A Return of angels
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Good morning. Open your Bibles to Ephesians chapter six.
We are gonna read Ephesians chapter six, uh, starting in verse 10, uh, all the way down through verse 18. So if you're able, please stand Ephesians chapter six, verses 10 to 18 and hear this for what it is. These are the words of the living God.
Finally be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might put on the full armor of God so that you'll be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our power is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world, forces of this darkness against the spiritual things of wickedness in the heavenly places.
Therefore take up the full armor of God [00:01:00] so that you will be able to resist in the evil day and having done everything to stand firm. Stand firm. Therefore, having girded your loins with the belt of truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, having sh your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace.
In addition to all take up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God with all prayer and petition, pray at all times in the Spirit and with this in view beyond the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints.
May God add a blessing to the reading, the hearing, and the correct understanding of his word. Please be seated.
The title of today's sermon is A Return to Angels, and we're gonna take a step back for the next couple [00:02:00] of weeks, uh, from the book of Hebrews. We've been studying the book of Hebrews, although I will insist this is connected and I'll try to demonstrate why in a minute. But, uh, this week and next week we're gonna do something a little bit different.
Uh, but today is a return to angels and hopefully you remember we've dealt with angels twice. We had a part one and a part two. It was a portion of the sermon and we dealt with angels. But one of the things we never dealt with were the fallen angels, and I wanna address that topic today, and I hope to do it in a way that is interesting.
I hope to do it in a way that is relevant and in a way that actually corresponds to some things that are in the news today. So number one on your outline, if you take your bulletin, there's a couple of things in there. There's a, uh, sermon outline with some fill in the blank. You can take notes, and then there's another handout with a couple of tables, and you'll see they, they have to do with angels.
We'll get to that one in a minute, but number one is fallen angels part one. Fallen Angels part one. And I'm curious, so if you know what this is, you don't have to answer out loud, but you can just wave at me [00:03:00] or something. But is anyone familiar with what Nu Fork is? I didn't know they existed. New Fork is the national UFO Reporting Center, and according to New Fork at the end, or actually where we're at right now, in November of 2025, there have been almost 4,000 reports of an unidentified flying objects, and that's just in the United States of America.
And many would say that this is a low number. We'll talk about numbers here in a minute. But new fork reports almost 4,000. And it's interesting 'cause if you go to their website, they have a map and if you bring up the map, they will show you with with dots, they have red dots and green dots and they stand for different things.
But you'll see, and I find this interesting, so I'm just sharing the facts, alright? But I find this interesting, the East coast all the way to about Kansas. It is densely populated with quote unquote UFO sightings, and [00:04:00] then it gets pretty sparse till you get to California. Then it gets dense again. All right.
Alaska is, is hardly anything there. There's a few sightings, but it's, it's pretty vague. In Alaska, Hawaii is full of UFO sightings, especially on the island of Oahu. Which is where Honolulu is Pearl. Pearl Harbor is. There are a ton of sightings. Number two, three I Atlas. Has anyone heard of three I Atlas?
Well, apparently, depending on what it is, it is the biggest, most unusual comment that has ever come into our solar system. Uh, apparently, and, uh, you measure comments by its nucleus and the nucleus is not a perfect sphere, so there's some differences, but it measures around a thousand feet to 3.5 miles across its nucleus.
It is currently being hidden by the sun right now, and it is traveling at approximately 137,000 miles [00:05:00] per hour. And most people, nasa, the European Space Agency, they would say that it is a natural, albeit uncommon comment, but there are others that believe it's an alien probe. And you might think that people that, that think this, eh, maybe they're missing a few cards out of the deck or something like that.
Uh, but there are some really, really intelligent people for some really, really good reasons who. Are curious about UFOs. One such man is a man by the name of Avi Loeb. Avi Loeb is a PhD in physics. He graduated from the University of, uh, the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and he currently teaches at, and I have to say it this way, Hava.
Okay? Ever since Gilligan's Island, I have to pronounce it vid. And if you've ever watched Gilligan's Island, you know why, but he graduated from Harvard. He currently teaches physics at Harvard, and [00:06:00] he believes it's an alien probe. Not only that, but he would argue, and he has the ear of some very important people, he is trying to convince the government that we should literally take billions of dollars from our defense budget and reinvest it in alien investigation because he sees that as a possible bigger threat.
To our world, and again, I want to stress this man is no fool. I'm curious. Some of you are gonna be old enough, some of you might be too young, but do you remember the Heaven's Gate cult? Do you remember the group, the Heaven's Gate Cult? And the reason I bring up Heaven's Gate is because there are a number of UFO religions.
There are a number of UFO cults that are out there, and Heaven's Gate was one such cult. In March of 1997, it was a small cult and only had 39 members. But in March of 1997, all 39 members, 18 men and 21 women committed suicide [00:07:00] believing that they were gonna free their souls from their body, and they were gonna catch a spaceship that was being hid by the hail bop comet.
Now a couple of things, 'cause you may be wondering, where's he going with all this? Number one, that's an ancient heresy. Ancient man believed that the soul was somehow trapped in the body that the body to use. I believe it was, uh, uh, well now I'm drawing a blank. It wasn't Plato, it was his mentor, but, uh, I believe he said that the body was the prison house of the soul.
Socrates, that's the dude. Okay? Um, and people still believe that. And they believe that by committing suicide, they would free their souls and they would catch this spaceship, and now they're going around the universe, but it gets worse. The founders of Heaven Gate was a man by the name of Marshall Herf Applewhite, and a lady by the name of Bonnie New Nettles.
And this is where it starts to, I hope, make sense why I would talk about this. Marshall was the [00:08:00] son of a Presbyterian minister. He was a worship leader at St. Mark's Episcopalian church. Before he started getting into UFOs, Marshall and Bonnie believed that they were the two witnesses found in Revelation chapter 11.
So oftentimes these cults will pick up on the Bible. They'll, they'll quote the Bible, they'll see that they're fulfilling things in the Bible. Uh, there's a lot of occult stuff that goes on. In UFO stuff. Let me jump ahead. This isn't the point of my sermon, but let me jump ahead. So you see where I'm going.
Angel worship is alive and well today. Angel worship is alive and well today. Not everyone knows their worshiping angels. Just like in the ancient world, not everyone knew they were worshiping angels. Some people do, and you'll remember, and this is how it fits. The book of Hebrews is. The author was writing to a group of people, Hebrew Christians, that were thinking about going back to the old [00:09:00] covenant system.
But that wasn't the only thing. They were entertaining. They were entertaining either the worship of angels or at least the adoration of angels. And the author is writing, and one of the first things he does is Jesus is superior to angels. And if you're even thinking about worshiping the angels, here's someone better to worship.
Jesus is superior. To the angels. The Bible warns against angel worship. It mentions it several times in the New Testament in Colossians chapter two and one Timothy chapter four, and it warns against it. So now grab the chart in your bulletin and there's two sides to that chart. I just want to cover the first side.
We'll come back to the second side in a minute. And again, we've talked about angels, what we haven't talked about, and I'm going to try to be very careful 'cause I know we have a lot of kids in here. And moms and dads, you may have to have some conversations with your kids this week. All right, kids, just remember one thing we win.[00:10:00]
If you believe in Jesus. He owns you. He protects you. He has poured out his spirit upon you, and you are safe. But the Bible does talk about these things and just like angels, and you'll notice I've been using angels the whole time because I'm so used to doing it. But hopefully you remember when we talked about angels, that God created a number of different kinds of spiritual beings.
God created the heavenly host. God created spiritual beings. One kind of spiritual being are angels. But they're not the only kind. In fact, we learned the first time we looked at it that it is likely angels do not have wings. Nowhere in the Bible are angels described as having wings. Seraphim and cherub are described as having wings, but not angels.
Alright? We also learned that there was a number of angels, and we don't know how many, but there was a number of angels who fell. These are the wicked angels. The fallen angel. So I'm just gonna cover this chart real quick and we'll get back to it in a [00:11:00] little while. But most of us, and I'm gonna address this later, but most of us think that Satan is probably the head of all the fallen spiritual beings.
He's the head. And most of us think that, most of us think that another name for Satan is Lucifer. Well, interestingly enough, Lucifer is a very bad mistranslation. And the only text you're gonna find it in is the King James version. It comes from the Vulgate, but basically it was never a proper name for the devil.
So there's no reason to refer to the devil as Lucifer, but he is called Satan. Um, other type of spiritual beings that have fallen or called devils, others are angels. There are fallen angels in, uh, second Peter chapter two, verse four. It describes them as angels who sinned. In Jude, uh, Jude six, it says, angels who left their domain.
Alright. God created angels. Angels were supposed to be his servants. And as we saw the last time, there's a hierarchy of angels. And these angels that sinned. They left their domain. They [00:12:00] wanted to supersede God. They wanted to be in control. They wanted to do their own thing. Angels are called principalities.
Rulers, authorities, powers, thrones, and dominions. Okay, angels and we, we looked at this spiritual beings, we looked at this when we were looking at the Old Testament. It is most likely that fallen spiritual beings, which often in scripture, in fact, in, uh, let's see if I wrote it down. I didn't write it down.
Psalm 97. In Psalm 97 and other places, angels are actually called Elohim. And I don't know if you remember this, Elohim is the standard word that we translate God. Okay? But scripture and other, uh, ancient languages would make a distinction between God, capital G and God, little G. And all it's saying is that angels are somehow divine like beings.
And again, you can look it up. It's in the Bible, they are called Elohim, depending how you interpret Job. They're called the sons of Elohim. Okay, so they're, they're interesting creatures, but they also ruled nations. And in Daniel chapter 10, [00:13:00] we read about it. We read about the Prince of Persia. We read about the Prince of Greece.
We also read about the Prince of Israel. And the Prince of Israel happened to be Michael the Archangel, but the other princes were fallen spiritual beings. And I believe, and I tried to explain this when we were looking at the Old Testament, this is what the nations worshiped. And the nations weren't just imagining, but they were worshiping fallen, fallen angels.
Now that stopped because Christ has come and, and we'll get to that eventually. But in the Old Testament days prior to Christ, these fallen beings were given a certain amount of authority and they ruled over nations. The Nephilim. And if you notice on your chart, I've got it bracketed. The nephilim are found in Genesis chapter six.
They're found again in Leviticus later. Um, and it kind of depends on how you take it. And honestly, I am undecided, uh, but the Nephilim are believed by some really good Christian scholars to be some kind of hybrid between angels and men. Again, I don't know. I haven't come to a [00:14:00] firm conclusion. Their angels are also called deceiving spirits, and then there are some unique, the last two words are some unique names for angels, but one of them, and this is kind of important, is known as the goat demon.
And the reason the goat demon is important, and again, it brings us back to why I am presenting. This is the day of atonement. You see, most of us hopefully remember that on the day of Atonement, the high priest, and by the way, the writer of Hebrews compares Christ's sacrifice with the Day of Atonement.
But on the day of Atonement, the high priest would enter the Holy of Holies. That was the only time he did it all year, and they would sacrifice two goats. One would be killed for the sins of the people, the other one would be released. And it's the second goat. That's interesting because most of us refer to the second goat, and most translations refer to the second goat as the scapegoat, but literally in the Hebrew, the second goat is called a cem.
The second goat is [00:15:00] literally depending on how you take it, the goat demon. And I think a better way of understanding the day of atonement is if your faith is in Christ. Then that lamb, that sacrifice is for you. But if your faith is not in Jesus Christ, there's only one other place to go. That's the goat demon.
That's the wicked demons. That's hell. And that's the picture that's being presented in the day of Atonement. Number two, on your outline, just the facts. Just the facts. And I'm gonna try to cover this quickly because my time is gonna be chewed up. Quickly. But, uh, number one, and again, I wanna bring this back to UFOs, but UFO sightings and reports and what's important to understand why, let me, lemme stop for a minute.
Why is this important? Why am I taking time to talk about this? Because if the statistics are right, your neighbors are interested. [00:16:00] If the statistics are accurate, your neighbors are interested in UFOs. Because if the statistics and the reports are right, and here's where it gets really important. There is something out there.
There is something real to at least some of these, a small percentage of these sightings. Does the Bible have a response? Does the Bible have an answer? This is something that theologians and apologists and legitimate scientists have studied for years. So it is important. It's important because we want to have conversations with our neighbors.
It's important because it's in the news,
but UFO sightings are ancient all the way back to Egyptian Pharaoh utmost. Back in the 14 hundreds BC uh, he had a stone and he had inscribed on this stone what looked like ancient flying saucers burning and, and flying above them. Most of you're familiar with Josephus. Uh, he wrote the histories [00:17:00] of, uh, the Jewish wars.
He wrote the history of the Jewish people. He was a Jewish general who basically traded sides when the Romans were coming against Jerusalem in 70 ad. And he became a Jewish historian and he's written some stories and he talks about, uh, chariots, hurling through the skies. And a lot of people that read that think he's referring to UFOs, I think he's referring to angelic activity.
In modern America, okay? We get thousands, as I just said, we get thousands and thousands and depending on who you talk to, tens of thousands of reports on UFOs. Alright? But here's the interesting thing. Those that study this, those that are, I think, legitimate. Scholars in this area, if I can use that term.
They will tell you that of all the UFO reports across the world, 90 to 99% are demonstrated to be false. They're either demonstrated to be false or they're demonstrated to be something [00:18:00] natural. Or sometimes I know it's gonna be hard to believe it. Sometimes people lie and they make up stories. Okay. Um, but.
Again, 90 to 99% are probably false. That leaves anywhere from one to 10%. But again, depending on where you're getting your numbers, that's anywhere from 10,000 to tens of thousands of UFOs that are unexplained. So my question this morning is, what are they? And here's kind of how it works. People will see A UFO, it'll get investigated.
90 to 99% of the time. It becomes what's called an IFO, an identified flying object. Yeah, but that one to 10% leftover, they're referred to as residual UFOs. They're referred to as unexplained UFOs. Why is this important? Because of the passage we read at the beginning of the sermon, and John instructs us to test the spirits because there are wicked, there are evil spirits out there.
Couple more things before [00:19:00] we really get into the text. We have been influenced. By popular scientists and science fiction, we have been influenced in how we think. Carl Sagan, you might remember him, and I love to do this. It's silly, but I like to do it anyway, billions and billions of years ago. Okay?
That's what Carl Sagan's popular for. He wrote a book called Cosmos. This again is important, the opening sentence. In his book Cosmos, he also made a, uh, television series for PBS. Okay. And as far as I understand, it's the most popular television series that PBS ever ran. But this is the opening words to his book, the Cosmos, capital C, the Cosmos is all that is, or ever was, or ever will be.
Does that sound familiar? Kids? The verse is in your outline. [00:20:00] Revelation chapter one, verse four. Listen to what John writes, John to the seven churches that are in Asia graced you and peace from him, capital H, him who is and who was, and who is to come. I wish I was the first one to make this connection.
I'm not. Uh, Carl Sagan is at theologian. Carl Sagan is a secular theologian. I have a book at home. It's one of my favorite books. The books I like are kind of weird. This is one of my favorite books. It was written by a man named Stephen Prothero, and the title of the book is, uh, God Is Not One, God is Not One.
The eight Religions that Rule the World. And he looks at eight different religions and he talks about how either at different times or in different geographical locations, these religions in their view of God ruled the world. Well, guess what religion number eight was? Atheism. [00:21:00] Atheism is a religion. It has all the elements of religion.
There's worship in atheism. There's a belief system. In atheism, there are ceremonies. In atheism, it is full pact. And there's been plenty of written on it. And Carl Sagan was a atheist theologian, and Carl Sagan said some weird things. Remember, we've been influenced by popular science writers in science fiction.
Carl Sagan said this, every star may be a sun to someone. And he also said this, what happened here on earth may be more or less typical of the evolution of life on many worlds. And things like this have influenced our world, have influenced our country, has influenced en uh, us enough that some people want to take billions of dollars and invest in this.
These are the most absurd statements ever spoken by a scientist. It is impossible for every star to even possibly be a son to some world, okay? For life to create [00:22:00] spontaneously. We'll come back to that. Honestly, on evolutionary grounds using their own worldview. It is an absurdity. The universe is stacked against it.
Star Trek, we're influenced by Star Trek and star Wars. Oh, yeah. Yeah. See, I'm a Trekkee. All right. And I don't mind admitting that I've never been to a convention. I will never go to a convention. But if Stacey bought me some Star Trek pajamas. I'd at least wear the tops.
Okay, so I'm a treche, not, I'm so much of a treche as I actually have definitions for all this stuff. I'm not gonna share it with you, but words like warp speed, wormholes, trans warp, conduits, subspace, we've bought into this and we think it's real. It's not real. Okay? Now, some of them, some of it's real wormholes are real, but if you study the science of a world wormhole, you can't enter it.
So you can't travel through it. And if you could enter it, you'd be crushed at its center. So there's aliens are not traveling through wormholes, they're not [00:23:00] going at sub speed. Okay. Um, we've been influenced by science fiction, but let's go back to the life's complexity thing. Okay. Life is complex. Life is extremely complex.
In fact. Years ago when I was working on my degree in bioethics, um, I was doing my, my final paper was on brain death and how to define death, and this was back in just 2004, so it was only 20. Years ago, and it was actually hard to find an acceptable definition of life. I went to chat GPT this week and it popped right up.
So things have changed a little bit, but the one thing that you need to understand about life, the one thing that you will find in every definition of life is it is complex. It is incredibly complex, and not only is it incredibly complex, but it requires information. And the complexity and the information, where do those things come from?[00:24:00]
In addition to that? Most scientists believe that because of how our universe is formed, that the only kind of life that could exist in our universe is carbon based. Okay. There are other theories out there, but there's no proof. There's just theories. Okay, so the only kind of light that we know of, the only kind of light that makes sense in terms of the science and the physics of our universe is carbon based Life.
Carbon based life is really hard to come by. It takes a special sun, a special planet, surrounded by other planets with just the right gravitational pull, with all kinds of other fine tuning to go on for in the naturalist worldview for life to evolve. There's a really good video on YouTube. And the title of the video is, why Haven't We Found Aliens?
A Physician a A physicist, shares the most popular theories, and the guy that did the video, he's a British-born physicist. His name is [00:25:00] Brian Cox, and the reason I mentioned the video is I highly recommend it, but I wanna read you how he ended the video. He said this, if I was to guess why we see no evidence of other civilizations out there, the so-called great silence.
It is because there aren't any, and there never have been. And then he uses his own worldview, naturalism. Atheism. And he explains why the complexity of life is just not gonna, there's about a 0% chance for life to form spontaneously anywhere. You see, I've said this before, I'm gonna say it again. In order to be an atheist, it takes way too much faith.
I could never be an atheist. I just don't have that much faith and it's blind faith. So three things. Life is complex. It is statistically impossible for life to evolve, unaided by an intelligence and the existence of RFOs [00:26:00] residual UFOs. And I'm just gonna say this, there is something out there. There is an incredible amount of literature on all this stuff.
And, and there are Christians who have had these kinds of experiences as well. There's something out there. There's something out there that the world cannot explain. There's physical evidence for UFOs. Okay? There's all kinds of encounters. So my question is, the reason I bring this up is what in the world are they?
What are they and is, and we as Christians, should we be concerned? Should we have an answer? The apostle Peter writes, sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts. Always being ready to give an apologetic, always being ready to give an answer for the hope that is in you. So what are they? Well, I think probably the best secular response is that they are interdimensional beings.
They are inter interdimensional beings. They come from a different dimension. Now, here's the [00:27:00] fascinating thing. It just so happens that the Bible talks about interdimensional beings. It just so happens that the Bible has an answer for interdimensional beings. Take that chart that I gave you on angels and turn to the backside, spiritual beings interaction with humanity, and I just wanna look at that for a minute.
And can spiritual beings. Beings that are not physical can they interact with man. And according to the biblical worldview, they can, and according to the biblical worldview, they don't all have a nice agenda before them. Some of them are doing it for malevolent reasons, others for benevolent reasons. So if you look at the chart, the first thing that we see is.
Angels Both well fallen 'cause good angels don't do this, but fallen angels can inhabit and control animals. And you might want to add to that. And man, and I forgot all the verses on man, but there's plenty of them in the [00:28:00] scriptures. So we see stories. The very first story in the Bible, there's a snake possessed by a demon.
Pigs have been possessed, swines, frogs, goats. And in terms of the verses for for men. Demons or fallen beings can possess human beings. Matthew chapter seven, mark chapter five. Luke chapter four, Luke chapter eight, and in Luke chapter eight, verse two, it talks about Mary Magdalene and all of us are probably familiar with Mary.
Mary was possessed by seven demons before Jesus freed her, and she became a follower of Jesus. So angels, fallen demons can possess people depending on how you interpret. Genesis six, and again, I'm just not sure about this. Angels can procreate. They have the ability to somehow procreate again, depending on how you interpret it.
Angels deceive people. In fact, they talk about angels deceiving the world. Angels, and this is maybe the most important part. And again, these are fallen angels. Angels can, masquerade or fallen. [00:29:00] Spiritual beings can masquerade as angels of light. In other words, demons can come across really friendly, really nice.
Really benign, really helpful. And it's interesting when you read and there are thousands upon thousands, but when you read these different reports of UFO encounters and UFO abductions, not all of them, but the overwhelming majority of them, either, it's a painful experience that leaves lifelong scars, sometimes physically, often mentally, or it starts out really good until you start to lose interest.
And then it gets painful, then it gets bad. I've already said angels can rule kingdoms. We saw that in Daniel chapter 10 and in other places, okay, Saul was harassed by an evil angel, but angels also announced good news. So we see that, uh, the birth of Sams. It was announced by an angel, the birth of John the Baptist.
The birth of Jesus was [00:30:00] announced by angels. Angels are able to take human form according to scripture. Not only can angels take human form, but they can eat, they can drink, they can have a conversation. Angels can release people from prison who moved the stone? An angel who rescued Peter and Paul from prison.
An angel. So angels can interact with the physical world. Okay? In addition to that, angels serve. This is their general purpose. The good angels. Anyway, they are to serve the needs of God's people. But there's one fallen being that I wanna say a few more things, and that is Satan. Yeah, because we tend to give Satan way too much credit.
We tend to think that he's in charge of way too much. And I covered this in some detail at a Bible study a couple of months ago. So I can only wet your appetite and for the most part, prick your curiosity. So I'm not gonna be able to prove a lot of this. [00:31:00] If you wanna sit down and talk, I think I can. From the scriptures, I'm just gonna give you some of the conclusions.
Okay. Because again, I think this is important. We give Satan way too much credit. Satan is defeated. That's number one. Satan is defeated. I dare say Satan is bound. Now some of you are thinking. Because I can feel your eyes rolling. Some of you are thinking, well, that's just your eschatology. That's just your eschatology talking.
No. When you get home this week, read Matthew chapter 12. Mark chapter three in Luke chapter 11. And listen to the words of Jesus, because Jesus presents it very clear. Jesus says that he came into this world during the time of his ministry and he bound the strong man. He bound the strong man and now he and his church are plundering.
What once was the strong man's property? The question is not, [00:32:00] is Satan defeated? The question is not. Is Satan bound? The question is to what extent? But he is clearly bound. He's clearly defeated. Number two, he never ruled the entire planet. We tend to think because the Bible does use world words like, uh, ruler of this world, okay, prince of the power of the air.
And we tend to think that, okay, Satan was in charge of the entire planet. But I submit to you and, and I unpack this at, at Bible study, it's referring to the Kingdom of Rome. Just like the princes that we see in the book of Daniel Chapter 10. There was a Prince of Persia. There was a prince of Greece. We see a prince of ti in, uh, Isaiah.
We see, I forget, prince of Babylon, I believe in, uh, Ezekiel and these fallen spiritual beings that ruled certain kingdoms. Well, the words used in the New Testament refer to the Roman Empire. The only kingdom Satan ever ruled was Rome and Rome's God and Satan's bound. Satan ruled Daniel's fourth [00:33:00] kingdom.
But hey, let's just say I'm wrong. Let's just say that I'm completely washed up. It is my eschatology. I'm reading into things I'm just wrong. Three more things about Satan that hopefully we can all agree on. He's a creature. Satan, who we call the devil. He is a finite creature. He is not omniscient. He cannot read minds.
He probably makes better guesses than you and I can, but he is not omniscient. He cannot read minds. He's not omnipresent for Satan to rule the entire world. It, it would be impossible even with all his minions. He would have his hands full with the Kingdom of Rome. He is not omnipresent. He can't be everywhere at once.
He's not omnipotent. He's not all powerful. So number one, he's a creature. He's finite. Uh, this is actually number four, but, uh, he can only act with permission. And we see this throughout the Bible. The only thing Satan can do, the only thing any demon can [00:34:00] do is act with the permission of God. And God has a plan and God has a purpose and he's.
These are pawns in the hands of God. And last but not least, he is under the authority of Jesus Christ. He is under the authority of Jesus Christ and kids. This is important. And Jesus is head of the church. Jesus owns the church. Jesus owns his people and Satan is under his authority. But here's the interesting thing.
Because there are demons out there. Even if you think Satan is completely bound, there are still demons. There are still evil spirits that are doing things, but the activity of evil spirit is proportionate with the inactivity of the church. Let me repeat That again because it should hurt The activity of evil spirits are in direct proportion to the inactivity of the church.
If the church would get busy and if the church would [00:35:00] do her job, there would be a whole lot less evil spirit activity out there. I think I skipped it. That was number three on your outline. Fallen Angels part two, number four. Number four, Christians are safe and responsible. Christians are safe.
Responsible. We started today's service with reading one. John chapter four, at least. Uh, several verses. I wanna read one John chapter four, verse four. Again, John is addressing the church, and John says, you are from God. You are from God, little children, and you have overcome them. Who's the them? Well, in context.
In context, it's every spirit who denies Jesus. Okay. And in context of uh, one John chapter four, I think what John is doing is he's talking about people, but he's also talking about spiritual beings behind the people. So he is talking about the Holy Spirit, and he's talking [00:36:00] about Christians. He's talking about people who deny Christ, but he's also talking, and he calls it this, the spirit of antichrist, the spirit who is against Christ, the evil spirit that's behind that message.
And what does John say here? You have overcome them. And you all know this Greek word. It's the Greek word nca. Some of you are wearing the shoes. It translates into Nike. It means conqueror. One who overwhelms. And John is saying, we have overwhelmed those evil spirits because, and this is the important part, because greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world.
You see Paul makes very clear in Romans chapter eight and one Corinthians chapter two, what makes us a Christian? Now, again, we can talk about a whole lot of things, faith, all those things, but it's also the presence of the Holy Spirit. If you are a Christian, you possess the Holy Spirit, or maybe a better way of saying it, the Holy Spirit possesses you.
If you are a Christian, [00:37:00] the Holy Spirit owns you. In Ephesians chapter one, Paul says, you are sealed by the Holy Spirit. He is God's down payment that you will go to heaven someday, and he is also, he has sealed you and therefore he owns you and he protects you greater. Is he who is in the world? I'm sorry.
Greater is he Who is in you than he who's in the world? In Colossians chapter one, verse 16. Paul writes For By Him, by Christ, all things were created. All things were created by Christ, which means he defines all things, which means he understands and controls all things. All things have been created by him, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible.
Whether thrones or toils, or rulers or authority, all things have been created by him and for him. Jesus is king of kings and Lord of lords. And all of the angels, including the fallen angels, are [00:38:00] under his authority. They were created for him. They rebelled. They still must submit to him and to his authority in Ephesians chapter one.
And you can turn to Ephesians chapter one, 'cause we're gonna jump to chapter six right after this. But in Ephesians chapter one, beginning in verse 20, Paul writes. Speaking of the power of God, the power of God in the resurrection, which God the Father brought about in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, far above all angels, far above all human rulers, far above all angelic rulers, whether fallen or not.
And it's interesting because the Greek of the, the, the language used here far above, it's like above, above. It's like Paul couldn't come up with two better words. It's so far above
these falling, fallen beings. [00:39:00] And not only has he been raised above all authority. In heaven and earth, but above every name that is named, not only in this age, but in the one to come. And he put all things in subjection under his feet and again, gave him his head over all things to the church. Jesus owns us.
We are his body, and Jesus is in charge and in control of all things. It doesn't matter what it looks like because he has a plan and he's bringing it to pass. And we're part of that plan and we need to step it up. But look now at Ephesians chapter six. Ephesians chapter six. While you're turning a few pages, I'm gonna read verses 10 and 11.
Finally, Paul is coming to the close of his argument. Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might Depend on God. Put on the full armor of God so that you will be able to stand firm. Against the schemes of the [00:40:00] devil. And this word translated scheme, it basically is a word that means the method or the methodology of the devil.
Uh, cops would put it this way, the mo, the modus operandi of the devil. And here's the interesting thing, because scripture describes it. Saint ain't that brilliant. He keeps doing the same thing over and over and over. The question is, what does it say about us? Because we keep falling for the same thing.
But his methods haven't changed. And Paul is saying, put on the armor of God and you will be able to stand up to his methods and to the schemes of the devil. And, uh, well, I'll skip that for another time. Verse 12, for our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world, forces of this darkness against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.
So Paul is, our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but it's against spiritual reality, spiritual entities. Now, I wanna present, as we read through this, I wanna [00:41:00] present four principles. So here's principle number one. We are engaged in a battle.
Do you believe that? We are engaged in a battle? We are engaged in a spiritual battle. And again.
What demons do in this world, what evil spirits do in this world is in direct proportion to what you and I don't do. Am I sharing my faith? Am I learning the scriptures? Am I teaching my family the Bible? Am I protecting my family? Am. We are engaged in a battle. Verse 13 and kids, this is in your handout.
We're gonna go over the armor of God and you need to list it in your handout and we gotta do this quickly, but you need to list the various pieces of armor. So in verse 13, therefore, take up the full armor of God so that you will be able to resist, literally stand against. The evil day and having done everything to stand firm.
Verse 14, stand firm therefore having girded your loins with truth and having put [00:42:00] on the breastplate of righteousness. And if I were to summarize this, I would say we need to trust and we need to work the breastplate of truth. Do you believe the truth? Do you continue to study the truth? And it's interesting, every piece of armor seems to go back to the word of God.
If you're gonna put on this armor, it ultimately implies you're study in the Bible. You're reading the scriptures, you're talking about the scriptures. Do you believe the truth? Do you know the truth? And are you working on leading a righteous life? You see, the, uh, breastplate of righteousness implies two things.
It implies faith in Christ. Jesus grants you righteousness, but it also talks of sanctification. And we've talked about sanc sanctification. It's our effort. We're supposed to put forth some effort. We have a new king and we're supposed to bow the knee. How is your reputation in the community? You see, that's the breastplate of righteousness.
Do you have a [00:43:00] good reputation at work? Do people at work know that you're a believer or do they just look at you as a hypocrite or do they not even know? What is your reputation like at work? Verse 15, having sh your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace, you share your faith. And this is the third principle.
So principle number one, we are engaged. I think I skipped principle number two, get prepared. Putting on the armor, get prepared. You put on your armor on a daily basis. Okay. It's interesting because police and firemen, every time a police officer or a firefighter goes to work, the first thing they have to do is check their equipment.
And at the fire department we were required is if we're in bed at night and a call goes out and let's say it was a a fire, it comes out as a fire. We were required that we had to be on the fire truck pulling out of the fire station within one minute in full gear. That means you put [00:44:00] on all your yellow pants and your, your coat and your air pack, and you have your mask ready to go, and you had to be able to do that within a minute from a dead sleep.
Do you know your equipment? Do you understand that we're engaged in the war? Are you prepared and do you know your equipment? That's principle number three. Do you share the gospel? And it's not only that, but does the gospel bring you peace? It's the gospel of peace. And that's what I find so fascinating about today's world.
Our world is in turmoil, and yet we're afraid to talk about the gospel. Our world is in turmoil, but so many Christians don't share their faith. They're afraid of offending people, and yet it is a gospel that brings peace. It is a gospel that brings assurance and it is all encompassing.
Verse 16, in addition to all take up the shield of faith, that's the fourth piece of armor. Kids [00:45:00] take up the shield of faith with which you will extinguish the flaming arrows of the evil one. And then the thing that comes to mind here is will you train yourself in the faith? Will you train yourselves in the faith?
Do you believe the right things? When's the last time you questioned your Christian beliefs? And I don't just mean your theological beliefs. 'cause unfortunately there's a lot of disagreement in the church. I mean the church universal, there are different schools of thought and things like that. When is the last time that you actually questioned what you believed, challenged yourself?
Went back to the scriptures. Can I defend this?
Will you train yourselves In the belief and, and faith we've talked about this. Faith includes at least three things. It, it includes on what we know. We have to know certain things, we have to believe certain things, but we also have to trust. And so I, I, I wanna ask you, and I've asked this question before and I'll continue to ask it, do you truly trust Christ?
Do you trust Christ with your life? And it's a hard [00:46:00] question, and it's an easy question to ask in church, but what if your child got sick? Could you trust Christ? What if you lost a spouse? Would you trust Christ? What if you lost your job? Do you really trust Christ? And, and let's be honest with each other it, we don't know how to answer that question.
We don't because until it happens, you don't know your reaction. But I can tell you this, are you training yourself in the faith? Are you reading the Bible? Are you giving yourselves reasons to trust God? Do you understand what he did for you at the cross? Do you understand what Jesus did when he took your sin to the cross and the wrath of God came down upon him?
Are you training yourselves in the faith? Do you bear that shield and do you carry that shield? Verse 17, and take up the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit. Again, the helmet of salvation, knowing, having a reason for believing that you're saved, having assurance of salvation. But what I [00:47:00] really want to get to is the sword of the spirit, because the sword of the spirit is the only piece of armor that Paul defines.
And I find it fascinating and I, I think it has something to do with what I've already said. All the armor goes back to the sword of the spirit because the sword of the spirit is the word of God. And it's interesting, uh, and I've taught this in Bible study, but the, the word in the Greek text that's translated word is not the normal word for word.
I did that on purpose, but it's not the normal word. It's a different word. Okay. And this word in this Greek text refers to a specific word. So basically what Paul is saying is the sword of the spirit is the specific word of God. In other words, when you encounter a problem, when you encounter doubt, when you encounter sickness, whatever it is, where do we go in scripture?
And that's what this word communicates. It communicates knowing this book well enough. That no matter what comes my way, whatever trial I fall into, well even whatever good thing [00:48:00] happens to me, I know exactly where to go in the Bible to deal with this situation. I know the Bible so well. I know it specifically.
I know specific texts to turn to when things happen. And then finally, Paul ends in verse 18 with all prayer and petition. I prayed all times in the spirit and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints. Principle number four is this, you are weak. Know that we are weak and depend on God, and that's where prayer comes in because we need to, we need to depend on God.
I wanna re, I wanna close with this, I, I didn't share this with you earlier, but of all the UFO sightings and stuff around the world, believe it or not, since 1981. There have been five sightings in Bonners Ferry, which interestingly enough is the most in Northern Idaho. Okay, five sightings in Bonners Ferry.
One of the sightings claims to have been an abduction to [00:49:00] actually have been an alien abduction. And I wanna read a portion of what this lady says, and then we'll close in prayer. And it's, it's, it's interesting because there are some anomalies there that looks like some confusion in what she says. So there might be some mis, some typos or something.
But the interesting thing is it sounds like many of the other, uh, abduction reports, but I want to read to you how this lady ends. And again, this is true of many of these reports. She writes, I have major health issues. I have major health issues to date, which are directly tied to others who have also been abducted, but I am now a Christian and they leave me alone.
This may have been a weird topic for you this morning, and honestly, I was trying to kill a couple of birds with, with a single stone. It's in the news. It's important apologetically, but there's something to these reports. There's [00:50:00] something to what's being said, and we have an answer. We have a ready, biblical answer because there's real evil in this world.
There are fallen angels and they truly exist, and we shouldn't be afraid of them because guess what? Jesus leaves. I'm sorry, Jesus wins and they will leave us alone. Let's pray.
Father in heaven help us. There was a lot this morning. Help us think this through. Help us think through angels. Help us think through how angels interact with us. Help us think about evil angels and if we need to be concerned with this father, give us a heart for our neighbors and help us understand how our neighbors think.
And Father, there are a lot of people interested in this. And it is a question that the church should have an answer to. So, Lord, we just thank you for your word. We thank you, Lord, that you have poured [00:51:00] out your spirit upon us. We too have a spirit living within us, the Holy Spirit, and we are protected by that spirit.
We are owned by that spirit. We are loved by that spirit. And Father, you say that we can be empowered by that spirit if we just let him. So Father, give us courage. Give us courage to talk with our neighbors. Give us courage to talk with one another. Give us courage, Lord to dive into this word, dive into the Bible and allow it to correct anything it needs to correct in our thinking.
Father, thank you that you love us. Thank you that we don't need to be afraid of what's thrown at us, but we will always have a ready answer for, I ask this in Christ's name, and all of God's people said, amen. Take your hymnals.
