12 How you have fallen from heaven,
morning star, son of the dawn!
You have been cast down to the earth,
you who once laid low the nations!
13 You said in your heart,
“I will ascend to the heavens;
I will raise my throne
above the stars of God;
I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly,
on the utmost heights of Mount Zaphon.b]">[b]
14 I will ascend above the tops of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High.”
15 But you are brought down to the realm of the dead,
to the depths of the pit.
16 Those who see you stare at you,
they ponder your fate:
“Is this the man who shook the earth
and made kingdoms tremble,
17 the man who made the world a wilderness,
who overthrew its cities
and would not let his captives go home?”
18 All the kings of the nations lie in state,
each in his own tomb.
19 But you are cast out of your tomb
like a rejected branch;
you are covered with the slain,
with those pierced by the sword,
those who descend to the stones of the pit.
Like a corpse trampled underfoot,
20 you will not join them in burial,
for you have destroyed your land
and killed your people.
never be mentioned again.
Yesterday Ryan talked about how we are sin. How we want to blame everything on Satan but in the end we're a filthy awful people who LOVE to sin. Well, I'm probably paraphrasing it but go back and listen to the lesson, I haven't had the chance yet but will later. So this morning I open up the Bible Gateway bookmark that I use for the bible and I pointed right to Isaiah 14. So I'm reading this and think... wow this is a lot like Ryan was saying. I highlighted verses 16 & 17 because that's what I wanted to show. One day everyone will see Satan for who he truly is and be amazed that we were frightened of him. There are times when I love reading Revelation chapter 19 and then 20 which talk of Satan's demise. This too is one of those scriptures and one where we get in on the action and pretty much wonder what all the commotion was about. So there are 3 things I wanted to write about:
1. We are sinful without any demonic help. Without any supernatural intervention we would have destroyed everything and everyone pretty quickly. It's a lot easier to blame the Devil on everything instead of just sucking it up and not trying not to sin.
2. Satan does mess in our lives. It's throughout the bible and especially documented in Job. Also notice that in God's eyes he can perfectly determine what was Satan and what was us. Satan is very powerful when compared to us mortals. Which brings me to the next point.
3. Compared to God and Jesus, Satan is lower than whale vomit. Once we see Jesus descend in all his glory and how easy he deals with the Devil we'll be amazed. Amazed that we were in fear of this easily defeated foe. But also amazed and probably sorrowful that we didn't call more on the name of the Lord for battle. It's like the devil is racing us and beating us in a go-Kart and gloating and we're dejected. We think it's just impossible because he keeps on winning and he's so superior. Well, compared to walking mortals, yes. But then God shows up in a fighter jet to race and not only wins the race, but as soon as the race started God pulled out a little lead and hit the afterburners and a big flame came out and burned the Devil to a crisp. We're going to be sitting there wondering why we never called in the airstrike before. Please keep in mind that none of this happens until we see God's glory though. Without Jesus we will never win. Without Jesus we're better off just not trying to race. Without the Holy Spirit helping us and God's glory surrounding us we cannot win.
So, lets leave 2 & 3 up to the King of King and Lord of Lords. Let those battles be fought on another plane of existence. There are places in the Bible where people went to battle demons and barely left with their life because they were not equipped. Don't even attempt it unless you have yourself in line and are in the Spirit. Lets work on getting ourselves pure and holy. I realize that as long as we draw breath we'll be sinful, but once we get ourselves in the mirror and under the microscope it'll humble us. I think we need to acknowledge that most of the pain in our lives is self inflicted. We also need to realize that God has limited this pain and that if we truly got what we deserved it would be 100 times worse. The saying... you reap what you sow isn't really right because God limits what you reap. We should be on our knees just thanking the Lord for limiting the pain we've brought on ourselves. We're just such shallow kids though. Eternally ungrateful. Just go through your life and look at the destruction you SHOULD have caused and look at how much the Lord had to restrain it. So lets give credit where credit is due and most of the credit belongs to us. Just ask the Lord to reveal to you what sin you deserve the credit for. You'll probably be sick afterward though.
Sometimes are eyes are not opened to the sin in our lives. The Holy Spirit has not yet convicted us of the sins that we need to purge.
ReplyDeleteTherefore we need to pray that God will reveal, and convict us of all that is unpleasing in His sight.
Then we can grow closer to Him, maintain fellowship with Him and overflow His love into the world around us.
Once we purge our hearts and lives of sin, revival will come in our hearts, our church and our land!