The entire Bible is a chess match between God and Satan. Now we know that God is going to win in the end but we see countermoves by Satan to try to go against every move from God…right until his final breath in the last days!
Romans 15:4 For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope.
It is clear throughout Scripture that there is a war going on between good and evil all around us. It is a war that rages outside of our time and space continuum.. Satan sinned against God and was cast down from Heaven along with 1/3 of the Heavenly angels who sided with him.
In Luke 10:18 Jesus says that he saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. THOR AND MOVIES LIKE IMMORTALS STOLE A LOT FROM THE BIBLE…Satan had made the mistake of letting his pride gets so big that he truly thought he could take over
Satan vs God, Angels vs demons. Good vs evil. It is in the midst of this cosmic raging supernatural war that mankind is born.
Scripture tells us that Satan had been kicked out of heaven but he still had access to it (Book of Job) he was punished but it was not a death sentence. Put yourself in the shoes of Satan in the Garden of Eden. I’m not at all defending him but I want you to see things through his eyes. He was close in proximity to God, his beauty and power was nearly limitless. He absolutely had it all until he fell then he was cast down to earth only to watch God create His most prized possession …man in his own image. The human race is a slap in the face to Satan and a blow to his pride.
Satan says God you’re going to create this in front of my face… You’re going to do this to me well I have no other choice but to corrupt them and get them to sin. See what’s saying I am going to get them to fall as hard as I did! After Adam and Eve had sinned, God sat them down along with Satan for the first ever principals office meeting. Trust me, I’ve been there. These days it’s Lee’s office.
Genesis 3:15 God says to Satan…And I will put enmity between you and the seed of the woman and between your seed. He will crush your head and you will strike his heel. NIV
Satan new exactly what God was saying… God was telling him that because of his actions there would be a Messiah coming that would crush Satan’s head. This moment begins the cosmic chess match.
Satan knew that a man was going to be born that would destroy him… he just had no idea when and where. MAYBE HE THOUGHT IT WAS ABEL
Satan is not all-knowing (omniscient) like God so the only option he had was to try to destroy mankind.
The book of Genesis chapter 6 verse 4 just might give us an idea as to how he was doing it.
Gen 6:4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days and also afterward when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them, they were the heroes of old, the men of renown.
Now here comes the controversy! There are two main theories as to who these “sons of God “ are.
One view is called the “Sethite View” and it says they are men from the line of Seth, Adams first son after Abel was killed. They believe the “daughters of man” were from the line of Cain. Purely humans having sex with one another.
The other view is called the Angel View. In short this view believes that the sons of God were some of the fallen angels that fell with Satan. The belief is that these fallen Angels had sex with women of the earth in order to corrupt their bloodlines. Change the gnome, mess with Gods creation, whatever.
I have studied this extensively and I will be dedicating a whole podcast series to it as it’s fascinating! We just don’t have time in this sermon. I will tell you that I personally hold the Angel View but I will party in Heaven with Christians that hold the Sethite View.
I’m not willing to die on that hill….there are MORE important things to do, like tell the world about Jesus! All of this has its place though!
No matter what your view, whether you believe in the angel view or the Sethite view you cannot argue that there were Nephilim on the earth in those days as a result of this unnatural cohabitation. The word Nephilim is a Hebrew word that means fallen ones. Some of them were giants. All of them seemed a bit supernatural and definitely irritating to God and the Israelites. Something was up with the Nephilim because every time they were around God ordered all of them to be immediately exterminated.
It wasn’t like they were sure I’ll be in mystery or myths and legends these things were real these giants lived in cities and everyone knew them and feared them with their lives!
Gen 6:4 tells us these giants were on the earth before AND after the flood. We are not talking giants like you’re thinking. Goliath was a small one. And he was 10 feet, maybe close to 12 feet tall. HE WAS A SMALL ONE. They often had 2 rows of teeth, 6 fingers and toes.
Many of these giants or 15 to 20 even 30 feet tall. Amos reports giants as tall and strong as cedar trees. This giant stuff is all over the Bible… You can’t avoid it. And don’t think of them as eight-foot people in the Guinness Book of World Records from 1938 that have giantism and can barely walk around… these giants were huge and strong and feared by all men. MUCH MORE ON THE NEPHILIM THE RAPHAIM THE ANAKIM TO COME IN MY PODCAST SERIES!
Satan the fallen angels (no matter what view you hold) and the Nephilim somehow corrupted everything. And I mean EVERYTHING.
Gen 6:12-13 And God looked upon the earth and behold it was corrupt. For ALL people (the Hebrew word actually means all flesh )had been corrupted upon the earth and God said unto Noah, the earth is filled with violence through them and behold I will destroy them with the earth.
Listen, every thing that has/on planet earth was corrupted in an unnatural even supernatural kind of way.
Now it’s just pure conjecture…it’s my own opinion…I’m not convinced God was super pumped about the dinosaurs. Oh hellllooo….in the days when freaky deaky overgrown, mutated giants were roaming the land, so were overgrown mutated giant reptiles? I’ mean, is anyone doing their homework here??!! MOTE ON THAT IN A PODCAST. ha
Because Satan is not all-knowing he almost got the plan to work but he did not know about a man named Noah. Noah’s bloodline was the only uncorrupted bloodline on the planet. This was gods doing as the Messiah would one day come from Noah’s bloodline. Moves and countermoves between God and Satan!
God sends the flood and restarts the line of the Messiah. There were still Nephilim in the land after the flood (podcast) but it was controllable, though a nuisance. As a side note the area of land that always gave the Israelites trouble with the Nephilim is the modern-day Gaza Strip which still plagues Israel to this very day. So fascinating to study.
Satan didn’t stop at the flood. He was determined to destroy the Messiah! THIS IS WHY I LOVE THE OLD TESTAMENT! CHESS MATCH
Pharaoh and ancient Egypt had given themselves to the dark arts into Satan’s power I believe this is why Pharaoh gave the order to kill male Israelite children in Exodus 1. Once again out of Satan’s attempt to destroy the line of the Messiah comes a baby sent down the Nile river to avoid this death order. His name was Moses and God would certainly use him as a game changer.
Moves and counter moves. Many of these moves were just straight up supernatural.
There’s an odd story of the supernatural in the book of Daniel. No I know that often times we think of angels as being pretty and fluffy with wings but every time they show up to humans they have to start with FEAR NOT. They are nasty powerful and probably very intimidating so that makes this story even better check it out.
The Bible says this angel’s face was like lightning and his eyes were flashing fire his legs and arms were made out of bronze and his voice sounded like a multitude! So Daniel probably pooped his pants a little.
We see in the book of Daniel that the angel Gabriel told Daniel that he was late in getting to him because a demon by the name of the Prince of Persia had been fighting him and resisting him to get to Daniel for 21 days! Gabriel says that Michael the Archangel had to finally come help him out. What the what!??
2 Kings A king wanted to kill Elisha so he sent a great army to destroy him. The army surrounded Elisha’s house and the moment before they attacked God opened the eyes of the invading army, the scales fell off if you will and they were able to see what is really happening just out of reach of our eyesight. The hills were surrounded by chariots of fire and blazing horses ready for battle! Then God made them blind and they were led away to another city! It was like the original flashy thing from Men in Black.
When Moses finally died God took his body and then there was a dispute over his body between Michael the Archangel and Satan himself some type of battle over the body of Moses. We see this in the New Testament book of Jude. What the What?
In fact the entire Old Testament is filled with moves and counter moves between God and Satan where God is preserving the line of the Messiah and Satan is constantly trying to chase it down and destroy it.
And that is exactly what this entire upcoming series called the legends is all about. I spend most of my time studying in the Old Testament because it is fascinating to me when you realize it’s a giant chess match.
When Satan finds out the Messiah will come from the line of Abraham he starts an all out war on Abrahams offspring. King DAVID dealt with it a lot! And the giants! Tucker speaking on that coming up.
Barb will be up talking about Rahab and her unbelievable story in the lineage of Jesus, moves and counter moves that will blow your mind! Ben will be unpacking a great Old Testament story that deals with getting PRIDE out of the way and letting God work to combat what Satan throws at you! Then Lee will be end capping the series with a talk about where this whole chess match leads…JESUS CHRIST!
Don’t even get me started with how many chess moves were made when Jesus Christ came on the scene. That could be about 10 podcast shows.
Herod kills male babies Matt 2:16
All roads of the supernatural need to lead to Jesus Christ! He had the demons begging for mercy around every corner they met. I don’t know if we could ever imagine all that Jesus Christ truly accomplished for us on the cross and resurrection.
We just simply don’t have the time… We are scratching the surface right now and there is an ocean of theology, doctrine and biblical stories that will blow your mind underneath us. We are simply swimming on the surface this weekend! Podcasts!
Satan knew it from the garden of Eden and would stop at nothing to destroy this messiah. Obviously today 2000 years later, we know that Satan failed. We also know from the book of Revelation that he will meet his demise at the hands of Jesus. So why even worry about all of this if we already know that God wins in the end?
The more aware we are of spiritual warfare the more focused we are going to be on winning others to Christ.
Ephesians 6:12
King James Version (KJV)
12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
I thought about coming up with something profound for the end of the sermon. I like to try to do that you know I like to try to leave you with something profound but the more I thought about it I realized what could be more profound than what Jesus did on the cross and the resurrection as he rocked this whole chess match to checkmate.
The victory at the cross was not just hours… It was His! It was personal on many levels. Checkmate just doesn’t go to the ponds or the bishops. It goes to the king. It’s really His victory!
We have to remember that the battle is raging all around us but the WAR is already won! It. Is. Finished. Not just because of what He has DONE but because of what HE ALONE has WON!
If you have not given your life to Jesus Christ you need to start there apart from Jesus there is only hell.
If you already know Jesus as your Lord and Savior you need to be strengthened and encouraged because I believe if you could look around you right now you would see his fiery angels prepared to do battle for you on behalf of the Creator of the universe knows you by name and loves you enough to give it all.
Let’s pray!
