Your Story has a Villain - Who is He?
Your Story has a Villain • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
0 ratings
· 6 viewsNotes
Transcript
RECAP:
We have been in a war since we choose Christ.
When we read my Bible we see it revealing something to us: we are in a constant war against the enemy.
Our heart is where the Spiritual War takes place.
God doesn’t want our faith to be controlled by him.
Uncomfortability that is produced by sin leads us to make a decision: God - who defeated death, or Satan - the father of lies.
This week I want to take us in a different direction. I think last week we got to get a good general overview of what Spiritual Warfare is, but this week I wanted to dive into who the enemy is.
Just like a general fighting a war for his country we must seek to understand the enemy and his tactics so that we can be best prepared to fight.
In the same way the coach of a basketball team might watch the game of a future opponents, we must be proactive to the enemies attacks.
I believe learning everything there is to learn about him will help us in our fight in Spiritual Warfare.
So where do we start? Like any good story, we must start at the beginning. In Genesis 3 we see the story of Adam and Eve sinning in the Garden. We see a picture of a snake deceiving Adam and Eve, the snake lied and brought sin into the world.
That snake was none other than the enemy himself, whispering lies to God’s perfect people. John 10:10 describes the snake as a thief who only comes to steal, kill and destroy us.
But how did the snake come to be? In Ezekiel 28 we see the history of Satan who took on the image of the snake to deceive Adam and Eve.
In order to understand the Scripture, I want to teach you about some of the literary elements surrounding the passage:
This section of Scripture was written by a prophet names Ezekiel (Duh). A prophet was someone who reveals God’s will to God’s chosen people through various warnings or prophets (which a promises of things to come).
This specific set of verses is something called a “lament”
A lament is a passionate expression of great grief or sorrow.
Remember passion means “the degree to which someone is willing to suffer for something else”
Reading this specific set of verses requires us to take into account the way in which the author intended us to read the Scripture.
The warning was written to possibly two types of people:
The actual King of Tyre
Satan
That being said lets read the Scripture the way the author wants us to read it:
11 The word of the Lord came to me: 12 “Son of man, take up a lament concerning the king of Tyre and say to him: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: “ ‘You were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. 13 You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone adorned you: carnelian, chrysolite and emerald, topaz, onyx and jasper, lapis lazuli, turquoise and beryl. Your settings and mountings were made of gold; on the day you were created they were prepared. 14 You were anointed as a guardian cherub, for so I ordained you. You were on the holy mount of God; you walked among the fiery stones. 15 You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created till wickedness was found in you. 16 Through your widespread trade you were filled with violence, and you sinned. So I drove you in disgrace from the mount of God, and I expelled you, guardian cherub, from among the fiery stones. 17 Your heart became proud on account of your beauty, and you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor. So I threw you to the earth; I made a spectacle of you before kings. 18 By your many sins and dishonest trade you have desecrated your sanctuaries. So I made a fire come out from you, and it consumed you, and I reduced you to ashes on the ground in the sight of all who were watching.
The author did not write this for you to have a pep in your step while reading, it is dark, hard, and emotionally taxing. It was meant to be read with intense anguish/sadness for the sins of the King of Tyre (or Satan)
Reading it like this reveals the heat nature of God. He is sad to have to do this but actions have consequences, Satans pride has consequences. The most loving thing God can do is protect those who have been redeemed because of Christ. Thus he created a place for the redeemed and a place who have a hardened, unrepentent rebelion.
After reading the Scripture, I reread it in a way that I believe keeps the main ideas of the Scripture but is maybe more understandable for us to read.
v. 15-18:
You were good until you decided not to be good anymore. Through the gifts (that I gave you) you have sinned greatly. So I casted you out of the heavenly realms because of the disgrace you brought due to your actions. Your heart became immensely prideful because you thought you were beautiful, and your wisdom, well that became corrupt because of your pride. So when I casted you out I sent you to earth and made everyone watch that happen. Because of your sin, I have burned your home and you so no remnant of you is found in the heavenly realm and everyone watched that too.
God makes it clear: Satans pride in himself has gone unrepented causing eternal separation from all that is good.
12 How you have fallen from heaven, morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations! 13 You said in your heart, “I will ascend to the heavens; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of Mount Zaphon. 14 I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.” 15 But you are brought down to the realm of the dead, to the depths of the pit.
God also clearly makes it known that any case of blasphemy is one sin that cannot be forgiven:
28 Truly I tell you, people can be forgiven all their sins and every slander they utter, 29 but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; they are guilty of an eternal sin.”
Satan and his army are nothing more than sinful, unrelenting, heard-hearted, liars, killers, and world destroyers. They have nothing but contempt for the good things in this world.
Going from this place I want you to have an understanding of the adversary, the enemy that way when we get to talking about how we can defeat the enemy we have a better understanding of who we are fighting against.
I also want you to go from this place having learned a little bit about how we emulate or look like Satan when we sin. When we choose to live a life of sin, live a life in opposition to God we reap the same consequences as Satan.
But our God is a good God. He sent his son to live a life that we can mimic, and through faith we can once again become a new creation, living with humility which is the antidote to pride. Living like Christ each and every day according to Philippians 2:5-11
5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: 6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; 7 rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross! 9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
So, here is my challenge for you, understanding Satan a little bit more, my hope would be for you to choose to live humbly like Christ. Live a life of humility and seek redemption through faith by way of the cross of Christ.
Let’s pray.
