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Last week, when talking about Jesus watching Satan fall from heaven, we were encouraged by the fact that Satan is a defeated foe. As you will be reminded in this week’s PODCAST, Satan isn’t losing the war; he has already lost it.
Be that as it may, however, the devil is winning his share of battles, and the destruction he causes is painful in the extreme.
Of all of the names of Satan I shared with you last week, of which there are many in the Bible, arguably the most personally troublesome is the one found in Revelation 9:11. Speaking of the demonic realm, “Their king is the angel from the bottomless pit; his name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek, Apollyon—the Destroyer.” I say “most personally troublesome” for three reasons:
1. There is a suffix added to the adverb translated “in Hebrew,” as in “his name in Hebrew is Abaddon,” which makes this term particularly forceful. As if to say that Satan is the ultimate destroyer going all the way back to the very beginnings of the Bible.
2. His “most personally troublesome” name because the word means to destroy, corrupt, to exterminate, or to kill in battle or in prison, as in a prison of addiction.
3. His “most personally troublesome” name because, as you well know, it is painful enough for us to personally experience the devil’s devastation in our own lives. But it is exponentially more painful to watch when he has his way in the lives of those near and dear to us. It is one thing for us to suffer personally the consequences our own regrettable choices. But to have to stand by and watch helplessly as those whom we love suffer the consequences of their regrettable choices? That is agonizing beyond description. And I don’t need to add a suffix to that word agonizing to make it more forceful. You know how much that hurts.
Yes, his name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek, Apollyon—the Destroyer. Yet, with all of that, as will be illustrated and demonstrated, underscored and emphasized in this PODCAST, Satan is a defeated foe.
In the sense that his eternal destiny is sealed, we read of him in revelation 20 verse 10 “and the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and the brimstone where the best and the false prophets are and were also, there are two individuals who are under the dominion of Satan and possibly even demonic themselves who appear in the book of revelation and he will be tormented day and night, forever and ever.
Which explains James’ otherwise curious, James said this in James chapter 2 verse 19, you believe there is one God, good, like good for you too, even the demons believed that and tremble or shake all over, they know their destiny is sealed, the devil and his demons, to understand even when it appears he is winning battles, they know their destiny, they know their eventual and eternal doom and they tremble, these are not forces to stand in position of strength and confidence, these are demonic beings, fallen angels, who they know where they are heading, so Satan is defeated so in a future tense, but he also defeated in the present tense today. What did I tell you last week over and over again? Satan cannot touch us unless or until you and I give him permission.
Each of those little stories that I shared with you moments ago from this week, those people who crossed my path, everyone was abundantly avoidable situation, it didn’t have to happen, there is no power that says and over you and me that he can exercise unless we willingly open the door, that’s what exactly what James meant when he in revelation what Paul described as standing firm against schemes and tricks of the devil, James wrote, “submit yourself then to God” listen to this verse, it is very important,
James 4:7-10
New International Version (NIV)
Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.
that’s James 4:7-10. Now it’s beyond tonight discussion to do a full blown exposition of that but wait till we do James in high definition someday but there are two vitally important dynamic which plays in the present tense in James chapter 4 and the dynamics are these;
Number 1: In the passage that I just read to you, part of which is “resist the devil and he will flee from you that kind of a hub that the whole passage revolves. James gave us with these rules and I highlight them again in the second.
Number 2: That is a textbook definition of repentance.
Submit to God, commune to God, wash your hands, purify your heart, grief, mourn and wail over your sins, be not double minded, that means, single focus in Christ commitment stuff, this is not a game we are playing, we don’t just set Jesus into our lives and get out of free cards, been double minded, one foot at the devil’s domain and the other foot in God’s domain, you cannot strike that fence.
How did Jesus put it in the book of revelation, “be hot or cold, don’t be a lukewarm that is, be single focus in the commitment. He said humble yourself before the Lord and the textbook is repentance, turning away from sin turning to God with no middle ground in between, so if you want to know how to resist the devil so he is forced to flee the first part of the passage is repentance, repentance over past sins, repentance over past poor choices, repentance that is James expanded exposition of what John said in John 1:9, this precious promise is very familiar to many of you I know, but James kind of expands it, the way John put it is this, “if we confess our sins, God is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, God is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness, there is for us no passing the point of no return, it is always an option to repent, that is, a change of lifestyle, that we confess Homolegho , the legaho means to say or to speak, homo means to say the same thing about our sins of what God said and what does God said about our sins, well I will let Paul answer that question. What is Paul saying in Ephesians 4:30, “do not grief the Holy spirit” what is God saying about our sins? “It grieves me, it breaks my heart”, what does it mean to confess our sins, pray rosary beads, going to a little closet to bury your soul to a priest, what does it mean to confess your sins, to say the same thing about your sins to God and as that breaks your heart, it breaks my heart to the point that I am turning away from that and turning towards you in a single minded focus. Saying with all due respect to my catholic friends and to my many of you can say ‘hail Mary in a book but if it’s not accompanied with a broken heart over personal sin and desire to pursue God with single minded, it’s just words, banging our lips together. With all due respect to many, so that is, if you want to slam the door shut on, that not of the 6th, I haven’t gotten to the 6th yet, I don’t want to get confused in my outline, there are lot of numbers I am throwing around, the first dynamic embedded in James is; Repentance from past choices, come near to God and he will come near to you, humble yourself and He will lift you up, that is textbook for repentance over past sins, the dynamic that is played out here is, first repent over past sins, second, determine to make right choices in the future, when we repent of our sins in the past, we determine to make right choices in the future, that’s what the bible calls righteous choices, so here this step, there is a dirty little secret that the devil doesn’t want you to know but you already know it because we have talked about it.
Life my friend, the Christian life my friend is nothing more than you and me making an on-going series of choices. It all comes down to choices, making the right choices or wrong choices, right choice or unrighteous choices, this whole spiritual warfare is all about choices and you and me consistently making the right choices.
Is it shadows on the wall, is the weird noises you might hear in darkness at night? You have no idea how many carbons of times which I have cast out demons, I have cast out demons out of the toilet, I am spiritual authority on earth and there is carbon full of cases with girls freaking out because its 3 in the morning with nobody in the room and the toilet flushed, and it happened to be during the week when I was speaking in the mornings and another speaker speaking in the evenings. So they roused me out of bed into the carbon so I can cast out the demons out of the toilet so that the girls could go to sleep. I cast the demons out of the toilet and it didn’t flush again, because after casting the demons out of the toilet, I called the maintenance crew and they replaced the flapper and it didn’t flush again but I went to one of the staff the next day and I said ‘what was the topic of discussion in the chapel last night, just curious and you want to take a guess? And I mean so many stories these kids were scared spotless okay? It came down to choices, is it the footsteps in the night, is it the shadows in the window, I wish it was that but it isn’t , you know how many times I have been called to a home to cast out demons out of the home, go around to sprinkle holy water, I wish it was that simple and I am saying that, I may not bring smiles to our faces and not unsmiling myself but it really said that for so many of us it comes down to sprinkle stuff, the devil would love to have you believe that, it takes itself to work as far as daily choices are concerned, so I cannot emphasize enough that this whole discussion of spiritual warfare, resisting the devil, how he can invade our lives, how we gave him the forte-hole, how we open the door of influence or comes down to making choices, making either a right choice or a wrong choice, or the biblical terminology around this righteous choice or unrighteous choice, a dear friend of mine, his name is Ken Paul (of blessed memory) he used to be executive director back in the days, Kenny Paul he used to always say this and I will never forget it “the key to dynamic victorious Christian living her it is;
Whatever you doing is right, keep doing it, whatever you doing is wrong, knock it off, that is it, it is no more complicated than that, Satan cannot touch you unless you or I give him permission, all which brought us to where we left it last week, okay,.
How do you and I give him permission and I told you last week and I have already mentioned multiple times, there are 6 ways; two of which we will talk about this night, four of which we will talk about next week, alright, only because I don’t want to just rip through this stuff, I want to talk about it, for every one of these there is back story, it’s the old story whereby, what does it look like, paint the picture, so what I want to do is take every of these biblical declarations that links one of the back story out of which the principle comes, so we will understand the concept of the principle, so there are 6 principles, two of which this night, four of which next week, but there all of 6 of which round about one thing, “Choices”, it’s all about choices, so here we go;
Number 1:
Rebellion- willful, decent disobedience, if you want to open the doors of your life to Satan. Refusing to obey what God says, making unrighteous choice, this is what the bible says in 1 Samuel 15:23 “and you will hear in the voice embedded within it definite connection to the route of Satan, God said this in 1Samuel 15:23 through which by the man Samuel who happened to be the last of the judges of the old testament and the first of the prophets, rather stable individual, he said ‘rebellion is as (which is a way of saying its equal to) of the sin of witchcraft’, what is the sin of witchcraft? The sin of witchcraft is willing exposing ourselves to realm and power of Satan.
You and I exposes ourselves to the realm and power of Satan through rebellion which is defined as disobedient choices, the thing as it is oftentimes when we disobey, know what God said and chooses to disobey, how many times in our heart do we think of the linkage between that and exposing myself to the realm and power of Satan and just disobeying God, I know what God says, I know what the word means but am going to do this instead, there is a back story to this, let me tell you the back story, not to lodge you with a lot of unnecessary detail but I just want you to see how clear this is, this is unambiguous, this is easy for me and you to understand.
There is an individual in the Old Testament and of remarkable one by the name Saul; this is not the Saul of the New Testament who became Paul, this is the Saul of the old testament who became king, if Samuel was the last judge and the first of the prophets, Saul was the first of Israel’s kings. He is a remarkable man in the sense that he had a sterile beginning, you could put the story under the heading; Nobody remember how you and I begins, they only remember how you and I ends’
There are 2 certainties that perfectly describe Saul’s life but they sound diametrically opposed to each other but of these be seen untrue of same individual but of a truth, they don’t seem to fit together but they do what could you say of this individual. You could describe him in two ways;
-Saul the first king in Israel; which is true, and,
-Saul a tragic figure in Jewish history.
Our Jewish friends universally look upon Saul as a tragic human being, he first appears on our radar in 1 Samuel 9, when we read this of him, ;Saul a handsome young man as could be found anywhere in Israel , that’s quite a statement, that he was a head taller than anyone else, now let me say right up front, that these physical attributes, (handsome and tall) are not a guarantee for success but they should help, they don’t hurt. In 1 Samuel 10, more of the character issue we read that he was a humble man, a man who never sort power or position, in fact, he was a man who shrink from it, he was self-controlled, he was measured in his response even in response to those who wronged him. In 1 Samuel 11, he showed himself to be a merciful man, a man who always saw good in people, a man who always saw the potential in people, who chose to believe the best about people and quick to forgive when he was wronged, a man who was incapable (at the beginning) of carrying grudge. This was a man who certainly demonstrated a temperament to lead the nation of Israel as their first king and for good measure, the bible was very clear that the holy spirit came upon him and anointed him for the task to which he was called to become the first king in Israel. Sterile beginning but then he started to go horribly wrong; seemingly minor at first, but something that exposed an ever so slightly cracked in his character that opened up to be a wide gapping fisher over time, what do you think, let me just give you the story, I will let the bible actually tell for itself again, I will just clarify certain commentary along the way, but see what you think, Samuel said this to the newly anointed king, ‘go down to Gilgal, it’s a little town near Jericho towards the river of Jordan, I will surely come down to you to sacrifice burnt offering and fellowship offering which was under the purview of Samuel to do both as a judge and as a prophet, that was not for the king to do, but you must wait seven days until I come and I will tell you what to do’, that is pretty straight forward.
You don’t need a whole lot of exposition to that, I don’t need to dive into the meaning of the Hebrew words that says go to Gilgal , Jericho town near to the river of Jordan and wait for me seven days. Those were the instruction that were given in chapter 10, here is what happened in chapter 13, the Philistines those were the sick people who were always a menace to our Jewish friends for the world power, the philistines master of mighty army of 3000 chariots and 6000 charioteers and as many warriors as grains are found on the seashore, they camped at Michmash, east of Beth-Aven as little bit northwards of Jerusalem, the moment the Israelites saw what a tight spot they were in, because they were hard pressed by the enemy, they tried to hide in caves, thickets, rocks, holes and cisterns, holes dug in the ground without waters, some of them crossed to Jordan river and escaped into the land of Gad and Gilead, modern day Jordan is today, meanwhile, Saul stayed at Gilgal and his men were trembling with fear and we going to understand that they faced assumable enemy on a human level they had no chance of defeating them, the Philistines were going to mold them down humanly speaking, so we understand why they tremble in fear.
So they waited there seven days for Samuel as Samuel had instructed them earlier but Samuel still didn’t come, Saul realized that this troop were rapidly slipping away and Saul demanded, bring me the burnt offering and peace offering and Saul sacrificed the burnt offering himself, that was the task reserved for Samuel not for Saul the king but Samuel the prophet, he was not permitted or approved by God to offer sacrifice on behalf of the people, small thing? You tell me. Just as Saul was finishing with the burnt offering and that would have taken less than an hour, so soon as he was through with the burnt offering, guess what, Samuel arrived, Saul went out to meet and welcome him, but Samuel said ‘what is this that you have done? Saul replied ‘I saw my men were scattering from me and you didn’t arrive when you said you would, (that’s not true, the 7th day was not over yet, it was admittedly the 11th hour) but it is an interesting spiritual principle, sometimes God will allow us to dangle in the middle of brewing storm till the 11th hour before he bails us out so as to strengthen our faith. Sometimes God will allow us just long enough before he rescue us to increase our faith.
So Saul said you didn’t arrive when you said you would and the Philistines were at Michmash, ready for battle, the Philistines were ready to match against us at Gilgal and I even haven’t asked for Lord’s help, which I will say, why not? 7 days you have been watching these armies on your border, why not?
So I felt compelled to offer the burnt offering myself before you came, Samuel exclaimed how foolish, you have not kept the command the Lord your God gave you, if you had kept it, the Lord would have establish your kingdom over Israel forever. God would have established his kingdom over Israel forever, had he waited, had he obeyed, had he assured his troops Samuel is coming, he will come and offer sacrifice on our behalf, the army of the philistine that rounded the people would have hailed Saul as the picture as their king of courage, of resolute confidence, a man of obedience, even when it didn’t make sense to obey. The people would have hailed God as their victor, by taking matters into his hands by offering sacrifice while he was never permitted to offer, he himself could take the claim for the victory if there were to be a victory.
So I read all of that to you to underscore this, self-explanation sounds so spiritual “I did because I knew in it God’s help, because you were not here to ask God for the people so I asked God for the people” it sounds so spiritual. Spiritual but disobedient and then things spiral down rapidly from there and again that may seem to you, what is a big deal, so he killed the cow and threw it on the fire, why I described it as small crack in his character, but you tell me how small that is, when given a commandment of God ‘go to Gilgal, wait 7 days, I will come’ and to break that command, big deal or little deal, the road to our own demise my friends always begin with little compromises, thus, it begin by the devil trying to get you and me to make a catastrophic choice so easy to identify and resist, it starts out with little compromises that become overtime bigger especially when we make the little compromise and get away with it and then it rings first that we can make a little bigger compromises and get away with that too. Isn’t that how addiction begins? Little compromises, anyway, to show you how rapidly things went down the hill, if you turn from chapter 13 to chapter 15, for reasons I will not go into now, God told Saul through Samuel to completely destroy the Amalekites, now let me alert you to something, for many people simply reading the old testament and taking that story at phage value, God was very specific in His instructions, ‘you are to kill all the men, you are to kill all the women, you are to kill all the babes, you are to kill the animals, you are to completely eliminate the Amalakites but some of present a ethical dilemma, why would God seemingly approve and order the genocide of a complete people that doesn’t sound to be in the character of God.
That’s the discussion I would love to have with you sometimes may be when we do Samuel in high definition maybe we can do that, then I will say to save your body sometimes, a surgeon will completely eradicate invading cells called cancers, leaving things that are completely hibernated to save the body, it happens in our bodies, it happens in our world, a people who are so vile, so wicked, so evil, that God has choice after waiting and waiting and pleading and pleading, when their hearts becomes so hardly defined against God, in order to save the world, God will cut the cancer out and if I went into some details which I won’t tonight because it is such a long details and a sad story, if I went through what the Amalekites did and how they lived, who they were, you would agree with me that indeed they needed to be eradicated. This was a cancer growing in the population of the planet. God does it very rarely, happened in the time of the flood and even then, God had no offer a hundred and twenty (120) years pleading with the people to turn, so God does everything within His power up to the point of forcing His will on another and kicking them screaming into His presence, He will do all he can to warn, to offer a way out, to offer a plan of rescue but here comes a point where elimination is the only answer and that was the case with the Amalekites including their animals, this is what we read and I will simply read you the text.
‘Saul captured Agag, the Amalekite king, but completely destroyed everyone else; does that raise a question in your mind? It should be, then emphasize it, the passage said ‘then Saul and his men spared Agag’s life and kept the best of the sheep, and the goats and the cattle and fat calves and the lambs, everything in fact that appeled to them. This was a matter of greed, wasn’t it? God wanted to make sure that the surrounding enemy nation is watching God’s people, same principle in Jericho, wipe out Jericho and yet there was one individual, one member of God’s army who saw a piece of silver and some garments that attracted his eye and kept them for himself and buried them in his tent, hid them, Hakan is his name. Anyway, God wanted to make sure the surrounding nations knew that these people were not motivated by personal greed, they were motivated by God’s holiness. By keeping all of these for themselves, it gave appearance that they were simply pondering these people out of greed. It goes into the very character of God himself. Then we read they destroyed what was worthless or of poor quality, what does that tells you? then the Lord said to Samuel, I am sorry for ever making Saul king, for he has not been loyal to me and he had refuse to obey my commands, Samuel was so deeply moved when he heard this, he cried to the Lord all night, early the next morning, Samuel went to find Saul and Samuel told him, Saul went to the town of Carmel in the northern Mediterranean, Saul went into the Carmel to set up a monument for himself then he went back to Gilgal, then when Samuel finally found him, Saul greeted him cheerfully, may the Lord bless you, spiritual part, talk is cheap my friend, all this lingo that we literally throw among that makes us so spiritual. So Saul said, I have carried out the Lord’s command, ‘then what is all the bleating of goat and sheep and blowing of cattle that I hear’? Samuel said, I have carried out the command, I have fulfilled the instruction and you hear the cow mew, what is that? Samuel demanded, what have you done, it’s true that the army spared the best of sheep and the best of goats, Saul admitted, but they were going to sacrifice them to the Lord your God, no they won’t, they kept them for themselves, it was a measure of riches and how you measure somebody’s wealth in those days, it wasn’t money in the bank, they didn’t trade in currency, it was a matter of amount of animals you have or how big your flocks were. It has nothing to do with sacrifice in them, and if you noticed, I don’t know if this was a slip of tongue, I don’t want to psycho-analyze Saul, I don’t want to go beyond passage but you know when somebody talks long enough, the truth eventually comes out, did he say this without even thinking, did he even checked himself? I caught it when I read it, ‘we are going to sacrifice it to the Lord your God’. Hmmm, a little difference that little letter ‘Y’ makes ‘your’ God or the ‘our’ God, we have destroyed everything else and Samuel said ‘stop’ that is a polite old testament way of saying ‘oh shut-up I don’t want to hear it anymore’ listen to what the Lord God told me last night, what did He tell you Saul asked, although you thought little of yourself, you were chosen to be a leader of the tribe of Israel and the Lord anointed you to be their king and the Lord sent you a mission. The past tense of that statement makes a lot of sense, ‘you think little of yourself in the beginning’ that is now the man that is erecting statue unto himself.
Anyways, the Lord sent you a mission and told you to completely destroy the sinners and these are sinners the very word translated the sinners has embedded within it, people headed for God destruction, these are people who had so set themselves against God and there is no other alternative but to remove them. It is a very intensive word, destroy the sinners the Amalekites until they are all dead, why haven’t you obeyed the Lord, why did you rush for the ponder and do what is evil in the Lords sight. This is why, and again I find it tensed and I will keep it very brief, this whole myth that secret of living a victorious dynamic Christian life is personal ability. In churches, we hold one and other accountable that we build accountability groups, this put the myth to that, you can fool people, you can’t fool God, you can couch it in the most lavish with spiritual terms, ‘we are going to sacrifice it to God, we did it for Him’ really? You can lie and fool people, you cannot fool God, Saul couldn’t fool Samuel, Samuel had the direct relation with God, so why have you done this a rush for the ponder to do what is evil in the Lord’s sight. But I did obeyed the Lord, Saul insisted, I carried out the mission He gave, I brought king Agag back but I destroyed everyone else, then my troops brought the best of the sheep, goat and cattle and ponder to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal, there it is again, but Samuel replied, all those things are pretty and hung in our homes, listen to this, what is more pleasing to the Lord, your burnt offering and sacrifices or obedience to His voice, what churches in the worlds, pray genuinely, fast, do spiritual stuff, what is more pleasing to the Lord, all of that or simple obedience.
Listen Samuel said “obedience is better than sacrifice, and submission is better than offering of fat ram and the next thing Samuel said, rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, you have opened yourself to the realm and power of Satan and stubbornness is as the worshipping of idols. The word stubbornness simply means to push against the commands of God, so he said, because you have rejected the command of the Lord, He has rejected you as the king. Rebellion, opening the door to Satan’s influence or in the word of Samuel, rebellion sin is equal to witchcraft, from there Saul turned murderous as he repeatedly tried to assassinate the next king, king David, then he consulted with the mediums to which the vendor but noticed that consulting with the witch was not the gateway of Satan into his life, that door was already been opened, it was a result of Satan’s influence in his life that made him consult the witch at the end of all. And then finally, tragically, Saul ended up taking his own life. And they hung his body on walls of the town Bethshan where he was marked and ridiculed as he hung their in his death and it all began with rebellion. This obedience is such a seemingly small thing, if he had just waited on more hour the trajectory of his life might have been completely different and it is amazing to me how God gave him chances over chance not until in chapter 15 and his deal with Agag then God finally said, you are done as king, by the way, may I digress more, this whole deal about Agag Saul didn’t kill is no big deal right? Fast forward to 500 year, the book of Esther, remember the story and the evil murder man in that story by the name Haman, Haman was so wicked that he manipulated skillfully, politically maneuvered himself to be in a place of great influence in the land of Persia, and we read this in Esther chapter 3 of this man Haman who deceived his own king into signing a decree that called of the extermination of the Jewish people in Persia, if Haman had his way, there would not be Jewish people, there would not be Jesus today, it was a diabolical plot to eradicate from the world every Jew living in Persia, and this is what we read in Esther chapter 3, ‘sometimes later, king Ahasuerus promoted Haman over all nobles making him the most powerful official in the empire’ but I left out phrase when I was reading that, this is how it really reads ‘sometimes later, king Ahasuerus promoted Haman the Agagite, the direct blood descendant of Agag, the man who should never have been born, but by breaking the command Saul sowed the seed of destruction, the himation of his own people five centuries later.
Rebellion is equal to sin of witchcraft, so if you want to slam the door shut on Satan’s influence on your life, if you want to resist the devil so that he must flee, how do you do that? It’s very simple, repent from past disobedience and propose in your mind and heart to live in present and future obedience, it all comes down to choices, choices we never see or related to link to the opening of our lives to the realm and power of Satan, isn’t that amazing why you think flushing the toilet in 3 in the morning and calling it casting the demons out. Okay, I only have a few minutes left, number 2 is this, if number 1 is rebellion, defines the disobedience of God.
Number 2: The recreational use or abuse of elicits drugs or alcohol.
Forgive me if I talk fast, but I am always fighting the clock but I think this is explanatory enough, you may not be in total agreement to everything I say, revelation 9:20, reads; they did not stop worshipping demons’, verse 21 ‘they did not repent of their sorcery, now the word sorcery does not consummate means the demonic image in itself. When you think about sorcery, wizard, you think of the demonic realm, it’s even deeper than that in the previous verse because they worshipped demons through their sorcery, so sorcery is an interesting word, and the word sorcery is Pharmacia from which we got our word pharmacy, the word means the opening of oneself to the realm of the occult through the use of pharmaceuticals, the back story; Noah.
Noah who we mentioned earlier, the poster of the sobering reality that even the best of the people can make the worse of choices. And that is too disastrous result, in the time of Noah, it is said that the population of the world, the Lord observed the wickedness of the human on the earth and He thought of everything He can imagine as consistently evil, it broke the God’s heart, that’s genesis. That’s a pretty strong indictment on the human race. The human race was to given 120 years, and from 120 years we knew from Peter. Peter wrote of Noah and he described him as a preacher of righteousness and he was building the boat, he was preaching righteousness, it’s not too late for 120 years, you can make right choices, the people mocked him, they laughed at him and they said ‘no thank you’, this is what is remarkable. Noah described in genesis 6:9 as a righteous man, blameless in his generation, as stand out in terms of godly character, this is a pretty strong word, righteous man, blameless, and Noah walked with God, not a bad credential, truly remarkable statesman given a horrible spiritual condition of the world in which he lived. Now we save the resulting discussion of the flood for another time for this time though we come to a most tragic and unnecessarily avoidable twist in another word of historical biblical proportion, it turns out to be Noah a righteous man, a blameless man had a little flaw, in his otherwise blameless character, you know what that was? He was given to the abuse of alcohol, again I will allow the bible to speak for itself, in genesis 9, we reads ‘Noah a man of the soil after the flood, after the ark, he settled down, he planted vineyard, when he drank in wine he became drunk and he laid uncovered in his tent’, now the Hebrew is ambiguous, admittedly, you can’t tell from the way the Hebrew put it may be this was an arbitrary pattern that every time he get drunk or whether it was a onetime event so I leave it ambiguous as well.
The point is this, ‘Ham the father of Canaan saw his father naked and told his two brothers outside, in other word, he was mocking his dad, now indifference to Noah, the biblical writer did not go into details about what exactly Ham did in response to seeing his dad in his drunken stupor state laying in his tent. Thus, there is much speculation but that’s all it is, I will not speculate tonight, I can tell you that whatever it was, Noah completely lost the respect of his son and the son went to his brother mocking his dad, we do read this when Noah woke up from his stupor and learn what Ham his son had possibly done, he cursed Canaan the son of Ham, Canaan be cursed, may he be the lowest servant to his relatives. Read the history of the Canaanites you will see that the curse came to be. I will humbly suggest that this tragic story would have had a happier ending if instead of Noah cursing the son for his son’s in explained sin, he had rather repented before God and his sons for his own sins.
But he didn’t, whatever Ham’s sin in response to his dad’s drunkenness of the point is of that story is best summed up by a commentator who wrote this; ‘human wickedness is not slow in not slow in exploiting ones lowered guard induced by drunkenness, same characters got themselves pregnant by their father under the influence of alcohol, Genesis 19, both Haman 2Samuel 13 and king Eli of Israel 1Kings 16 were assassinated while in drunken stupor, David tried to cover up his adultery with Beersheba by making Uriah her husband drunk, 2Samuel 11, Noah exposed himself up drunk, Gen 9, leading to the cursing of Canaan. Habakkuk pronounced war on those who deliberately get their neighbors drunk so that according to Habakkuk 2, they can gaze on their naked body.
All of which explains why Solomon the wise king wrote this in Proverbs 23, “who has anguish, who has sorrow, who is always in trouble, who argues in fight, who has cuts and bruises, who has blood shall advice, those who linger long over wine, those who stay up late having just one more drink, do not even look at that colorful stuff bubbling in the glass, it goes so easily but later it bites like a poisonous snake, you will see hallucinations, you will say crazy things, you will stagger like a sailor tossed on a sea clinging to a sailing mass, you will be bruised all over without even remembering how it all happened, and you will ask when will I wake up so I can look for another drink, Pharmacia, the opening of oneself to the realm of the old coat through the use or abuse of the elicit pharmaceuticals. The self-medicated loss of control to the point or without even knowing it, we are handling over control to the evil one, I there any mystery or undeniable fact that there is in today that is satanically inspired strategy that surprise drup the whole world, now when you read this in revelation 18, that, ‘mighty inches pick up a size of a huge milestone, it threw it in the ocean and shouted, just like this the great city Babylon that becomes the symbol for all these evil in the world going all the way back to the time of the tower of babel and even before that, the fall of Satan, (we talked about that last week), where Lucifer and the king of Babylon whom he controlled.
Anyway, just like this, the great city of Babylon will be brought down with violence and will never be found again. Sound of harps, flutes and trumpets will never be heard in you again, no Crossman, no trade will be found in you again, the sound of the mill never be heard in you again, the light of a lamp will never shine in you again, the happy voices of brides and grooms will never be heard in you again, for the merchant with the greatest in the nation with your Pharmacia. That’s what happens. In your street flows blood of prophets and of God’s holy people and the blood of the people slaughtered all over the world, how will Satan deceive the whole world to the point I shared with you last week, revelation 13, the whole in their worship of Satan as god how does he do that? Through their sorceries, alcohol, Noah who took a perfectly legitimate substance, the fruit of the vine and abused it.
Pharmacia , the opening of ourselves to the realm occult through the use of elicit pharmaceutical, perhaps the time has come for some of us to slam the door shut on the evil ones.
Rebellion and recreational use or abuse of elicit drugs or alcohol, there are two of six ways we give Satan permission to invade our lives with his influence and for more yet to be considered which we will be considered next week.