In this sermon, the speaker discusses a controversial passage in the Bible, specifically verse 6 of Jude. The speaker presents three views on the interpretation of this verse. The first view suggests that we are not meant to know more than what is stated in the verse. However, the speaker disagrees with this view. The sermon explores the idea of spiritual warfare and the importance of putting on the whole armor of God, as mentioned by Paul. The speaker also mentions the strange myths and legends found in different cultures, which may have been based on real events. The sermon concludes by examining the events mentioned in verse 6 and their significance for believers today.

As you know, we are exploring the book of Jude. Interesting epistle. The book of Acts is the beginning of the church. Jude is the end of it, in a sense. Acts is the Acts of the apostles. Jude is the Acts of the apostates. Jude, the brother of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, the brother of James, both Jude and James, wrote interesting epistles. Jude sat down to write an epistle, but was compelled to shift gears and change his subject. The Holy Spirit took over and gave us this very strange 25-verse little book. What makes Jude interesting, well, there's several things. First of all, it's weird. And you know me, I love weird books. Jude was made for me. Because Jude presumes that you have all kinds of background. And he talks about some strange things, and that's going to be kind of fun, and tonight's one of them. But Jude's also relevant for another reason. Jude talks about the fallacies, the apostasy of the end times. And the more we study that, the more we realize the end time apostasy is happening. From time to time, those of us that have been intense students of prophecy, we go through Daniel 9 and Ezekiel 38 and what have you, and as the years tick by, you sometimes wonder, gee, have we gotten carried away by it all? Are we really in that period of time that climaxes God's dealing with man? And from time to time, you can sort of figure, gee, it sort of seems like it's going kind of slow. There's times it doesn't seem as eminent as others. After studying the book of Jeremiah, which we did last time for its reasons, and as we plunge into Jude, and as I see certain doctrinal movements in the United States today, I'm convinced not only is there very serious heresies brewing of a very strange kind, but in fact I think they are uniquely setting up the world, Christian as well as secular, for an anti-Semitic heresy that will set the stage for the final act. So Jude is very timely for us. But we're getting ahead of the story. Oh, another thing about Jude, of course, it's the vestibule, if you will, of the book of Revelation. It's a very natural prelude, so those of you who have studied the book of Revelation, Jude is a good preamble or adjunct to that. But verses 5, 6, and 7 happen to take three examples from history of corporate punishment. And what I mean by that is not corporal punishment, but a group were punished in a peculiar way, a group of people who have fallen away from the truth, who deny the truth, who are in opposition to the truth. Three groups are singled out by Jude to teach us some things. And verse 5 we took last time in which we explored why Israel, wandering the wilderness, was chosen. We covered that last time. Verse 6 deals with a strange set of events, which we'll come to in a moment. Verse 7 deals with Sodom and Gomorrah, which is perhaps more familiar to us and less controversial, but again is an example where God judged broad civilizations for His reasons. But verse 6, which is sandwiched between 5 and 7, has caused all kinds of strange controversies. So what we'd like to do is examine verse 6 tonight and figure out when did this take place, and perhaps more important, what lessons are there for us. So let's read it before we start. It's one of the things nice about these kinds of organizations. We don't have any trouble getting through the text for the evening, do we? Verse 6 of the Epistle of Jude, page 1349 for those of you there. Yeah, okay. Or go to the book of Revelation and turn left, either way. Okay, Jude 6. And the angels who kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. Period. And if you're the average Bible student reading through this, you come to that and you say, what on earth is that all about? Because Jude gives it the back of his hand as if you remember this, of course. The angels who kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. There is another passage. It might be good to put it in our minds right now. Hold your finger here and turn to 2 Peter. This wasn't some kick of Jude alone. Peter himself speaks of this in the 2nd Epistle of Peter, chapter 2, verse 4. We find a comparable passage where Peter tells us, For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and actually that word in the Greek is Tartarus. It's not Hades or Gehenna. We talk a lot about that and it happens to be translated hell in your English Bibles. The actual word in the Greek is Tartarus. It's the only time it appears in the Scripture. I'll come back to that. But it's not a neat place. Incidentally, the term appears in Homer's Iliad, and Tartarus is as far below Hades as the earth is below heaven, according to Homer. So all it tells us doesn't mean Homer knew anything about it. It just means the word in the Greek carried that kind of an idea. It's a bad place to get tied up. God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to Tartarus, and delivered them into chains of darkness to be reserved unto judgment. And then Peter goes on to make his argument. Peter also, just like Jude does, makes allusion to an event that the writers, in each case, presume you know. Now, this passage is very controversial. So the particular views I'm going to try and share with you, actually there's three views. There's three basic views of this passage. The first view is the cop-out view, which typically could be expressed that we're not intended to know any more than that is here in this brief verse. That's one view. I have a problem with that, because it stands between verses 5 and 7, and all three of them appear to draw upon familiar Old Testament truths. So I personally believe that that first view is really just an excuse not to dig further, and it's because the two alternative views that I'm about to share with you are both very uncomfortable. They're very peculiar. You know, it's glib to talk about it in an intellectual or literary sense. It's quite another to come to grips with what's implied, if I'm correct, in my view. Now, these angels that sinned. The second view is that these angels that sinned are angels that had to do with the fall of Lucifer. And so the way we go from here is to explore briefly something about the fall of some kind of super angel called Lucifer. Now, I'm going to use the term for a while, angel, in a broad, generic sense. Actually, if you're going to be very precise, a cherub is not an angel. It's a very, very high, special category. But I think we generally use, and I wouldn't be surprised if you couldn't prove the scripture, I also use the term angel in sort of a generic description of a created being with some very, very substantial powers. We will talk a little bit more about angels in general shortly. But there's a particular angel that causes us a lot of attention in the scripture. And there are two passages that will, for most of you, be review, but it would be inappropriate to attack tonight's subject without at least a refresher, on Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28. Let's take Isaiah 14. These, remember, because they're multiples of seven, by coincidence. Isaiah, and they really are. You know that the chapters and verses were added in the 15th century. I love to see these ancient documents that people find, the Akko volume and others, that quote scripture by chapter and verse that purport to be in the first century. Well, that's kind of hard to explain because the chapters and verses didn't come until later. But anyway, Isaiah 14, there is a, both passages have a strange attribute. In both cases, the writer, the prophet, is addressing a local, real, live, tangible king. In Isaiah's case, he's talking to and about the king of Babylon. But as he gets wrapped up on that subject, a place in the discourse occurs where it's obvious that his actual target or subject goes far beyond a human personage. And what he's obviously doing is addressing the spiritual power behind the political king. And I won't take the time tonight to read all of 14, but if you did, you'd see Isaiah going at the king of Babylon. But by the time he gets, in fact, verse 11, he mentions how he's fallen. The worm is spread under thee and the worms cover thee. In other words, this king is a fallen, but Isaiah is dealing with it. But when we get to verse 12 in this passage, it's very, very clear that without any real warning, Isaiah has shifted gears. He is suddenly talking about something quite different. And from verse 12 through 17, it's almost like a little insert or parenthesis in which the Holy Spirit, speaking through Isaiah, is addressing the power behind the king of Babylon. And verse 12 is the famous verse, How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning? How art thou cut down to the ground, you who did weaken, or prostrate, if you will, the nations? Lucifer. This is where we get his original title. But he fell. He's fallen from heaven. Something occurred to put him in disgrace. And we'll find that he has some other names. We know him best by the name of Satan. But there's actually some 50 odd titles that the scripture uses of him and or his instrument. But then we get into verse 13 and 14, and we find the source of his error. There are five I will statements. This Lucifer was the number one angel. We'll discover that from another passage we'll look at. He was in charge, if you will. Anyway, verse 13, For thou hast said in thine heart, where the whole problem starts is through pride in the heart of Lucifer, where he says the following, I will ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation in the sides of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will be like the Most High. That's Satan's ambition, to be worshipped. Now, I won't take the time to dissect the ramifications of each of these and what the real Hebrew says, but you clearly get the message. Very powerful, but still not number one. And he aspired, apparently, in some strange time and some strange way, a rebellion, which we'll look at shortly. Verse 15, Yet thou shalt be brought down to Sheol, to the sides of the pit. Now, this is a forecast. See, Isaiah is saying here that you, Lucifer, who fell through pride, are going to be brought down. Verse 16 is an interesting one. This is yet future. They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man who made the earth to tremble, who did shake kingdoms, who made the world like a wilderness, and destroyed its cities, who opened not the house of his prisoners? Now, as you can probably guess, behind each phrase, there are acres of theological commentaries as to what that might mean. There are those that believe that this whole event occurred sometime between Genesis 1.1 and Genesis 1.2. There is linguistic reason to recognize that an enormous interval of time may have occurred between the first two verses of Genesis. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. Period. Paragraph. New subject. And the earth became without form and void. And darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the verb there in the Hebrew, argue some experts, is a transitive verb implying action. And that the earth wasn't originally, but became without form and void. And this gets intensified because in Isaiah 45.18, God speaks to Isaiah and says, I did not create the earth. That is, without form and void. And so on this apparent discrepancy occurs the possibility that it's an enormous interval between Genesis 1.1 and 1.2. Now, they sometimes call, and there's a lot of ideas about that, generally going under the label of the gap theory. There are aspects of the gap theory that I happen to think are correct, but if you subscribe to the gap theory, that also probably implies all kinds of things you don't really mean either, so be cautious about that. Many people in that small little crack drive trucks through them and come up with all kinds of ideas, and I don't want to get into that tonight. We cover that in the Genesis series. You can listen to the Genesis tapes, and I probably told you more than I know on those tapes. For those of you who want to chase that. That's Isaiah 14. That's a pivotal passage that you should be aware of. A comparable passage is Ezekiel 28. And Ezekiel, in his case, is also a prophet dealing with a particular king, an earthly king. I should say, I'll use the term prince here, because it keeps it a little straight. The prince of Tyre was an actual guy. Josephus tells us his name was Itiolibus, or I-T-T-I-O-B-A-L-U-S. Itiolibus? I'm not good on my Phoenician, so I'll leave that to you guys. But in any case, he was an actual king. And here spoken of as the prince of Tyre. But as Ezekiel wraps up his... gets excited about his message to the prince of Tyre, again about verse 11 or 12, he shifts gears. And the scope of what he's saying clearly does not fit this human king, the prince of Tyre. And he speaks, he changes, and he talks about the king of Tyre. He uses a different phrase. Also, if you study the whole chapter, you'll discover that the prince of Tyre, that is the human ruler, gets killed by being pierced through. He predicts how he's going to die. But the king of Tyre is going to be burned. So you recognize that they're two different people. Whatever it is, just linguistically, you know that somehow he's talking about two different people. He uses a slightly different title in each case, and the destiny is slightly different. But the differences are far deeper than that. Let's pick it up about verse 11 of Ezekiel 28. Moreover, the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man... Now, by the way, don't be thrown by that phrase. That's just a familiarity that Ezekiel uses of himself when God speaks to Ezekiel. He says, Son of man. It's not a title in some theological way. It's just a label, a nickname, if you will, of Ezekiel. So if the book of Ezekiel is full of that, you've got to get used to that. That's just like a nickname, if you will, of Ezekiel. Son of man, take up lamentation upon the king of Tyre. And this strikes you strange by now because if you've been reading the chapter, it's all been about the prince of Tyre, this literal ruler. But now the Holy Spirit, in effect, says, the king of Tyre, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord God, Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. That's King James language for saying, sealest up the sum. The person he's talking to here is the epitome of wisdom and beauty. That's strong language. In fact, the expression in Hebrew is that there can be no more extreme expression. It's a superlative. Wisdom and beauty. Then it goes on to say, Thou hast been in Eden, the garden of God. Whoops. I don't know of any king of Babylon that goes back to Genesis 1. You follow me? So suddenly we realize, clearly, there's been a shift of subject here. The person that is being addressed was in Eden, the garden of God. Every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, the topaz, the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, the carbuncle, and the gold. And the workmanship of thy timbrels and of thy flutes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created. One thing that should strike you is the Eden that's described here doesn't seem to be the Eden that's described in Genesis 2. Chapter 2 on. Because there we think of it as a... I mean, at least we visualize it with trees and foliage and a terrestrial kind of place, don't we? This Eden is described in the same vocabulary that we use post-millennially of the New Jerusalem and so forth. Part of what overlays this whole study won't take the time of night but I'll just throw it out so you can be thinking about it and dig it on your own. Acts chapter 3 speaks of the second coming of Jesus Christ as the time of the restitution of all things. Restitution meaning put back like it used to be. Put back like Eden? Could be. But maybe it's a different Eden than you and I think of. A pre-fall Eden. And so when we read Revelation 22 and we talk about New Jerusalem and foundations and stuff, it's a whole hyperspace you and I probably have no capacity to deal with. And these precious stones may be just their way, vocabulary-wise, of talking about light or talking about a dimensionality that goes beyond our three-dimensional physics as we think of it. But also, this person was in Eden and he was big news. Perfect. But he was created. Another side of this is don't forget he is not some kind of super-god. He may be super-human but he's created. As fantastic as he may be or was one time, he is still a created being. Easy to forget. There's a popular book in the demonology called Between Christ and Satan by Koch. Tragic title. Tragic title. Because it implies equality. Christ was not a created being. John 1... The first three verses of the Gospel of John should straighten that out for you. Satan was. Now, verse 14. Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth. That's clumsy language to say that he was... Well, he was anointed. He was appointed to office. What office? That covereth. In other words, he was in charge of everything. We would say it differently but the King James translators in trying to render the Hebrew said Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth. Another way of saying it is he was in charge. And he's a cherub which is a most powerful kind of angel. We know of four cherubim that are around the throne of God. We find it in Isaiah 6 and in Revelation 4. Whenever we see the throne of God we see these four cherubim and they're strange creatures. Apparently, Satan was one of those. Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth and I have set thee so. Thou wast upon the holy mountain of God. Thou walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou was perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created and then I have a word that I always whenever I see it in the scripture almost always I mark it. Put a circle on it, red underline the word till. The word till. What a momentous word that can be. Israel's eyes are blinded until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. Such and such and such until The word until or till generally is a very pivotal word. Well here, thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created until iniquity was found in thee. What's the iniquity? Well, you go back to Isaiah 14 it tells you. The reason God hates pride is that's how the whole thing started. By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence and thou hast sinned therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub from the midst of the stones of fire. Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness I will cast thee to the ground I will lay thee before kings that they may behold thee. That thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities by the iniquity of thy merchandise therefore I will bring forth a fire from the midst of thee it will devour thee and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee. All that know thee among the people shall be appalled at thee thou shalt be a terror and never shalt thou be anymore. By the way, the word merchandise is from the Hebrew word meaning to go about and it can be translated either in two words merchandising like trafficking or slander and the word slander is the word for Satan I mean that's what the word Satan means a slanderer so that's another aside so the word merchandise may it actually comes from the Hebrew root that can be translated either way okay that's a little bit on his origin we got a little glimpse now where Satan comes from there's a chapter in the Bible that describes in one sort of summary overview his whole strategy and goals that's Revelation chapter 12 and it might be useful to take the time to review Revelation chapter 12 briefly some people would argue that Revelation chapter 12 is the most difficult in the book of Revelation I don't think so I think it's really not that hard at all and it's perhaps very pivotal for you to really understand chapter 12 especially in view of the coming years and what you're going to see happen in this country and I think we'll take the time just to skim through chapter 12 quickly Revelation chapter 12 and there appeared a great wonder in heaven a woman clothed with the sun and with the moon on her feet and upon her head twelve a crown of twelve stars and she being with child cried traveling in birth in pain to be delivered and there appeared another wonder in heaven behold a great red dragon having seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns upon his head and his tail drew a third part of the stars of heaven and did cast them to the earth and the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to be delivered to devour her child as soon as it was born verse 5 and she brought forth a male child who was to rule all the nations with a rod of iron and her child was caught up to God and to his throne and the woman fled into the wilderness where she hath a place prepared by God that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and three score days now I'm not going to make this a study of the book of Revelation that would really derail us but there's a few key points here the first question is to understand the various people that are going to be introduced here the first question is who is the red dragon? you don't have to guess because in verse 9 he's defined for you as you read later in the chapter it says in verse 9 and the great dragon was cast out that old serpent called the devil and Satan to deceive at the whole world he was cast out into the earth and his angels were cast out with him this is where we understand that Satan rebelled and was thrown out when you put Ezekiel 28 and Isaiah 14 and Revelation 12 together and there's lots more but those are probably the three key passages to sort of try to synthesize to try to get an understanding here Satan clearly was very powerful at one time was perfect at one time was in charge rebelled a third of the angels apparently were allied with him and they blew it and were thrown out so we know who the red dragon is in this scenario the next question is and this is where most people get screwed up is who's the woman? and it's very tempting there are many commentators that are very competent commentators that identify the woman with the church and I love the way Chuck Smith puts it if this woman is the church she's in trouble because she's pregnant the church uniformly is used in the New Testament as a virgin bride not one to give birth the woman is identified up here with the sun and the moon and the twelve stars that's not the zodiac it happens to be linked but in a very elliptical way you see commentators try to link this to the zodiac or something, nonsense there's only one place that the sun and moon twelve stars show up in the scripture and your principle in the book of Revelation is every the entire thing's in code everything in there is in code but every code is deciphered somewhere in the scripture the Holy Spirit's engineered the book so it would take you into every other passage in the Bible if you take it exhaustively and the only place you'll find twelve stars sun and moon is remember Joseph's dreams Jacob understood the dream Joseph, remember he first had the sheaves that bowed there were eleven sheaves that bowed down to his sheave and so forth then the next dream he told that to his brothers he was already a little unpopular and you can understand the brother's point of view then he had this dream where there were the stars and eleven of the stars and the sun and the moon bowed down to him and at that point he told that dream around not only did his brothers get upset but Jacob, his father got a little miffed by it are your mother and I going to bow down before you also? see he recognized Jacob and he rebuffed the youth that way but in so doing gives an identity what are who is the woman that is crowned with the sun and the moon the twelve stars idiomatically in the scripture Israel in a way it's Israel in the sense that she starts with Eve because the man child is the seed of the woman what woman Israel not Israel in the sense of starting with Abraham Israel in the sense that she starts with God's declaration of war on Satan the declaration of war on Satan is Genesis 3.15 I'll put enmity between thee and the woman what woman the woman of chapter 12 of revelation I'll put enmity between thee and the woman and between thy seed and her seed two seeds the seed of the woman is a biological contradiction in Hebrew the seed is in the man all of us that have had enough biology understand that phraseology the seed of the woman is a in the grammar of the Hebrew predicts the virgin birth and in Isaiah 7.14 and in Matthew it is the virgin not a virgin proper name very important so the man child thus is whom Jesus Christ who gives birth to Jesus Christ conceptually speaking here not the church Israel Israel was ordained from Eve on God's plan was to present the deliverer that was his commitment to Adam now we see here though that the woman is being with child traveling in birth pain to be delivered this is idiomatically speaking of all history in an overview and there appeared another wonder in heaven behold a great rag and having seven heads and ten horns and so forth and his tail drew a third part of the stars of heaven the stars of heaven being idiom for angels we find that a third of them rebelled and went with him what did they do? they stood before the woman who was ready to be delivered to devour her child as soon as it was born now one thing you can understand one thing that is interesting if we had the time and I think we do when we go through Revelation 12 we start with Genesis and go through the Scripture and review the whole history in the Bible as Satan's plan to thwart the will of God it starts at 315 there is going to be a deliverer so what does Satan first do? go after the seed of Eve we got Cain and Abel satanically that was an attempt to get rid of the seed it was Seth neither Cain nor Abel fine but as we go through the Scripture as God reveals more and more of his plan it allows Satan to focus his attack when it becomes when the call of Abraham occurs he doesn't have to mess around with anybody else he can mess with Abraham Isaac Jacob as God confirms his covenant when it becomes a tribe of Judah it's Judah and all through the Scripture you find again and again plot and counter plot you have several occasions where all the babies are killed Moses and the infants that was Pharaoh no it was Satan because he's got to thwart the Messianic threat go all the way through to Bethlehem it wasn't Herod slaughtering the babes it was Satanic he was just the instrument all through the Kings you find the children that are heirs hidden by someone and attempts to slaughter all the kids but missing the one well we could go on about that but the point is the concept of anti-Semitism isn't just noxious because it's racial prejudice racial prejudice of any kind I'm sure is an offense to God but anti-Semitic tides and trends and so forth go even deeper as you understand the Scripture you understand that Satan's objective is to thwart the Messianic plan and his attempt at that is to attack Israel it's interesting here verse 5 says that the woman brought forth a male child who was to rule all the nations with a rod of iron again what is it, Psalm 110 several other places that identify that as whom? Christ in fact Psalm 2 I guess is where it occurs and her child was caught up to God and to his throne kind of interesting verse 5 seems to appear historical the ascension, right? verse 6 looks ahead at the tribulation okay those of you that have studied Daniel 9 are not uncomfortable about the idea of a gap in the timeline God deals with Israel those prophets that deal with Israel ignore a period of time between Jesus Christ and his second coming we call it the church age that gap occurs between verses 26 and 27 of Daniel 9 if you remember that study it also occurs here there are 1900 years that have occurred between verses 5 and 6 so far that gap appears how many times in the scripture make a guess? no, more than that what is the number of the church? 24 remember 24 elders? there are 24 occasions like this in the scripture which I think is interesting for those of you that are mystics and by the way another thought to just confuse you further and her child was caught up to God in his throne and then the woman fled into the wilderness I always used to view that as the ascension of our Lord but there is a guy by the name of Pember who wrote a book about Genesis and the earth's earliest ages and it blew me away because he sees this differently and I don't know if he is wrong he sees this in the language that her child was caught up to God in his throne he sees that child as the body of Christ he sees in that the rapture isn't that wild? it doesn't alter the text because what happens in verse 6 on is tribulational as we would label it and I'm saying that erroneously because all of us fall into the fiction of visualizing a seven year tribulation period that's not the great tribulation the great tribulation is the last half of that seven year period but I don't want to get into that time now the attack of Satan on Israel is part of prophecy and it climaxes in a period of time which the Old Testament calls the time of Jacob's trouble Daniel refers to that as a period of tribulation such as the world had not seen to that day or ever would see again and Jesus Christ in his private briefing to four disciples Peter, James, and John Landry in all of the discourse quotes from Daniel and it's in Christ's quote from Daniel that that period of time gets its classical label among Bible scholars the great tribulation but in that we easily forget the focus of the tribulation isn't the world at large it's Israel but think about what that phrase means most of us the more you know about the Holocaust in Germany the more you understand their plea never again you've got tragic news what's coming yet future is going to make that look like a warm up our Lord said a time of trouble such as the world had not seen to that time and that time is yet future so whatever's happened in the past has been a prelude now what made the Holocaust possible? the philosophy of Nietzsche and others the notion that the rationale philosophically or religiously that Israel was somehow appropriately tromped on fallacies of the church for 1900 years made that possible and if you watch over the next few years you're going to see in the Christian body charismatic as well as fundamental teachers who will argue a theology that has as one of its beside being full of all kinds of other error has as its attribute the prelude to antisemitism and I'm saying this not out of a sociological concern for Israel I'm saying this out of a prophetical interest in the scripture that when you see that on the one hand you may as you see it surface you may experience shock on the other hand you can praise God because it means the time is getting close because when Ezekiel 38 happens when the Soviets invade Israel and 5, 6 of them get wiped out the Lord makes it very clear that it happens by His hand not the comfort and support of the United States sometime between here and the tribulation period the United States along with all the other countries will turn on Israel and God is going to use that occasion just as He did in Egypt to show His hand on His people again the Bible makes that clear and we talked about that last time we read from Ezekiel 36 that His purpose in doing so is not because they deserve it there will be an unbelief when this all happens or at least when it starts He does it because He made promises before the heathen that He would do it and it's for His namesake before the heathen that He's going to keep those promises for Israel's behalf okay we got off the subject but I want to tie that prophetically to what we're talking about there so we have some insight perhaps on on Satan's goals and objectives let's turn to Matthew 25 I made reference to this special briefing that the Lord gave His disciples but we'll pause in Matthew 25 just to pick up one insight 24 and 25 are a two chapter briefing given in privacy to the four disciples but in chapter Matthew 25 verse 41 verse 41 is the sheep and goat judgments as we sometimes call it in verse 41 then shall he say also unto them on the left hand depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for whom prepared for the devil and his angels again it's just a new testament or a gospel a confirmation of what we've mentioned before okay we know that there another another way of looking at this is that there are two governing bodies to be punished Isaiah 24 turn with me to Isaiah 24 we've been at this a lot as we go through the scripture but where the earth shall reel to verse 20 where the earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard and shall be removed like a booth and so on and verse 21 and it shall come to pass in that day that the Lord shall punish two groups of people shall punish the host of the high ones that are on high and the kings of the earth upon the earth see this business of revelation and the climax and all of that isn't just on people it's on the high ones that are on high whoever they are Satan and his angels are not bound yet they're free they may have some restrictions obviously but I mean the point is they're not bound they will be they're not yet some are and that's what Jude's talking about believe it or not we're making our way that way there's much more being redeemed than you and I because the climax in Isaiah Isaiah says I behold I see a new heavens and a new earth it's not only the earth that's redeemed heaven itself is cleansed so it's a complicated issue and that's a whole other study you can chase on your own but one of the questions that we're going to face is are demons angels now let me point out to you that there are those that make a big distinction between demons and angels angels apparently have the capability of being embodied by themselves we find angels in human form Genesis 19 verses 5, 10, and 16 they spoke as men they took people's hand they ate food with them the angels appeared to have no necessity to be embodied there's no occasion that I know of with one exception maybe of them being embodied there is a place where Satan entered Judas but that may be a special situation in contrast to that the demons are a whole other story perhaps the most bizarre one and you know me I love bizarre passages so we might turn to, well one thing let's turn to Acts 23 9 first because this supports a view that some hold that demons and angels are not the same thing Acts 23 verse 9 it says the Pharisees scribes who are of the Pharisees party arose and contended sharply saying we find no evil in this man but if a spirit or an angel hath spoken to him let us not fight against God and notice I'm pointing that out the conception at least at that time was that demons or spirits and angels are two different things and so that's one of the things you come into and the more you study demonology and there are some good books on that Merrill Unger has a book on biblical demonology it's very very comfortable for a layman yet quite quite thorough and useful if you're interested in that sort of thing but it might turn with me to Luke 8 this also occurs in Matthew 8 and in Mark 5 but we'll take it here pick it up by verse 26 they arrive at the country of the Gerasenes which is opposite Galilee this is over on the east side of the sea of Galilee if you will and when he went forth to the land there met him out of the city a certain man who had demons for a long time and he wore no clothes neither abode in any house but in the tombs and he saw Jesus he cried out and fell down before them and cried out with a loud voice he says what have I to do with thee Jesus thou son of God most high I beseech thee torment me not that's a shock if you're reading the gospels because up to this point he has not acknowledged his role and that comes later so the personage inside this tormented person recognized something beyond the knowledge of the people at that time in terms of our understanding of demons they're knowledgeable this is not something that just some crackpot demented person would say he had not announced his real role the fact that they recognized his deity the son of God most high I beseech thee torment me not now they know that out of this we learn that they know who he is they know that they're destined for torment and they know it's at a very specific time verse 29 for he commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man for often it had caught him and he was kept bound with chains and fetters and he broke the bonds and was driven out of the demon into the wilderness and Jesus asked him saying what is thy name and he said legion because many demons are entered into him legion is not a thousand by the way a roman legion is six thousand troops so when you say that's the first legion the second third and fourth legions are smaller it's the way the romans organized but I'm just the point is a legion is a lot huh the demons in this man ultimately go into a herd of swine you know how many are in the herd of swine mark tells us two thousand that's a large herd I used to be bothered what are they doing raising swine in kosher country the answer is it's not kosher country it's on the east of the jordan there's a the greek cities the decapolis there were five cities that were gentile and so it was understandable in that sense economically you can understand why there were swine at all being raised you wouldn't expect that in judia there may have been there too to support the gentile contingency but the point is this is near the decapolis the five cities that were supported this way so many they besought him that he would not command them to go out into the abuso now this is one of those passions of the bible I don't understand they do beseech him don't send us back to the pit which is apparently one of the places he would normally do if he cast them out they go back to the abuso apparently permanently or not permanently but anyway for a long time and they ask him please don't do that cast us into that turdous wine the first question is that gives us some insight I mean I'm not sure what you do with that piece of information but what puzzles me even more is the lord agrees he lets them do that why does he do that? I don't know maybe just to teach us that these things are not euphemisms for psychiatric problems and so forth you know and there are people who who you know read the bible and say well those are just idioms for things that we now give psychiatric terms for them the people who say that have never attended an exorcism or they would know better there was there was there a herd of many swine feeding on the mountain and they besought him that he would allow them to enter into them and he permitted them then when the demons out of the man entered into the swine the herd ran violently down a steep place into the lake and they were choked and they that fed them saw what was done they fled and went and told it in the city and in the country and he obviously becomes very unpopular because he affected the economy of that range so anyway and I don't want to make this a whole study of demonology but I do want you to have at least a sense of the fact that demons seem to be something quite different than what you and I think of as angels so there are those that make a big thing of that difference which raises a bizarre question where do the demons come from if they're not angels what are they where do they come from and there are all kinds of bizarre ideas that have no scriptural basis that are really built within the gaps if you will from what we do understand there are those there are those that believe that there was a pre-Adamite creation that was destroyed and judged and the demons are the disembodied spirits of that particular creation there's no spiritual there's no scriptural evidence for that and they place all this hypothesis between Genesis 1.1 and 1.2 that's part of the gap theory that gets way out in the left field that I it has only one problem there's no basis for it that doesn't mean it's right or wrong you can't tell it's just somebody's idea but there is apparently some difference between demons and angels and so in that whole thing you can if you've got nothing to talk about over a cup of coffee and a piece of pie at 2 a.m. you can argue about whether demons and angels are the same thing now actually I personally believe that there's a large hierarchy of all kinds of these creatures in the Old Testament we have the Shirim the Sirim the Lith the Tissim and some others and they're all translated in the Septuagint as demons but they're different Hebrew words the Shirim are the mighty ones and they show up in Deuteronomy 32-17 the Sirim are he-goats or satires they're hairy creatures that are they're demonic but they were embodied in legends as the satires and so forth and the others have other names and they have slightly different attributes but when we speak in the New Testament principalities and powers and so forth those are ranks if you will and so angels apparently come in different kinds and it could very well be that the demons are no more than a if you will a junior disembodied spirit that is part of that rebellion that we read about in Revelation 12 so with all this digression you see we now are equipped now incidentally I don't this we talked about the second view item one was you can't tell about what verse six means in Jude item two was it has to do with the fall of Satan and the angels not directly because I think the fall of Satan and those and those angels and all of that number one are not bound the ones that Jude are talking about are bound they are in chains of darkness right reserved into judgment Satan is not at least not yet that happens at the end of the tribulation before the millennium what about his angels they are pretty free to do mischief because that is all yet future so what on earth are we talking about in Jude seven that leads us to a passage in the Bible that is very very strange that is Genesis six this is the third view Genesis chapter six we all know about Noah's flood but I don't think one person in a hundred knows the reason for Noah's flood except in maybe a very broad sense yes there was wickedness and the wickedness was very widespread and God chose to wipe out the known earth at that time or the whole earth at that time I don't think there is anything local about the flood by the way but Genesis chapter six verse one and two has a phrase that scholars sort of wince and squirrel around trying to explain you know it is amazing how much trouble you can get into and how much work you can put on yourself if you decide not to accept what the Bible tells you you know there are people that spend years of study trying to talk about first Isaiah and second Isaiah because they never read John 12 where John says that you know that there was one Isaiah that wrote both parts etc and likewise here libraries are filled with speculation of what verse two means and yet if you just take it face value it is interesting chapter six verse one it came to pass when the men began to multiply on the face of the earth and daughters were born unto them that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair and they took them wives of all whom they chose now the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair there are those that and very competent scholars I am not trying to sell you a view there are two basic views on this passage but the commonly held church acceptable view is that the sons of God is a reference to believers generally associated with the line of Seth the concept of the line of Seth became separate and believers and the rest were wicked and ungodly the daughters of men what this suggests is intermarriage that was not appropriate a couple of problems with that first of all that is not what it says the name benaiah ohim is a term that shows up four times in the Old Testament and it is always used of angels a term to a Bible to a Hebrew is angel my proof of that is when the Septuagint was translated three centuries before Christ they translated it as angels but it even goes deeper than that also the daughters of men are not limited to the non Sethites thirdly when a believer and unbeliever get married they don't have monstrous offspring and what these people give birth to well, I mean not generally what they give birth to are some strange creatures verse three says the Lord says my spirit will not always strive with man for he also is flesh and yet his days shall be a hundred and twenty years bear in mind that longevity is decreasing so it goes to a hundred and twenty later becomes three score and ten but going to verse four and there were Nephilim in the earth in those days and also after that when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men that they bore children to them the same became the mighty men who were of old men of renown so whatever happened here the sons of God and the daughters of men gave birth to something unnatural not normal now the Greek word gigantis was irresistibly transliterated to giants but that's not what the word comes from the word giganese I guess it is is a word that means um earthborn the word Nephilim here described well in the Hebrew the Nephilim are the fallen ones come from the Hebrew word Nephal to fall so the offspring of the sons of God and the daughters of men are fallen ones that only makes sense if you visualize these as angels somehow leaving their appropriate domain and becoming in a mode that can have intercourse with women and they give birth to something bizarre the Nephilim now the Nephilim and we find them before the flood and also after that we find them in numbers 13 they happen to be very large 13 feet long and so forth we'll come to that in a minute so the Nephilim are strange and so that suggests that something bizarre is going on here now the first point I guess I want to make is the very very early church the Septuagint translators obviously in Alexandria and also the early church Justin Athenagoras Cyprian Eusebius also Josephus Philo Judeus and also the authors of the Apocrypha the Old Testament Apocryphal books which aren't inspired but the authors betray a presumption of this truth so whatever else you say that was the common belief up until about the 4th century and a guy by the name of Julius Africanus who was a contemporary of Oregon introduced this idea of the Sethites that this isn't really the angels it's really the offspring of Seth and they intermarried with the other people and that's what gave that common there was an attack on the church by Celsus and Julian the Apostate that attacked this older classical idea and Cyril of Alexander in his reply to them repudiated the orthodox position of the angels and so forth so from about the 4th century through the middle ages this idea of Seth emerged and you'll find it in a lot of study bibles and so forth but it's got some major problems first of all there's no indication in the scripture that the Sethites were distinguished for their piety there's no exemption of them from the flood that came you've got a real problem with that if they're somehow believers you follow me so if they were believers they perished which is also I've got a problem with that and of course the progeny being monstrous is a problem ok now those of you that want to study the Nephilim you might well we might find that interesting because it says back here there were giants in the earth in those days and also after that who might that be the Anakim the sons of Anak you know one of them very well a guy by the name of Goliath he was a son of Anak and you may recall the story it's one of my fun fun things in the bible quiz you got David and the little David is going to go up against Goliath we all know the story except notice carefully when we read the scripture he picked up five stones is that some lack of faith it only took one right why did he need the other four if he picked up the other four he would have would have lost the other four he would lost the four he would lost the other would have have lost the other he would have other four he would have lost the other four he would the four he would have lost other phrase says in the Hebrew is that his genealogy was untarnished. Now, gee, I don't know how to take credit for something like that. If I could come to you and say, gee, my genealogy is untarnished, that sort of implies everybody else is. So I personally believe that one of the things that distinguished Noah is that, yes, his father was Lamech, his father was Methuselah, and we'll get into all of that when we talk. We're going to talk later about Enoch, because he comes up later in Jude, and we'll get into that whole exciting scene. There's some really thrilling prophecy already happened before we get to Genesis 6, and I have another excuse to get into that, so we won't do it tonight. But the point is, one of the things about Noah is that he had a clean, unadulterated, untarnished genealogy. Now, that makes no sense to me unless you take countenance of verse 2, when the sons of God saw that the daughters of men, that they were fair, and took them wise of all whom they chose. Now, this presents an antediluvian picture, a picture of life before the flood that's a bit bizarre. But let me mention a couple of things that we try to emphasize when we study the book of Genesis. Life in Eden is quite different than you and I have any capacity to imagine, because Adam walked with God, he was clothed with light, and he was in a dimensionality that none of us have any concept of. Prior to sin and prior to the curse, the whole situation was so different that there's no reasonable way to communicate it to us. Also, even after the fall, from Adam through Noah, we have a whole different lifestyle. People lived for hundreds of years. Noah built this barge in his driveway for 120 years. You can imagine what the neighbors thought. Now, what's interesting about the sons of God and the daughters of men thing is that that idea is embodied in the Greek mythology. Now, we all know, we've all run into from time, depending on how interested you are in the classics, you have had varying degrees of exposure to the so-called demigods, right? And one of the most interesting guy, the so-called Titans, we use the term Titan, usually meaning large, right? Like a missile or something. Titans are partly heavenly, partly earthly, in their origin. They're reputed in Greek mythology to have rebelled against their father, Uranus, king of heaven. And after a prolonged contest, they were finally defeated by Zeus and they were thrown into a prison called Tartarus. Now, something kind of interesting, Titan is the Greek term that the Chaldean term is Chaitin, which is the Chaldean for the Hebrew Satan. So even in the mythology and legends of our classical, you know, cultural roots, we have veiled remembrances of a time when some strange things were going on on the earth before the flood and were at least in part caused the flood. Why? Satan's strategy again. How is man going to be delivered? By the seed of the woman. What's his shot at this? To contaminate the human race so there are no pure humans left to be heir to the title deed. So in Revelation chapter five, when there's one in the right hand of him who sat on the throne, a scroll written within and without and on the backside sealed with seven seals and no man in heaven was found worthy to open the book. Had to be a man, had to be an heir to Adam. Suppose there were no pure heirs to Adam. John says, I sobbed convulsively because no man was found able and elder said to be weep not. Behold, the line of the tribe of Judah had prevailed. Open the book. He turned and he saw the Lamb of God. Jesus Christ had to be man. Now, it's really interesting when you study the genealogies of Jesus Christ in Matthew and in Luke, you have two genealogies. Luke goes from Adam because he's a physician. He goes from Adam all the way through to David and down from David through Mary. Matthew, being a Levi, is interested as a son of Abraham. He starts with Abraham, goes down through David, through Solomon, the royal line, all the way down to Joseph, who has the legal title to the throne of David. But back in Jeconiah's day, and we won't cover this all in detail, but some of you know that in Jeconiah's day was in the royal line. God cursed the royal line, put a blood curse on Jeconiah and all his descendants. And I have the view from what I know about scripture, that in that day in the councils of Satan, there was rejoicing. He thought, aha, now we got him. Because there's a blood line, there's a blood curse on the royal line. And when we get down to Jesus Christ, we find that he is the legal son of, but not the flesh son of, Joseph, who carries that blood curse. But when you study the genealogies carefully, you discover when they get to David, they take a detour. Matthews goes down the legal line that has heir to the throne. Luke goes down through Nathan, another son of David, to Mary. So Jesus Christ was of the house and lineage of David, but in a way that makes him legally entitled, but not subject to the blood curse. So when again and again as you study the scripture, you find Satan plotting and God outsmarting every step of the way. But the more you study the scripture, the more you become fascinated with God's methodology and how clever he is. But you also recognize that every detail fits into a plan. Every name, every number, every detail of the 66 books is woven tightly by a super engineer. And it's just incredible. And I find that exciting. Okay, let's take a look at 2 Peter. I think we did look at that already, but I want to make sure you're... 2 Peter chapter 2. 2 Peter chapter 2 verse 4, for if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell. Now that's kind of strange because Satan has all kinds of fallen angels doing all kinds of things, but they're not bound. These angels did something very... they broke some deeper rules and so got... they got cast down to Tartarus. And it's interesting that the same Greek word is used there as occurs in the literature that deals with the Titans and all of mythology. Same word. And delivered them into the chains of darkness to be reserved in judgment. Notice what Peter goes on. And spared not the old world, but saved Noah, the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly. And then he goes on with Sodom and Gomorrah, et cetera, et cetera. So clearly what Peter is talking about is something that is familiar to his readers, as familiar as the flood of Noah and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, et cetera. Peter is presuming that his readers are familiar with this. When we get to Jude, Jude does the same thing. And in fact, and I want to get into next time's subject, but if we look at verse seven, we're going to see even as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves to fornication, going after strange flesh. We're going to talk about the sin and the subject of Sodom and Gomorrah next time. But if you read Jude, the tone of it, in verse five, he talks about Israel. In verse six, he talks about the angels that kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, and so forth. And then even as Sodom and Gomorrah, they went after strange flesh. The implication from the language and the thrust of Jude's argument is that the angels did the same thing that they did in Sodom and Gomorrah, namely unnatural sexual perversion. It isn't just that they're fornicating, just having, you know, sex outside of marriage. That isn't the only issue. Sodom and Gomorrah gives rise to all kinds of other things. We'll talk about that next time. But the point is, the way the language is constructed, the implications, that is the nature of the sin of the angels in verse six. Follow what I'm saying? This doesn't mean I'm right. I'm just telling you why I view it so aggressively. I want to, on one hand, let you recognize that there are good scholars that would take great exception to what I'm presenting here. And they argue the Seth kind of idea. But I frankly, this is one of those places where I just really feel personally that if you take the scripture in a straightforward manner, it's quite clear what it says. Now, you may wonder, okay, Chuck, that's interesting. It's a little bizarre. It's kind of fun, but what's that got to do with us? Well, several things. At this point, let's summarize lessons, practical lessons for you and I. The first thing is that the scripture warns against meddling with the spirit world in any way. And I did not take the time to really list all of that in detail. In Deuteronomy, all through the Torah, all through the Old Testament, and certainly in the New, we are admonished to flee occultic things of all shapes and sizes. And by the way, I don't know how many of you saw the movie The Exorcist. Anybody see that movie? I'm not trying to recommend the movie, but there's something interesting. If you recall that entire, oh, well, first of all, you should probably know William Blatt. He based that upon a collection of several case studies amalgamated into a novel. So there's much in the movie that is documentaries, documentarily sound. It all starts, though, with what? A Ouija board, a little party game that's known in the trade as an entry. You know what other entries are? Astrology. I won't ask you how many of you read the astrology columns in the paper just for fun, because it's kind of cute. Watch out. These subtle, innocent little things can lead to an entanglement with the spirit world, an involvement that grows and gets addictive and deepens, whose end point is your destruction. Now, there are many superstitions and such that people had throughout the ages that the Bible doesn't even bother to comment on. These things are not dangerous because they're stupid or because they're just ignorant or what have you. They are malevolent. Behind these innocent little pieces of foolishness is a demonic spirit whose goal is to undo you and who has at his resources, well, has at his call enormous resources. So you're playing with tough stuff. So that's point one. Jude's point is that punishment, which overtook the angels that sinned, he makes that point simply to emphasize the serious nature of apostasy, opposing the truth. Beings of a higher order than you and I, you and I are human. Angels were, are a higher order, had been hurled down to a dark place of confinement where they have been there now for thousands of years. We have no idea what Tartarus is like, but they're there and they've been there for a long time. God has not changed his attitude toward them. And time passing has not mitigated the seriousness of their sin. What Jude is growing on here is that example, which presumably in his mind is in the mind of his readers to emphasize the point he's making is that apostasy is serious stuff. It's not some little thing that you sort of stumble and say, gee, God, I'm sorry. You know, it's heavy stuff. Now in 1st Timothy 4.1, we might take a look at 1st Timothy. We're going to look at a couple passages. 1st Timothy 4.1 we looked at last time, but I want to remind you this because it, it gives a label to false teaching that I think is worth absorbing. In Paul's first letter to Timothy chapter four, verse one, he says, Paul says, Now the spirit speaketh expressly that in the latter times, some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and the doctrines of demons. One of the sobering realizations is that any doctrine, any idea that impacts your life that's not biblically sound has a very malevolent source. Now, some of those doctrines or ideas are so conspicuously anti-biblical that to you and I, they're obvious. And that the prey, they prey primarily on the secular world, the new age. By the way, some of their old ideas, but repackaged in modern technology, the new age, the whole Shirley MacLaine thing, sinister stuff. Don't think it's, I can't imagine it being appealing to anyone that has any biblical roots at all. I worry more about a different kind of heresy. I worry more about Christian near pseudo Christian doctrines that are just one degree off. If I'm aboard the ship as a spy and I'm trying to get this ship off course, my shrewdest way is to get the autopilot one degree off because they won't notice it for a while until they're so off course, there's no hope. That's exactly what Satan has done. Also through the ages, they're also demonic doctrines. One degree off. What's your protection against that? A whole council of God. The whole council, not one chapter, not some little hobby horse, not some little catechism, the whole council of God. Genesis 1, 1 through the 22nd chapter of Revelation to try to absorb as the Holy Spirit gives you opportunity, the whole council of God. That's your only source of balance. Uh, the other dimension to this that I would like to turn to is Ephesians six. You know, when you come to, if you come to our house, we happen to have a very uh, English tutor type of home and it happens in the entry hall. It fits the decor. We happen to have a suit of armor front of mine arranged for it. For me, it's a suit of armor and everybody says, what's that? You know, and I said, well, that's don't you know who he is? That's Ephesians six. That's his name. And uh, what do you know? If they're Christians, they laugh and chuckle in what I'm talking about. If they don't, it gives me an excuse to open the Bible and come to Ephesians six. That's why we call the suit of armor Ephesians six. Cause it reminds us of Ephesians six starting old, say maybe we'll start verse 10. Finally, my brethren, Paul says, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might, be strong in the Lord and the power of his might. Jude and later in his letter is going to give an example where Michael, the archangel is fighting with Satan and he doesn't bring up railing accusation against Satan. He's smarter than that because he knows he's a dignity. He's an adversary, but he's senior. How are you strong? Not in your own power, but in the Lord, strong in the Lord and the power of his might. Then he says, verse 11, put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. You don't stand a chance by yourself. He's smarter than you. He said, centuries of study got enormous resources and focus, and he's bright. He was the brightest thing around. He was perfect in wisdom. Now he has a disease called sin and that corrupts that's gone on for a while. However, you make a gigantic mistake in underestimating. That's why you don't fool around in spiritual matters without proper armament. Verse 12, for we wrestle not against flesh and blood. That's not our problem gang. We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. One of the passages I had in my notes to take you into tonight, but I saw I would overspend my time is Daniel chapter 10. And just a couple of sentence summary. You can dig it out on your self. There's where Daniel prays. And for three weeks he fasts. And after three weeks, a messenger comes, but the messenger points out, gee, I was held up for three weeks. And you sort of get the impression, it doesn't say this, you get the impression that Daniel stopped fasting a day earlier, you might not have made it. But the point is, he describes that he was battling, you know, the, the Prince of Persia. Right? How he withheld him, but Michael came and helped him and he got through to give him his message. And then when he's through giving him the vision, he says, by the way, I got to go now because the Prince of Greece is next. I got to fight him getting back. You get the strange shadowy glimpse that behind these governments are spiritual powers. And who is the head of the spiritual powers in the world? Who is the Prince of this world? And you begin to realize that there's a warfare you and I don't see. We get a glimpse of that warfare in. There's one interesting place. Again, I didn't take the time to take you in it, but you can do it on your own. If I can find my reference here and Kings. Second Kings six. There's a place where in Elisha. And they're surrounded the servants worried and so forth. Elisha looks up, looks at both sides. No problem. Those that are with us are more than they against him. Show him Lord. And he sees them surrounded by these angels. What's interesting about that is you get several glimpses. One is that there are spiritual forces behind what's going on in the earth both ways. And what I should look and see who's the strongest. Hey, we're okay. There are more than there's more of ours than there's okay. He went back to sleep. And since we're getting close to the time, I want to keep moving. But I'll show you again, is part of these hints. The Bible gives us that there's a lot going on. We don't see. But the hints are very explicit, if you will, in Ephesians for wrestle not against flesh and principalities and powers and rulers of the darkness of this world against the spiritual wickedness in high places. By the way, in Daniel 10, we have the Prince of Persia and the Prince of Greece. We get the impression that there's a ruler and his minions over each of these governments. And by the way, the period between Persian Greece is like 200 years. So their time domain is a little different than ours because their physics are different than ours. Is there a prince of the United States? Sure, there is. And whom does he report? You make a lot of cracks for that one, but you get the idea. Who owns the media in this country? All you have to do is read it. You get a good impression of what that's all about. Wherefore, take you the Paul says the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand, stand therefore having your loins girded about with truth and having on your breastplate of righteousness and your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace and above all taking the shield of faith, which ye shall be able to quit with which you'll be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. Now, I've heard many people preaching that may be very correct. The Paul at the time he was writing was chained to a Roman soldier. And so as he was in, of course, you know, he didn't regard himself as chained to the Roman soldier. He just figured the Roman soldier was chained to him. So you witness to him. But reminds me of Woody Allen's crack about, you know, hell is what being stuck in an elevator with a life insurance salesman. So, so, but, but, but Paul's comments there could be very well, you know, the easy view is that he was looking at the Roman soldier and he just building analogies with the helmet of salvation and so forth. Except if you look at Isaiah 52, verse seven, you discover that Isaiah apparently was chained to a very similar soldier because Isaiah in chapter 52, verse seven. No, that's not the one I wanted, but it's close. No, Mr. You just did it again. Feature of the park. How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that brings good tidings and publishes salvation and saith unto Zion, God reigneth. And that's one of them. You can actually find if you can actually go through and find parallels with each of the, each of those phrases have links back to the old Testament. That's the one that I marked there. And there's some others. Um, I think Isaiah 59, 17 also, but, but moving on, um, the whole idea of spiritual warfare is one of having the spiritual armament. And one of the things that were admonished by Paul is to put on the whole armor of God. How do you do that? What you might do yourself, because it's a study that you'll get more out of. You do it on your own is to take Ephesians six and lay out each one of those things and don't treat them as just sort of casual allegories, but really dig into them and build yourself a preparation. If I told you that within the next six months, we're going to have guerrilla warfare in the United States. I'm not saying that I'm just using this as an example. What would you guys do? I'll speak to the guys. Those of you that have had some black belt experience would probably refresh yourselves. Those of you that had small arms would probably get them in shape. You'd have each of you depending on your responsibilities and skills and whatever would prepare, wouldn't you? Some way. Some of you to head for the hills with canned goods hidden away, or you do something, right? Preparation means a lot. Well, you and I have some time to prepare, so I'm going to suggest to you that's exactly what you and I should be doing with a sense of urgency that's very, very high. We should be preparing ourselves. Being here in this Bible study is a major piece of it. Letting the Holy Spirit lead you into special studies of your own, a special piece of it. Developing a deep devotional life, prayer life, a big piece of it. For each of you, the syllabus would be probably a little different. The Holy Spirit will lead you, but I do strongly urge you to take Ephesians 6 and prepare. Now, why am I saying that? Well, first of all, it makes sense in terms of your spiritual walk and spiritual growth, but I have another reason. Because there's something else that puts Jude 6 into a terrifying dimension as far as I personally am concerned. And that's something the Lord Jesus Christ said. He said on several occasions, as the days of Noah were, so shall the days of the coming of the Son of Man be. And he gave some examples. Several. In fact, he made several allusions to that period. Lot and other things. And we'll talk some about that in subsequent evenings. But the more we study the days of Noah, the more insight we will probably gain as to the times that will precede the next judgment. Much is made of the fact that he gave Noah a promise that he'd never again flood the earth and gave him a rainbow. Peter tells us that you should read the small print. He just said he wouldn't do it with water. So God is getting ready to judge the earth again, but there's some events that will occur prior to that period for lots of reasons. We know that period is not far away. But those events that occurred prior to the flood, the days of Noah, are going to happen again. Widespread wickedness, a small minority that are in God's grace in the sense of being taken care of. Heavy stuff. Now we all have either seen or heard of a movie called Rosemary's Baby. Piece of entertainment, what have you. But a little bizarre because if we understand Genesis 6 correctly, and if that's also included in the scope of Christ's statement as the days of Noah were, we should not be shocked if there's some very, very strange goings on in the coming decades. I'm not saying next week from Tuesday, but we're heading for some strange times. Oh, and let's stand for a closing word of prayer. Strange stuff. Kind of interesting. Treats the imagination. Causes us to look with a little different eye towards some of the strange myths and legends embodied in the various cultures on the planet earth. But apparently based in effect on real things that happened a long time ago. Things that are stranger than we normally would countenance in our horizon as we understand our history. But relevant to you and I, not just because they're quaint ancient beginnings, but because they have an impact on where you and I are living. Because I am convinced for lots of reasons, some of which we've talked about in the past and some which we'll be talking about shortly, that we are living in that period, that lifetime, that generation in which God is going to climax his plan for man. And he's told us a lot about what's coming. What's our job? What's our response to that? And the first response is that we better know that we're, that we belong to Jesus Christ. If there's anyone in this room that has any doubt in his mind about that, I would strongly urge you to resolve that before you get home tonight. You can do so in the privacy of your own will as we close our eyes and bow our heads. Make a commitment to Jesus Christ and he will carry it from there. He's done 100% of the job. He won't meet you halfway. He'll meet you 100% of the way if you'll but ask. That's step one to be in Christ. Second step is to grow by reading his word, by studying, by prayer, by fellowship with other believers. Crucial, more crucial. All of you in this room, all of us in this room have problems. We have financial problems and pressures, health problems and pressures, all kinds. We get a long list. Whatever problems and pressures we have are pale in insignificance compared to some of the issues we've talked about tonight. Your spiritual position. I happen to run into some people this weekend and I'm known within my business world as a risk taker. I'm a real hip shooting, high leverage, maverick kind of guy in business. But I'm fond of pointing out that I do not have the guts, I'm not willing to take the risk to gamble like you Mr. So-and-so. I'm not willing to bet my eternity that the Bible is wrong. That's the real issue. Let's borrow our hearts. Father, we praise you for this evening. We praise you for your revelation. We thank you, Father, for your word which has given us these insights for our learning, for our growth and for our protection. We would ask you in Jesus' name to just accept us. We confess before you our sin. We acknowledge before you our need of a Savior. We thank you, Father, that he is ours but for the asking. We pray, Father, that you'd give us no peace until we rest in you. We would ask you to go with us this coming week. Give us a new appetite for your word, a refreshed vigor to study, to show ourselves approved unto thee. We'd ask you to send your Holy Spirit to guide us and lead us into those particular portions of scripture that fit that ministry which you have for each and every one of us. That in all these things we might grow in grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior. That we might be more obedient to your word. That in all these things we might be pleasing in thy sight, O Lord, our strength and our reading. Amen.