What
say we look at certain world events from another dimension, namely a spiritual
dimension? I’m not Frank Peretti, but I
guarantee, it will add meaning to what’s happening in the world, and will go
far to explaining what we’re on earth for.
So here we go: In Genesis 3:15,
God, in effect, threw down the gauntlet at Satan when He said to him:
And I will put enmity between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her Seed;
He shall bruise your head,
And you shall bruise His heel.”
And between your seed and her Seed;
He shall bruise your head,
And you shall bruise His heel.”
To
explain, Satan and Eve’s descendants would be enemies, God did not desire to make enemies, but
Satan had already declared such in his desire to be equal with God (Isaiah
14:12-17). Further, “your (Satan’s) seed” refers to those who refuse to obey
God and refuse to believe in His Son, Jesus the Christ. In “her Seed,” the capital letter means
Jesus, a descendant of Eve. And, I might
add, you could include all those who are followers of Jesus and have made Him
Lord of their lives. So, in short, Satan
is the enemy of the Jews, who carried the Messianic lineage (as you will see
below) and the enemy of true Christians, and he wants nothing more than to
destroy us, our lives and reputation, and everything spiritual in us.
God
tells Satan that His Son will “bruise (Satan’s) head,” a mortal wound. Satan will only “bruise (Jesus’) heel, a
non-vital wound.
So
God has thrown down the gauntlet. Who
will win, God or Satan?
Satan,
before killing Christ by the hand of his own followers (who were, by the way,
both Jew and Gentile), tried numerous times in history to destroy His
ascendants. If he could do that, Christ would never have been born. That seems “smart.” So let’s tell the story about his various
efforts to kill.
Attempt
#1: Eve hoped that her first child would
be God’s Seed and the Deliverer from her sin.
That child was Cain. But Cain
ignored God’s instructions on how to do the atonement offering, and became a
murderer of Abel, Eve’s second son. Now
she hoped her third child would accomplish her desire for a
Deliverer—Seth. Well, Seth stayed
righteous and Christ was indeed descended from him. So Satan failed on Attempt
#1, since the lineage continued despite the small family that he brought evil
into.
Attempt
#2: Many of Satan’s followers, also
known as fallen angels, came to earth and married earth women, bearing babies
that grew up to be “mighty men” and “men of renown.” Grown up, they were called Nephilim
(Gen.6:1-4). They were also wicked; and
from other appearances in Scripture, they were super-tall and, obviously, very
strong. Why not? They were half mortal, and half immortal
(fallen angels, their fathers, retained their immortality). (I have a couple blogs on this; refer to those
with DNA in the title). The Nephilim dominated, and completely corrupted the
people of Noah’s day, both morally and physically (by deviant DNA mixing). Anyway, Satan figured, if he could corrupt
the earth like this, then no one would be righteous or physically pure to bear
a pure Seed.
But
he was defeated because Noah and his immediate family kept clean, and he made
an ark as God had directed, and everyone else was destroyed, leaving Noah, his
wife, and immediate family to start all over.
Satan failed on Attempt #2.
Attempt
#3: God picked the Hebrew people to be
His people, beginning with Abraham.
Their job was to carry His Scripture, and to worship Him as the only
God---in the midst of a totally corrupt world that didn’t know Him. (The Jews didn’t do a bang-up job on God’s
instructions, in the long run). To avert
death by a record 7-year famine, the Hebrews moved to Egypt to farm the best
land there. They were allowed to do this
because Abraham’s great-grandson Joseph was in good with the Pharaoh (by revealing
to him a vision about the upcoming famine so he could prepare for it). So God made sure that His Jewish family was
accepted in Egypt, which had saved grain, so they didn’t starve in the great
famine. So Satan’s attempt at starving
them out failed in Attempt #3.
Attempt
#4: Later Pharaohs made the Jews slaves for 400 years. One evil Pharaoh got up one morning and said,
“These Jewish slaves are becoming more populous than we Egyptians, and that’s a
danger; let’s kill every baby boy at birth and stop their population growth.” He gave the order—unfortunately, he stupidly
did it to the midwives, but they were mostly Hebrews! (I presume he assumed that their fear of him
would even make them commit infanticide).
However, even at risk of their own lives, they refused to kill the newborn
Hebrew boys. That not only saved the
Hebrew population, but it saved little Moses, who later became a great deliverer
himself. Attempt #4 failed. You would think that Satan would have gotten
the message by now. When God decides to
do something, it gets done—even through sinful men. You gotta give credit to the Hebrew
midwives. We need some of them today, in
our abortion clinics.
Attempt
#5: Moses, through God, performed miracles of destruction on the country of
Egypt. But Pharaoh was so stubborn that he
held on through each disaster; it finally took the death of his firstborn to
release the Jews. Early in their exodus,
the Pharaoh and his army went after them again, only to be wiped out by the
closing Red Sea—another miracle by God.
So the Jews were not only saved from destruction by Pharaoh’s army, but
they were Free. Attempt #5 failed.
Attempt
#6: Let’s back up in time a bit. Please note two verses God had told Abraham.
First, Genesis 12:1-3:
Now the Lord had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, from your family and
from your father’s house, to a land that I will show
you. 2 I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and
make your name great; and you shall be a blessing.
3 I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.
Secondly,
God told Abraham, in Genesis 15:13-14:
Then He said to Abram: “Know
certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will
serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years. 14 And also the nation whom they serve I will
judge; afterward they shall come out with great possessions.
Satan, we can assume,
listened in to these conversations—and thus knew, upon watching Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob’s travels, that God had chosen the land of Canaan as His land for His
people. (Important side note: Satan does not have God’s powers. He can only be in one place at a time, and
cannot read minds. But he has lots of
demon-followers in lots of places who help him that way, and he can guess
thoughts by our facial emotions, and what we say. And, I would imagine, he has various ways of
putting sinful thoughts in our head—like he did with Pharaoh on
infanticide). Putting these two verses
together, Satan figured that the Hebrews won’t be in Canaan, God’s choice for
their living space, for at least 400 years; they would be elsewhere (in Egypt)
instead. He also hoped that Israel
(since they were a nation now) would have to conquer the various tribes of
Canaan to secure the land. Thus, Satan comes
up with Attempt #6: stop the Israelis
from entering God’s chosen land, Canaan.
If he could do that, they would wander to different places and their
nation would be assimilated and fizzle out.
So he concocted up another sexual use for his fallen angels. You, the reader, may roll your eyes and say,
“come on, how do I keep coming up with these wild stories?” Well, again, read my blogs. And, again, I have Biblical proof. Let’s read
Genesis 6:4, this time in the NIV version:
The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when
the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them.
They were the heroes of old, men of renown.
As
we saw before, the Nephilim were the deviant DNA children of the fallen angel
fathers, who was immortal, and the mortal earth mother. But note the underlined phrase “and also
afterward.” Every phrase in Scripture
has a reason to exist in God’s Word, and this one says that we would get more
Nephilim even after they were drowned in the Flood in Noah’s day. In other words, the fallen angels came down
again, proved sexually attractive to the females again, and we got more
Nephilim. But this time, men did not
live 800 or 900 years like in Noah’s day.
Their lives were short, like ours. So the deviant DNA can’t be spread as
fast. So Satan concentrated his efforts
on spawning to a limited area—namely, of course, Canaan. These giants hopefully
would scare the Israelis away, and they couldn’t stay in “God’s chosen land.”
So he picked several tribes in Canaan, sent his fallen angels there, and they
became populated by the evil Nephilim. Scripture
backs this idea up; it indicates giants existed in: the Philistines, the Anakim, the Rephaim, the Zamzumim, the Emim, and the
Amorites. All in Canaan, of course. (Check
them out in Numbers 13:32; Deut 2:10,11,20,21; Deut 3:11,13). Deuteronomy provides more detail on Og, king
of Bashon, whose bed was 15 feet long and 6-1/2 feet wide. And of course we have Goliath, killed by
David, several hundred years later, who probably was 9 feet tall.
Satan
almost got what he wanted; the nation of Israel, freed from Pharaoh after 400 years,
went north, and approached the land of Canaan.
Moses sent out spies to see the lay of the land. They brought back wonderful food, but their
knees were shaking. As they reported in
Numbers 13:32-33:
The
land through which we have gone, in spying it out, is a land that devours its
inhabitants; and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great size. There
also we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak are part of the Nephilim); and we
became like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.
A
bit of hyperbole, there, about the size comparison—but you get the picture;
these were giants—again. So the Israelis voted to NOT go in. God was so disappointed in how they wouldn’t
depend on Him for deliverance that He made them wander through the desert area
for another 38 years, until everyone who voted dropped dead. Now all that were left were the kids in the
earlier days, now grown up. But these
“kids” were not dummies; they realized that they had miracles (their shoes never wore
out, they always found water, they had free food dropped on them 6 days a
week), and they realized that their non-believing parents paid the ultimate
price for disobedience; and finally, walking the desert every day made them
hardened, so they could be soldiers with endurance. Plus, I would imagine, they
would do anything to stop wandering drudgingly through the desert. So, with Joshua in command (Moses died), this
time they voted to go in and fight. God
built up Joshua’s courage by appearing to him as well. This time they cleared out most of these
corrupt and sometimes giant people (details on the Canaanite idolatries are too
disgusting to explain here). The key is
the phrase “most of.” Goliath is an
example of how there were some still around that Joshua couldn’t get to. In any event, Satan’s effort to stop Israel
from moving to the land of God’s calling failed. Attempt #6:
FAIL. Satan is now 0-6.
Attempt
#7: This attempt was Satan’s efforts to
kill David and his descendants. This was
because Satan figured out that the Messiah would be in David’s line. How did he deduce that? Satan saw how King Saul disappointed God by
not following His instructions; and after David’s bravery and boasting about
God’s power preceding his defeat of Goliath, Satan figured that David was next
on the throne, and thus he wanted to kill David. (Scripture did not express the
honor of David’s lineage until later, but Satan figured it out before then). So Satan fills Saul’s mind with envy and
hatred of David to an obsessive decree.
Saul personally went hunting to kill David day and night. And there are many verses that proves that
Saul was moved by demonic forces. Earlier,
while David tried to play music to soothe Saul’s violent temper tantrums, Saul
with no reason threw a spear at David.
Another example was Saul sought out a medium, expressly forbidden by
God.
But
David continued to prove his faith in God.
He was egged on by his military to kill Saul when he had many lucky
opportunities, but he remained righteous.
If he had murdered Saul, he would have possibly been an unfit candidate
for the Messiah’s line, which would have served Satan well. (Of course, after he became king, he was a
conspirator to murder, but sincerely repented—which is tenderly recorded in
Psalm 51. God’s wonderful grace then forgave him.)
When
David died, Satan also did everything he could to tempt David’s descendants
into evil, hoping to break the lineage to the Messiah that way. Solomon was David’s son. Solomon’s many wives seduced him into
idolatry. Solomon spent government money
lavishly to build palaces and a glorious temple, burnished with alarming
amounts of gold and precious stones.
Thus he taxed his people heavily.
When Solomon died, his own son was callous about the need of the common
people to reduce the tax, and the kingdom was split into the north, still
called Israel, and south, called Judah. This was a real threat to their
continued existence, since a divided nation is weaker and will be attacked by
enemies. The following generations proved to be a continuing downdraft of
morals and corruptions, of idolatry and religious sexual fornication. They abandoned God and followed the pagan
religions around them.
Jehoram,
son of Jehoshaphat (and son-in-law of Ahab and Jezebel), 130 years after David,
killed all of his six brothers. This
left a tenuous line in the lineage of David to the Christ, the Messiah, since
it now all resided on Jehoram. In fact,
the Philistines and Arabians attacked him and killed all of his family except
one son, Jehoahaz, also named Ahaziah.
Again, almost a snuffing out of the Messianic lineage. Yet another wild story of carnage
awaits. Athaliah, wife of Jehoram and
daughter of Ahab and Jezebel, was the queen mother for Jehoahaz/Ahaziah. But
when Jehoahaz visited Israel, he was killed by Jehu. Jehu killed all of Ahab and Jezebel’s family
in Israel (the northern kingdom), and Athaliah ascended the throne in Judah
(the southern kingdom). Then she kills any who had even the slightest chance of
claiming the throne (including what remained of her own family), but she missed
one person—Jehoash, her grandson, who was one year old. Thus the Messianic line was held by one thin
solitary thread. When she heard of her surviving grandson, she attempted to
move on him, but she was executed.
Jehoash began his reign at age 8, and reigned righteously for 40
years. Whew. Unfortunately, the bloodshed still went on, but
none of it later was as great a threat to the Messianic line. God let Satan get close, but close is not
enough. It wasn’t long after this that the
country of Judah fell to the Babylonians, and were carried away to captivity. The
northern tribes had already fallen at the hands of the Assyrians. But the Jewish people didn’t become
assimilated. Jewish scribes kept the
faith, and continued to record genealogical records. Thus Luke and Matthew show the Messianic line
for Mary and Joseph, right through the “silent years,” the 400 years between
the end of the kingdom of Judah until the birth of Jesus. This should have proven to everyone that
Jesus had the proper line in claiming to be the Messiah, but that didn’t stop
some of them from calling Him a bastard and wanting to kill Him.
Attempt
#8 Perhaps the most entertaining event in the Bible is the book of Esther. It is short, and it is wonderful reading. It’s
around 500 BC. Romance (well, as far as
they knew, romance) wins, pride loses. I
only have enough space to give you an incomplete Cliff notes. After Persia defeated Babylonia, King
Ahasuerus had a beauty contest and picked a new wife, Esther. Unbeknownst to him, she was Jewish. But one of the king’s servants, Haman, hated
her cousin Mordecai because Mordecai refused to bow to acknowledge his
greatness in possessing his high office.
Haman was infuriated at this slight; he resolved to not only kill
Mordecai, but all Jews in Persia, which was most of the known world at the
time. This would again be another attempt to snuff out the Messianic
lineage. Satan may have given him the
idea that it wasn’t enough just to kill Mordecai, but all Jews. (It would not
be unusual, since he was from the Amalekite race, enemies of Jews). Through
false witness to his king, he got the king’s signet ring to carry out his
genocide. He picked a day—soon. He was willing to pay a lot of money to those
who would do the killing—of every Jewish man, woman, and every child. A grisly business. An additional motivation toward getting the
help of the Persians in the killing was the fact that whoever killed a Jew
would get his land. Haman was efficient
in giving notice to every province in the vast kingdom. But Esther heard of the plot through her
maids, and Mordecai notified her that she would have to act fast to somehow
persuade the king to change his mind. They
all knew that Haman was behind it. There
was one unfortunate detail of Persian law—once the king makes a law, it cannot
be revoked. Satan had made a cunning
move, and it looked like the Jewish people would all be dead soon.
But
God knew this ahead of time, and made His own chess moves. God is always one step ahead. Why not?
He is the master of the dimension of time. He knows the entire history of everyone on
earth ahead of time. I can imagine all
the future videoclips He could see at the same time.
Esther,
I suspect with God’s help, made a brilliant plan. And in the end, she, with great tears explained
it all to Ahasuerus and appealed to the king’s mercy (we all know how women
are). Haman made some wrong moves and was hung, Mordecai got the king’s signet
ring, and while the king couldn’t change the law, he provided another law that
allowed Jews to kill their enemies first!
The Jews were not only honored, but many people changed their religion
to worshiping Jehovah. This happened in
the Persian kingdom, which is Iran today.
Can you imagine today’s Iranians giving Jews the right to kill their
enemies in Iran and its allies? For
sure, this whole thing was a rarity for the Jews. God wins, Satan loses.
Attempt
#9 and following show Satan’s all-out attempt to kill Jesus, whom he knew was
the Messiah from prophecies about His birthplace (Micah 5:2), and by a visit by
wise men underneath a supernatural star.
We
won’t count as an Attempt how Joseph, when he heard of Mary’s pregnancy, was on
the verge of divorcing her as betrothed.
Without such an important element of a man standing up to be a father,
the scandal of irresponsible fornication and baby-production would have been
much greater. That would have meant that
Jesus would probably have been banned from speaking at any synagogue in the
land. His message would never have gone out. In any event, an angel told Joseph
in a dream that Mary was still a virgin, and bore a child through the Holy
Spirit. Joseph evidently believed it—so he
was definitely the right man for the job of stepfather.
Neither
are we going to start with Caesar, who had the brilliant idea that everyone had
to be registered in their original home province. So Joseph and a very pregnant Mary had to
travel over bumpy roads on horseback.
This endangered her; a too-early, or even, stillbirth could have
resulted. No, let’s start Attempt #9 with
Herod, who was in a lather about the wise men appearing out of the East and
asking for the location of the newborn King of the Jews. Two more dreams were necessary from God, but
the wise men never told Herod they had found the Messiah, and Joseph was warned
to escape. So Herod’s cruel effort to
kill every child age 2 and under in the Bethlehem area did not produce the
desired effect. Satan’s Attempt #9:
FAIL.
Attempt
#10 was at the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry. John the Baptist had given Jesus approval,
there was a miracle of wine at Cana, and Jesus was brilliant in initial
appearances speaking at synagogues. But
that was it to that point, so He had barely got going. But Jesus made the “mistake” of informing the
synagogue public that ancient prophets spent some time being kinder to Gentiles
rather than Jews (Luke 4). The
xenophobic Jews got a demonic gang urge, and almost threw Him off a cliff. God suddenly engineered a miracle, because it
simply says, without explanation, that “passing through the midst of them, He
went His way.” It was also a fact that Scripture records other instances of
men’s desire to kill Him before the mock trial that finally did it. But Jesus was smart enough to have lots of
loving followers around Him during the day, and slip away into remote locations
at night. The only way they got to Him was the betrayal of Judas.
Attempt
#11 This was Satan’s attempt to drown the Messiah in a huge sea storm on the
sea of Galilee, which was notorious for that kind of activity. But this storm was unusually dangerous and
could have been lethal. Why do I think
that Satan was behind this? Because in
Luke 8:24, and Mark 4:39, Jesus “rebuked” the wind and raging water. The word “rebuke” is used in Scripture for
deliverance from demons (Matthew 17:18, for instance). Yes, Satan can figure out how to have his
demons make a storm. But, Jesus can
figure out the source, and deliver us from the weather.
Attempt
#12 Satan figured he had Jesus’ number at the Crucifixion. Even though the witnesses against Him were
false, even though Pilate and his wife did everything they could to release
Jesus, the Jewish crowd were in a demonic paroxysm to see Jesus dead. They even preferred to see a murderer
released instead of Jesus. They even
cursed themselves, saying (Matthew 27:25) “his blood be on us, and on our
children.” God, in total disgust,
rejected these people, formerly the “apple of His eye.” Jesus warned them several
times about this. God’s judgment came down 40 years later. Under a vicious general Titus, over a million
of the Jews were slaughtered in a raid on Jerusalem. The temple was completely torn down, as Jesus
had prophesied. But Satan was looking
only at Jesus; he actually figured that the Crucifixion would do the job; Jesus
would stay dead. But in the greatest
triumph of history, Jesus was resurrected.
Now His Gospel of freedom from sin and resurrection for His followers
still abides in a minority everywhere in the world.
Attempt
#13 is probably future. God prophesied, through
an allegory in Revelation 12, Satan’s attempt to devour Christ (the Child in
Revelation 12; Satan is the
dragon). In Revelation 12:13, Satan is
attacking “the woman,” probably Israel.
In other Scripture we find that he is attempting a giant war against
Christ and His followers at Har Megiddo, also called Armageddon (Revelation
16:13-16), which failed. But no one can
be certain about the future, so I am deliberately sketchy about details. All I know is that Satan is given one last
chance, in some probable future date, as implied in Revelation 12:12, to do his
destructive work. It may come during our
lifetimes, it may not. But it will be a
rousing success of deception, since the earth comes under one world ruler and
one religion, and most people will actually worship an antichrist under Satan’s
control! Many nominal Christians will be
fooled, as Matthew 24:24 says about that future day:
….false
christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to
deceive, if possible, even the elect.
Jesus even began His Olivet Discourse on
future events by warning His followers about deception (Matthew 24:4). He also warned His followers to stay alert
and looking for Him, not to be caught up in the ways of the world, which could
destroy us. Yes, it is true that Satan looks like a Cleveland Brown, going
0-13, as we showed above, but he is wily and is successful on getting the
majority of people to be captured and hell-bound. Jesus confirms that in Matthew 7:13-14:
“Enter by the
narrow gate; for wide is the
gate and broad is the
way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. 14 Because
narrow is the gate
and difficult is the
way which leads to life, and there are few who find it
My
final word of warning is from II Corinthians 11:13-15:
For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming
themselves into apostles of Christ. 14 And no
wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. 15 Therefore it is no great thing if his
ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose
end will be according to their works.
Christians, beware! Do not fall for great deception.
Acknowledgement: Chuck Missler, a
great man of God, who is sorely missed by his passing.
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