who's blind and mute, Jesus heals him.
SPEAKER_00: So here's the devil hurting someone, Jesus casts the devil out of him.
SPEAKER_00: Opposite sides of the war.
SPEAKER_00: And so verse 27, Jesus is asking, if you guys say I'm casting out demons by Belzebel, a name for the devil, what are you even talking about?
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't make any sense.
SPEAKER_00: I won't recash verse 27.
SPEAKER_00: We looked at it last week.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 28, if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, the kingdom of God has come among you.
SPEAKER_00: If the Spirit of God is here in the world and he is casting demons out of people, then the kingdom of God is at hand.
SPEAKER_00: The king is in your midst.
SPEAKER_00: If there is a fight between demons and the spirit of God, between Christ, who will be the mediator born to Eve, a descendant of Eve, and between the devil who is afflicting and harming people, and Christ is here and he's casting out the devil, then the kingdom is right in front of you.
SPEAKER_00: Saints in the Old Testament, Jews in the Old Testament, were saved by faith in the Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't see the Messiah yet, but they believed in the promise.
SPEAKER_00: They believed in the future coming of the Davidic offspring who would take away their sins.
SPEAKER_00: They put their faith in that and they were saved by faith.
SPEAKER_00: Now that Davidic offspring is there.
SPEAKER_00: The Son of God, the Son of Man, the Son of David is there in front of them, casting out demons.
SPEAKER_00: And if you look at that, then you have the king, the fulfillment of all the prophecies in your midst.
SPEAKER_00: That's the offer to them.
SPEAKER_00: What happens if you reject that offer?
SPEAKER_00: Verse 29, Jesus, before he gets to that question, gives you a word picture.
SPEAKER_00: How can someone enter a strongman's house and plunder his goods unless he first binds the strongman?
SPEAKER_00: That's just an expression.
SPEAKER_00: Don't get too crazy with that verse.
SPEAKER_00: I've seen people go way off the rails with that verse.
SPEAKER_00: It's just an expression.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you sleep with a gun in your nightstand, and you say, if someone's gonna rob my house, they're gonna have to get through me and my friend first.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's true, right?
SPEAKER_00: If you have a gun in your nightstand and somebody's gonna rob your house, they're gonna have to get through both you and your gun first.
SPEAKER_00: Of course.
SPEAKER_00: How would that ever happen?
SPEAKER_00: How could somebody ever rob a house of somebody with a gun?
SPEAKER_00: Has it ever happened?
SPEAKER_00: Probably not, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: No, it would happen by them tying you up.
SPEAKER_00: That's how it would happen.
SPEAKER_00: You would get tied up and then your house would be plundered.
SPEAKER_00: That's all Jesus is saying.
SPEAKER_00: The devil is the prince of this world.
SPEAKER_00: This is his world.
SPEAKER_00: He rules this world.
SPEAKER_00: He is the prince of the power.
SPEAKER_00: He was cast from heaven to earth.
SPEAKER_00: He's the prince of the power of the air.
SPEAKER_00: This world is under his dominion.
SPEAKER_00: If Jesus is gonna come rescue people, how's he gonna do it?
SPEAKER_00: He is going to have to tie up the devil first.
SPEAKER_00: How do you tie up somebody if you're gonna rob their house?
SPEAKER_00: Did you ring their doorbell?
SPEAKER_00: Do you ring their doorbell?
SPEAKER_00: Hello, here to tie you up.
SPEAKER_00: Somebody rang our doorbell at what, two in the morning a few weeks ago?
SPEAKER_00: And DJ wakes me up.
SPEAKER_00: Somebody's ringing our doorbell.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, no, they're not.
SPEAKER_00: Like, yes, the door's ring wrong.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: Let the kids get it.
SPEAKER_00: What if it's somebody bad?
SPEAKER_00: Well, the bad guy wouldn't ring the doorbell.
SPEAKER_00: Then he's shouting, Fairfax Police, open up.
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, not a bad guy.
SPEAKER_00: The kids can deal with it.
SPEAKER_00: It's two in the morning.
SPEAKER_00: I'll spare you the rest of that story for some other illustration.
SPEAKER_00: That's not how bad guys rob houses, they rob it from the inside.
SPEAKER_00: They get in and they tie you up undetected.
SPEAKER_00: How is Jesus going to bind up the devil?
SPEAKER_00: He's gonna get into his house undetected.
SPEAKER_00: I spent a year coaching special teams in high school football, back at the same school I talked about earlier.
SPEAKER_00: Village Christian.
SPEAKER_00: Our special teams were terrible.
SPEAKER_00: It's just dawning on me right now.
SPEAKER_00: I'm probably responsible for that.
SPEAKER_00: So we had a trick play, the kind of trick play that would only work in high school for punts.
SPEAKER_00: It was fourth and short.
SPEAKER_00: We could not defend punts well at all.
SPEAKER_00: So we would just put the punter on the field, line him up as a running back, and do a direct snap to the punter who would punt the ball.
SPEAKER_00: And the other team, you would think this wouldn't work, and of course I doubt it would work at the college or the NFL level or whatever, but at a high school level, the other team doesn't realize it's the punter out there taking the snap.
SPEAKER_00: So again, you would think it would be too obvious.
SPEAKER_00: It's fourth and short.
SPEAKER_00: The punter is on the field.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe we should set up for a punt, but no, they set up to defend the run, and then we punt it over everybody's head, and there's no return.
SPEAKER_00: I cannot believe how often that worked.
SPEAKER_00: It's such a dumb play.
SPEAKER_00: In a way, this is what Jesus does.
SPEAKER_00: He comes to earth right into the devil's house, undetected, born in the manger, born in the likeness of Adam, born as a human being, to defeat the devil from the inside of his own house.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 30 Whoever isn't with me is against me.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever doesn't gather scatters.
SPEAKER_00: This is a phrase from animals.
SPEAKER_00: Not from scatter sounds like wheat, but it's animals.
SPEAKER_00: If the sheep are running down the street, your neighbor's sheep are out, you can help him gather.
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't help him gather, you're just walking through the middle of them, you're scattering them.
SPEAKER_00: There's no neutrality in this.
SPEAKER_00: When the sheep are out, there's no neutrality.
SPEAKER_00: You either help or you hurt.
SPEAKER_00: And that's Jesus' point here.
SPEAKER_00: You either are with him.
SPEAKER_00: Now he's on earth.
SPEAKER_00: The Son of God, the Son of Man is on earth casting out demons, and the very people, the Pharisees, who are waiting for the Savior to come, are looking at him and saying, That looks like the devil to me.
SPEAKER_00: They're against him.
SPEAKER_00: Satan rebelled because he wanted to rule mankind.
SPEAKER_00: God will defeat Satan by joining mankind, defeating him from the inside out, and some of mankind look at this and see the Savior as the devil.
SPEAKER_00: Again, there's verse 30, there's no neutrality.
SPEAKER_00: You have to take sides.
SPEAKER_00: This is a fight to the death.
SPEAKER_00: It is a fight between two kings, Yahweh the King of Heaven and Satan, Belzebel, the devil, the accuser, who Revelation 9.11 calls the king of hell.
SPEAKER_00: It's a fight.
SPEAKER_00: And you have to take sides.
SPEAKER_00: If you look at this fight and you look at the two combatants and you say, I can't tell who's who, then there's no hope for you.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 31 every sin, every blasphemy will be forgiven, people.
SPEAKER_00: But the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: And this is quoted in Acts 3.
SPEAKER_00: Peter is telling people, you always spoke against Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You always spoke against Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: But then Peter says this, Acts 3, I think it's verse 11.
SPEAKER_00: You spoke out of ignorance against him.
SPEAKER_00: All you Pharisees, all you Jewish leaders, you didn't know.
SPEAKER_00: And now you can be forgiven.
SPEAKER_00: But if you reject the Spirit, think about what the it's not the mechanisms of saying, I blaspheme the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: It's not the mechanisms of your words.
SPEAKER_00: It's the Father sends the Son to be the Savior, becoming in likeness of man, a human nature, defeating the devil from inside his own house.
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit applies the work of the Son to hearts.
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit empowers Jesus in his ministry.
SPEAKER_00: It is by the Spirit of God he casts out demons.
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit regenerates the human heart, giving faith.
SPEAKER_00: And if you reject that, there is no other way for salvation.
SPEAKER_00: We're not talking about an argument over plucking grain on the Sabbath here.
SPEAKER_00: We're not talking about can Jesus heal on the Sabbath if he doesn't touch the guy?
SPEAKER_00: We're not talking about an arcane debate about the fourth commandment like we've seen so far in Mark and Matthew.
SPEAKER_00: We're talking about Jesus actually doing the work of God, casting out the devil, defeating the devil, fulfilling Genesis 3, and the Jews looking at it and going, that might be the devil doing it to himself.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to get to an island and there's only one bridge to that island, and you refuse to take that bridge, then your recalcitrance is blocking you from getting there.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to be in a relationship with God and the only way to God is the Spirit drawing you to Christ, and you reject the Spirit, then there is no way for you to be saved.
SPEAKER_00: It is less about the mechanics of speech and more about the heart that honestly cannot tell the difference between Satan and Christ.
SPEAKER_00: All kinds of people speak out against Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Saul, martyred people.
SPEAKER_00: And yet came to faith.
SPEAKER_00: A person who says, I reject God's work.
SPEAKER_00: This is a verdict.
SPEAKER_00: This is an argument with Jesus, this is a verdict.
SPEAKER_00: No, because this is Advent.
SPEAKER_00: One more point.
SPEAKER_00: You understand that Jesus did come to earth as a human.
SPEAKER_00: But why?
SPEAKER_00: Why defeat the devil that way?
SPEAKER_00: And when I say Jesus and the devil are in a fight, you understand there's it's not like they have equal power.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the omnipotent God of heaven.
SPEAKER_00: The devil comes when he's called and can only do what Jesus allows him to do, of course.
SPEAKER_00: So why doesn't Jesus just deal with the devil in that terms rather than coming a human being who's subject to temptation to the devil, who's subject to demon affliction and all of that?
SPEAKER_00: Why does Jesus do that road?
SPEAKER_00: And the answer is provided for us in Hebrews chapter 2.
SPEAKER_00: We see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels.
SPEAKER_00: What a precious verse.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, angels can people can do two things angels can't.
SPEAKER_00: We can reproduce, which Jesus didn't physically, and we can die.
SPEAKER_00: Angels can't.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus comes as a human being for that second category.
SPEAKER_00: He comes as a human being so that he can die.
SPEAKER_00: The devil's greatest tool is the fear of death launching people into false religion.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, by becoming a human being, steals the devil's greatest tool from him, breaking people out of the fear of death.
SPEAKER_00: His resurrection frees us from the fear of death.
SPEAKER_00: His cross breaks the grip that the devil holds on people by showing us that the greatest fear we have is death.
SPEAKER_00: That's exactly what Jesus takes on himself.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we're so thankful that you fulfilled all the promises to Christ by coming for us.
SPEAKER_00: We're thankful for Jesus Christ and his death and resurrection, the promise of salvation it brings.
SPEAKER_00: We know there's war in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: We know that there's war on earth.
SPEAKER_00: Angels serve serve us, demons look to sift us.
SPEAKER_00: Ultimately, we trust you for our salvation.
SPEAKER_00: To you is the victory.
SPEAKER_00: You became lower than angels, but now you're exalted to the right hand of God.
SPEAKER_00: Our faith is in your resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: It's in Jesus' name we pray.
unknown: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And now for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining us.
SPEAKER_00: If you're in the Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: area, I would love to see you at Emmanuel Bible Church.
SPEAKER_00: For more information on our church or our current service times, go to IBC.church.
SPEAKER_00: For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.
SPEAKER_00: location, go to TMS.edu.
SPEAKER_00: I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel with boldness.