The Blood and the Glory #2
We’re going to continue our teaching on “The Blood and the Glory.” Last week we started this series with the message I entitled, “Power in the Blood.”
I) Turn to Ephesians 5:27.
A) One translation says, “The church the Lord Jesus Christ comes to receive unto himself will not be downtrodden, backslidden, weekend church, but will be filled with the glory of God.”
1) We’ve heard prophecies about it for years, and we’ve seen some manifestation of God’s glory.
(a) But there’s going to be such an outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the manifestation of God’s glory in these last days.
2) But the Devil also knows that his time is short. (Revelation 12:12) says that the Devil has great wrath.
(a) Satan only has a set period of time before he is sent to the bottomless pit, until that time his wrath is being poured out upon the church and mankind.
B) But that doesn’t mean that we have to be overcome by Satan and his demonic cohorts.
1) (Revelation 12:11) says, “And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death.”
(a) Every blessing and benefit we have in our redemption, which includes complete and total victory over Satan is based on the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
(i) We have victory over Satan because of Jesus’ blood.
2) The blood of Jesus is a primary weapon against the Devil, not to mention that it is through the blood that we have access.
(a) Access to the promises, access to the move of the spirit of God with the gifts, access to the throne of God, and access to the glory.
C) In (Ephesians 4:27), Paul said, “Neither give place to the Devil.”
1) The New American Standard Bible says, “Do not give the devil an opportunity.”
2) One of the ways we open the door to the enemy’s attacks is obviously sin; weather in word, deed, or thought.
(a) Thank God that (1st John 1:7) says that the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin.
3) Sin opens the door to the Devil but the blood of Jesus closes that door.
(a) The blood of Jesus closes the door to Satan’s attacks.
D) But there is another door that Satan uses to afflict even the innocent.
1) (1st Peter 5:8) says, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.”
(a) The word “VIGILANT” means, “Watch at all times, be alert.”
(i) We need to keep our eyes open and see what we’re doing or not doing.
(ii) The 1st thing that we should be doing in the morning is to cry out for the blood of Jesus to be upon us and our loved ones. The last thing we should do before we fall asleep is to cry out for the blood of Jesus protecting power.
II) Before we can go on talking about the blood and glory we have to see the full scheme of things. Why are we not walking in the glory right now? What is the holdup? To answer that question we have to go all the way back to the beginning.
A) People have asked questions throughout the centuries; like, Why did God make the Devil? How old is the earth? How long has man lived on it? What about the dinosaurs? In the rest of this message today we’re going to try the answer some of those questions.
1) Turn to Genesis 1:1.
(a) There may have been thousands upon thousands even millions upon millions of years between Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2.
2) Let’s read Genesis 1:2.
(a) God did not create the earth “Without form and void.” Things became that way after God creation.
(b) The Hebrew words translated “without form and void” are the words TOHU VA’ BOHU.
(i) The Strong’s concordance tells us that the Word “Tohu” (void) means formlessness, confusion, emptiness, chaos, and waste.
(ii) The Word “Bohu”(void) means “Emptiness.”
B) God did not create a formless, confused, empty, chaotic mess.
1) Such a creation would not meet biblical standards of God’s work.
(a) In (Deuteronomy 32:4) it says that God’s work is perfect.
(b) In (Psalms 111:3) it says that God’s work is glorious.
2) But turn with me to Isaiah 45:18.
(a) When it says, “He created it not in vain,” the Word “vain” is the Hebrew word “tohu.” (Genesis 1:2)
(i) God created the earth in a glorious state of perfection. I believe at that time the whole Earth was filled with the glory of God.
(ii) But something happened and the whole Earth fell into chaotic ruin as described in Genesis 1:2.
3) Let’s turn back to Genesis 1:2.
(a) Underlined the Word “WAS” in that verse.
(b) The enhanced Strong’s lexicon, which I use, gives a fuller understanding of this word “WAS.”
(i) It means, “Fallout, come about, come to pass, to become.
(ii) In our Bible this same Hebrew word very, very often is used to represent change.
(iii) Even in the footnotes of The Champion Bible it states in reference to the world not created Tohu, but became Tohu.
C) Something catastrophic happened between the first and second verse of Genesis. It may have been millions and perhaps billions of years between these two verses.
1) God created Adam around 6000 years ago. But the earth is much, much older.
2) Again (Isaiah 45:18) says that the earth was created by God to be inhabited.
(a) Dinosaurs and even prehistoric man may have been part of “the world that than was.”
D) A big question among the scientists is, “What happened to the dinosaurs?”
1) There’s a whole range of theories, but recently most scientists have agreed on the theory that the last of the dinosaurs died on one catastrophic day.
(a) Most believe that the inhabitants of the earth were destroyed when an asteroid collided with earth.
(i) Is possible they’re getting closer to the truth than they even realize.
2) We have another reference in the Word of God that gives us some light on what happened to the earth right after creation.
(a) Jeremiah 4:23-27. (Without form, and void tohu v’ bohu)
(b) God caused Jeremiah to look into the past and see the day when judgment fell on “the world that than was” and the earth became void and without form.
(i) It tells us that the light was removed.
(ii) Life was removed.
(iii) All the cities were destroyed.
(iv) The mountains and hills shook. What a Massive Meteor It Must Have Been to Cause All the Mountains and All but Hills to Shake. But Was it a Meteor?
3) But what was it that caused such mass destruction?
(a) Verse 26 says it was by “the presence of the Lord, by His fierce anger.”
(b) Was God directly involved and if so what made God so angry?
(c) REBELLION.
III) A rebellion so great it split the angelic host. A revolt against God led by his most beautiful creation, Lucifer.
A) Ezekiel 28:12-15, which describes his beauty.
1) Where did his iniquity come from? It started from “A free will.”
(a) God has not created us or His Angels to be puppets. He’s given us a free will.
(i) God has given all of us a free will so that we will choose to worship and obey Him.
2) The 2nd step to Lucifer’s fall was that he chose to rebel against God and was lifted up in pride.
B) Isaiah 14:12-14.
1) Notice his 5 “I wills.”
(a) “I will ascend into heaven.”
(b) “I will it all my thrown above the stars of God.”
(c) “I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the North.”
(d) “I will stand above the Heights of the clouds.”
(i) Notice that Lucifer had a kingdom and a throne and it must have been on this earth because he said he would ascend above the clouds.
(e) And No. 5 “I will be like the most High.”
C) Notice Isaiah 14:12.
1) NIV translation says, “How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations!”
(a) God in his fierce anger took Lucifer and through him down to the earth.
2) Luke 10:18.
(a) God took Lucifer and cast him down to the earth as what would appear to be in asteroid or lightning falling from heaven.
(i) And at that moment the earth became a wasteland, waters covered the earth and darkness, total darkness was upon the face of the deep.
3) But Jesus went on to say in (Luke 10:19), “Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.”
IV) In Genesis 1:1 the earth was created to be filled with the glory of God.
A) In Genesis 1:2 the glory of the Lord departed.
1) In Genesis 1:3 God said, “Let there be light: and there was light.”
(a) This wasn’t the sun. The sun wasn’t created until the 4th day. This light was the light of God.
(b) The spirit of God began to move upon the face of the waters.
(c) The light and the glory of God began to shine upon the face of the earth once again.
Next week we’ll look at the glorious position that God has created man to walk in and how it’s through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ that we enter in.
W. O. L. C. C. Sunday, 10\15\00taken from the book by Billye Brim’s book entitled the blood and the glory.