KNOWING YOUR ENEMY
Notes
Transcript
YOU HAVE AN ENEMY AND HE IS REAL.
YOU HAVE AN ENEMY AND HE IS REAL.
OPENING LINE
FRANCIS CHAN WAS SO RIGHT WHEN HE SAID; WE DONT LIVE AS IF SATAN IS REAL
JUNE 3, 1988, At about 1.30pm on that day in 1988, a Soviet limpet mine hidden in a dustbin outside a branch of Standard Bank exploded. It took the lives of four people and injured another 19. Most of the victims were standing at the corner waiting for the traffic light to change. The country was in a state of emergency and this was the fifth bomb explosion in nine days.
WE HAVE AN ENEMY AND HE IS REAL
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.
Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
if we know our enemy we can prepare for an attack
HE WANTS TO MAKE YOU BELIEVE HE DOES NOT EXIST
HE TRIES TO GET US TO FALL AND TO DEVOUR US
GOD IS MORE POWERFUL
Now he was casting out a demon that was mute. When the demon had gone out, the mute man spoke, and the people marveled.
But some of them said, “He casts out demons by Beelzebul, the prince of demons,”
while others, to test him, kept seeking from him a sign from heaven.
But he, knowing their thoughts, said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and a divided household falls.
And if Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? For you say that I cast out demons by Beelzebul.
And if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges.
But if it is by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.
When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his goods are safe;
but when one stronger than he attacks him and overcomes him, he takes away his armor in which he trusted and divides his spoil.
Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.
LUKE 11
BELZEBUL - MEANS THE PRINCE OR RULER OF THE TEMPLE
For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ.
FALSE TEACHERS MASQUERADE THEMSELVES AS ANGELS OF LIGHT
SATAN APPEARS BEAUTIFUL
REMEMBER GOING TO GET MY TEA LEAVES READ.
2 COR
“When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations.
There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer
or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead,
for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord. And because of these abominations the Lord your God is driving them out before you.
You shall be blameless before the Lord your God,
DEUT 18:19-1
TALKING TO THE DEAD
THE DEVIL
slide point
NOW MOST OF US IF WE KNOW OUR ENEMY CAN PREPARE FOR AN ATTACK OF THIS SORT.
THE DEVIL
In a recent article in Leadership Journal on the topic of evil, John Ortberg recalls an encounter psychiatrist Scott Peck had with a depressed 15-year-old named Bobby who was increasingly troubled after his 16-year-old brother killed himself with a .22 rifle. Ortberg writes,
Peck tried to probe Bobby's mind, but got nowhere. Searching for ways to establish a bond, he asked what Bobby had received from his parents for Christmas. “A gun,” Bobby said. Peck was stunned. “What kind?”
“A .22.”
More stunned. “How did it make you feel, getting the same kind of gun your brother killed himself with?” “It wasn't the same kind of gun.” Peck felt better.
“It was the same gun.”
Bobby had been given, as a Christmas present, by his parents, the gun his brother used to kill himself. When Peck met with the parents, what was most striking was their deliberate refusal to acknowledge any wrongdoing on their part. They would not tolerate any concern for their son, or any attempt to look at moral reality.
Two decades later and after his conversion to Christianity, Peck wrote about this encounter: “One thing has changed in twenty years. I now know Bobby's parents were evil. I did not know it then. I felt their evil but had no vocabulary for it. My supervisors were not able to help me name what I was facing. The name did not exist in our professional vocabulary. As scientists rather than priests, we were not supposed to think in such terms.”3
ISAIAH 14:4
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’
The word of the Lord came to me:
“Son of man, say to the prince of Tyre, Thus says the Lord God: “Because your heart is proud, and you have said, ‘I am a god, I sit in the seat of the gods, in the heart of the seas,’ yet you are but a man, and no god, though you make your heart like the heart of a god—
you are indeed wiser than Daniel; no secret is hidden from you;
by your wisdom and your understanding you have made wealth for yourself, and have gathered gold and silver into your treasuries;
by your great wisdom in your trade you have increased your wealth, and your heart has become proud in your wealth—
therefore thus says the Lord God: Because you make your heart like the heart of a god,
therefore, behold, I will bring foreigners upon you, the most ruthless of the nations; and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of your wisdom and defile your splendor.
They shall thrust you down into the pit, and you shall die the death of the slain in the heart of the seas.
Will you still say, ‘I am a god,’ in the presence of those who kill you, though you are but a man, and no god, in the hands of those who slay you?
You shall die the death of the uncircumcised by the hand of foreigners; for I have spoken, declares the Lord God.”
Moreover, the word of the Lord came to me:
“Son of man, raise a lamentation over the king of Tyre, and say to him, Thus says the Lord God: “You were the signet of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.
You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was your covering, sardius, topaz, and diamond, beryl, onyx, and jasper, sapphire, emerald, and carbuncle; and crafted in gold were your settings and your engravings. On the day that you were created they were prepared.
You were an anointed guardian cherub. I placed you; you were on the holy mountain of God; in the midst of the stones of fire you walked.
You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created, till unrighteousness was found in you.
In the abundance of your trade you were filled with violence in your midst, and you sinned; so I cast you as a profane thing from the mountain of God, and I destroyed you, O guardian cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.
Your heart was proud because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor. I cast you to the ground; I exposed you before kings, to feast their eyes on you.
By the multitude of your iniquities, in the unrighteousness of your trade you profaned your sanctuaries; so I brought fire out from your midst; it consumed you, and I turned you to ashes on the earth in the sight of all who saw you.
All who know you among the peoples are appalled at you; you have come to a dreadful end and shall be no more forever.”
The word of the Lord came to me:
“Son of man, set your face toward Sidon, and prophesy against her
and say, Thus says the Lord God: “Behold, I am against you, O Sidon, and I will manifest my glory in your midst. And they shall know that I am the Lord when I execute judgments in her and manifest my holiness in her;
for I will send pestilence into her, and blood into her streets; and the slain shall fall in her midst, by the sword that is against her on every side. Then they will know that I am the Lord.
“And for the house of Israel there shall be no more a brier to prick or a thorn to hurt them among all their neighbors who have treated them with contempt. Then they will know that I am the Lord God.
“Thus says the Lord God: When I gather the house of Israel from the peoples among whom they are scattered, and manifest my holiness in them in the sight of the nations, then they shall dwell in their own land that I gave to my servant Jacob.
And they shall dwell securely in it, and they shall build houses and plant vineyards. They shall dwell securely, when I execute judgments upon all their neighbors who have treated them with contempt. Then they will know that I am the Lord their God.”
AND - TELL US A LITTLE OF WHAT SATAN WAS LIKE
"God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted Man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens . . . I say, if you were to see him to-day, you would see him like a man in form--like yourselves, in all the person, image, and very form as a man . . . it is necessary that we should understand the character and being of God, and how he came to be so; for I am going to tell you how God came to be God. We have imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity, I will refute that idea, and will take away and do away the veil, so that you may see . . . and that he was once a man like us; yea, that God himself the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth the same as Jesus Christ himself did."
JOSEPH SMITH
(Journal of Discourses, vol. 6, p. 3).
Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
BRIGHAM YOUNG TALKS OF GOD BEING ADAM IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN WITH ONE OF HIS WIVES
BUT HE IS ALSO SAYING THAT GOD IS MICHEAL THE ARCHANGEL
THE MORMON MOVEMENT TEACHES THAT GOD HAD A FATHER AND HE HAD A FATHER. ETC.
WE NEED TO KNOW AND BE ALERT.
PHARISEES WERE NOT HORRIBLE PEOPLE
THEY SAW THE GREEK CULTURE CORRUPTING THE JEWISH CULTURE
OVER TIME THEY BECAME SELF RIGHTEOUS
WALK THROUGH
SPEAK OF PUTTING GOD IN THE HOUSE
THEY TOOK IT FROM A BOOK THAT WAS WRITTEN IN 1652 BY
THOMAS BROOKS
In his classic work The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis once famously wrote, “There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors, and hail a materialist or magician with the same delight.”
CAREY NEIWHOF AND TIM KELLER PUT TOGETHER THIS LIST OF WHAT THE ENEMY DOES TO TRY AND THROW US OFF.
THEY TOOK IT FROM A BOOK THAT WAS WRITTEN IN 1652 BY
THOMAS BROOKS
TO PRESENT THE BAIT AND HIDE THE HOOK
--
TO COLOUR SIN AS GOOD
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TO MINIMISE THE EFFECT OF SIN
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TO MAKE YOU FOCUS ON YOUR SIN AND MISS YOUR PROGRESS
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TO PRESENT GOD AS ALL MERCY
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TO POINT OUT HOW WELL NON-CHRISTIANS LIVE
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TO POINT OUT THE LOSSES, SUFFERING AND TOUGH CIRCUMSTANCES OF SOME CHRISTIANS
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TO MAKE CHRISTIAN STANDARDS SEEM IMPOSSIBLE
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TO COMPARE YOURSELF TO PEOPLE WHO'S SINS ARE WORSE THAN YOURS
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TO GET YOU TO FOCUS ON YOUR SIN NOT YOUR SAVIOUR
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TO CONVINCE YOU YOU DON'T HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO FOLLOW JESUS
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TO MAKE THE SUCCESSFUL OBSESSED WITH THEMSELVES
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STORY THAT CAN BE USED
In a recent article in Leadership Journal on the topic of evil, John Ortberg recalls an encounter psychiatrist Scott Peck had with a depressed 15-year-old named Bobby who was increasingly troubled after his 16-year-old brother killed himself with a .22 rifle. Ortberg writes,
Peck tried to probe Bobby's mind, but got nowhere. Searching for ways to establish a bond, he asked what Bobby had received from his parents for Christmas. “A gun,” Bobby said. Peck was stunned. “What kind?”
“A .22.”
More stunned. “How did it make you feel, getting the same kind of gun your brother killed himself with?” “It wasn't the same kind of gun.” Peck felt better.
“It was the same gun.”
Bobby had been given, as a Christmas present, by his parents, the gun his brother used to kill himself. When Peck met with the parents, what was most striking was their deliberate refusal to acknowledge any wrongdoing on their part. They would not tolerate any concern for their son, or any attempt to look at moral reality.
Two decades later and after his conversion to Christianity, Peck wrote about this encounter: “One thing has changed in twenty years. I now know Bobby's parents were evil. I did not know it then. I felt their evil but had no vocabulary for it. My supervisors were not able to help me name what I was facing. The name did not exist in our professional vocabulary. As scientists rather than priests, we were not supposed to think in such terms.”3