Thursday
Evening Bible Study
July
30, 2015
Introduction
Do people see Jesus? Is the gospel
preached? Does it address the person who is: Empty, lonely, guilty, or afraid
to die? Does it speak to the broken
hearted? Does it build up the church? Milk – Meat – Manna Preach for a decision
Is the church loved? Target 3300 words
Video = 75 wpm
Job is going through the worst time anyone could imagine.
He’s lost all his possessions.
His children have died.
His health has failed.
What makes all this even more confusing is that Job is a good guy.
God has decided to allow Job to go through this difficulty because He is
proud of Job, not mad at him.
God wants to show the world what a godly man will do when he is going
through a difficult time.
Keep a couple of things in mind as we study Job:
Sometimes Job is wrong in his conclusions.
Sometimes Job’s friends are also wrong.
They can even say things that are true, but they are just not true about
Job.
Be careful about building doctrine upon some of the things said in the book
of Job.
Neither Job’s words nor those of his friends are meant to build doctrinal
truths on.
They simply show us how people respond to difficulty.
Job and his friends had a series of debates to try to figure out why Job was
going through such difficulty.
His friends said there must have been some secret sin that God was judging
Job for.
Job could only conclude that God was just not fair since he didn’t do
anything to deserve such pain.
After the various rounds of debates, God finally speaks up.
(Job 38:2 NKJV) “Who is
this who darkens counsel By words without knowledge?
God was telling Job that with all his complaining, Job really didn’t know
what he was talking about.
God challenged Job by testing him a little bit about how much he knew about
running the world.
God talked about oceans, stars, animals, and birds.
40:1-5 Job can’t answer
:1 Moreover the Lord answered
Job, and said:
:2 “Shall the one who contends with the Almighty correct Him? He who
rebukes God, let him answer it.”
:2 contends – riyb – to
strive, contend; to make complaint; to quarrel
(Job 40:2 NLT) “Do you
still want to argue with the Almighty? You are God’s critic, but do you have
the answers?”
:3 Then Job answered the Lord
and said:
:4 “Behold, I am vile; What shall I answer You? I lay my hand over my
mouth.
:5 Once I have spoken, but I will not answer; Yes, twice, but I will
proceed no further.”
:4 I am vile
vile – qalal
– to be slight; be of little account
:4 I lay my hand over my mouth
Job had asked his friends to put their hands on their mouths to shut up:
(Job 21:5 NKJV) Look at me
and be astonished; Put your hand over your mouth.
Now Job finds that he also needs to shut up.
Warren Wiersbe writes,
Until we are silenced before God, He
can’t do for us what needs to be done.
:5 I will proceed no further
(Job 40:4–5 The
Message) —4 “I’m speechless, in awe—words fail me. I should
never have opened my mouth! 5 I’ve talked too much, way too much. I’m ready to shut up and listen.”
Illustration
“I had a million questions to ask God; but when I met Him, they all fled my
mind; and it didn’t seem to matter.”
- Christopher Morley
Lesson
Shut up and listen
I think that sometimes we fall into the trap of thinking we need to
complain about every little thing.
And we often will end up complaining about God and what He has or hasn’t
done in our eyes.
I wonder if we shouldn’t spend more time with our mouths shut and just
listen to Him, to gaze on who He is and what He’s done.
Isaiah 40 is filled with some of the same imagery of God’s great hand in
creation, and then God says…
(Isaiah 40:27–31
NKJV) —27 Why do you say, O Jacob, And speak, O Israel: “My way is hidden from the Lord, And my just
claim is passed over by my God”? 28 Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the Lord, The Creator
of the ends of the earth, Neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable. 29 He gives power to the weak, And to those
who have no might He increases strength. 30 Even the youths shall faint and be
weary, And the
young men shall utterly fall, 31 But those who wait on the Lord Shall renew their
strength; They shall
mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint.
Keep in mind that just because Job says he won’t say anything else, God
still has some things to school Job in.
So listen up.
40:6-14 Challenging God’s judgment
:6 Then the Lord answered Job
out of the whirlwind, and said:
:7 “Now prepare yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall
answer Me:
:8 “Would you indeed annul My judgment? Would you condemn Me that you may
be justified?
Job has been criticizing what he perceives God as doing, only to make sure
everyone knows that he (Job) is the good guy here.
:9 Have you an arm like God? Or can you thunder with a voice like His?
:10 Then adorn yourself with majesty and splendor, And array
yourself with glory and beauty.
:10 majesty and splendor
Remember that there is a storm going on in the background.
God has spoken from the “whirlwind” (tornado).
Weather events can be a strong reminder of God’s power and glory.
:11 Disperse the rage of your wrath; Look on everyone who is proud,
and humble him.
:12 Look on everyone who is proud, and bring him low; Tread
down the wicked in their place.
:13 Hide them in the dust together, Bind their faces in hidden darkness.
:14 Then I will also confess to you That your own right hand can save you.
:14 your own right hand can save you
God is challenging Job to show what he’s made of.
He’s challenging Job to show his power and might.
He’s challenging Job to show his ability to judge and execute justice.
But before God turns all judgment in the world over to Job, first God
challenges Job to tame just two of His creatures…
40:15-24 Behemoth
:15 “Look now at the behemoth, which I made along with you; He eats
grass like an ox.
:15 Look now at the behemoth
The word comes from the word for “cattle”, “animal”, or “beast” (behemah)
Some of your Bibles may translate this as an elephant or hippopotamus.
Just because you want this to be a hippo won’t make it so. Watch how God describes this creature.
I’d like to suggest it’s a dinosaur, perhaps a sauropod like a
brachiosaurus or diplodocus.
But if it’s a dinosaur, we have a problem, don’t we?
How could God be describing a dinosaur to Job when we know that dinosaurs
only existed 65 million years ago, and they didn’t exist at the same time as
man? Or did they?
Why isn’t the word “dinosaur” in the Bible?
The earliest popular English Bible was the King James Version, translated
in 1611. The word “dinosaur” (“terrible
lizard”) wasn’t invented until the year 1841
Are there dinosaurs in the Bible?
In the record of creation, you see God creating different categories of
living creatures on the fifth and sixth days.
(Genesis 1:21 NKJV)
So
God created great sea creatures and every living thing that moves, with which
the waters abounded, according to their kind, and every winged bird according
to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
The Hebrew word translated “great sea creatures” is tannim, which is sometimes translated “jackal”, but 21 times the Old
King James translates it “dragon”.
Henry M. Morris (The Biblical Basis
for Modern Science, 1984, pg. 352.) wrote,
“If one will simply translate tannim
by “dinosaur” every one of the more than twenty-five uses of the word becomes
perfectly clear and appropriate.”
In 400 BC, Micah wrote,
(Malachi 1:3 AV) And I hated Esau, and
laid his mountains and his heritage waste for the dragons of the wilderness.
If tannim is best translated “dragons” or even “dinosaurs”, then
Malachi is saying that in his day they roamed the “wilderness”.
It is around this time that you see
an art motif growing in China, the “dragon”.
We’ll talk some about “dragons” in
a bit.
Do dinosaurs appear in human history?
Those with an evolutionary mindset will ascribe the following to “myths”
and “legends”.
An Irish writer recorded in 900 AD an encounter with a large beast with
“iron nails” on its tail that pointed backwards. Its head was shaped a little bit like a
horse’s. It had thick legs with strong
claws.
Sounds like a stegosaurus.
There is a Buddhist Temple in Cambodia, the Ta Prohm Temple, built around
1200 AD with a strange carving.
In the wall is carved all kinds of animals, including this stegosaurus.
In England at the tomb of Bishop Bell (who died 1496), there is a brass
plate in the floor of the Carlisle Cathedral.
It looks like a drawing of a sauropod.
I’ve got more, but I don’t want to run out of time.
In July 1845, Australian Aborigines
in the Barwon Lakes area described an animal (called a “Bunyip”) to a visitor,
who drew this.
Kind of looks like the
edmontosaurus.
This was 13 years before a
duck-billed dinosaur was described in any scientific literature.
Tribal people in the far north of
Australia drew this picture of an animal they called a “Yarru” after it had
taken one of their children. The animal
had been trapped in a lagoon in a bay of water. They killed the animal and
retrieved the child.
It’s a pretty good rendition of a
plesiosaur, except they’re supposed to be extinct for 65 million years.
What about the millions and billions of years?
We are taught in school that the earth is 4.5 billion years old.
We are taught that the dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago.
Dinosaur bones are often dated by the layer they are found in the earth.
Evolutionists will say that these layers were laid down over millions of
years.
The problem is that when we observe an animal die, it decays, bones and
all. It isn’t buried and then fossilized
over millions of years.
A better way of explaining these
layers of earth with embedded fossils would be a worldwide catastrophe.
When Mt. St. Helens erupted in
1980, there were huge magma and mudslides that slid down the mountain, burying
things in its wake in multiple layers.
Streams cut through the mudslides
forming a smaller version of the Grand Canyon with its many layers.
The forest that was on one side of
the mountain was blown into Spirit Lake, and the trees petrified.
All within a relatively short
period of time.
A better way of looking at the earth’s geology might be to consider the
flood of Noah.
This was a great world-wide catastrophe that buried and fossilized countless
creatures in layers of mud. (try
researching the Mount St. Helens eruption of 1980 – it was a Noah’s flood in
miniature)
Other problems with determining the age of the earth.
The following material is from Exploring
the Evidence for Creation, Henry Morris III, 2009, pg. 100-107
The earth’s magnetic field is decaying too quickly.
The magnetic field decays with a half-life of 1465 years. Every 1465 years it’s strength is half of
what it was.
If you calculate backwards, the field can’t be older than 20,000 years old.
Carbon 14 problems
Carbon 14 is a radioactive carbon isotope that naturally decays into stable
nitrogen atoms in thousands of years.
Things that are supposed to be millions of years old should have no carbon
14 in them. Yet…
Ammonite fossil shells supposed to be 112 million years old were found to
have a “carbon age” of 32,000 years.
Deep geological strata that are supposed to be millions to billions of
years old still contain carbon 14.
Natural diamonds supposedly formed millions of years ago, yet they contain
carbon 14.
Minerals and helium
When granite forms, it contains very small zircon crystals which captured
uranium and thorium when they formed.
These two elements decay and leave helium behind in the process, which
leaks out easily from the crystals.
These rocks supposedly contain 1.5 billion years of nuclear decay products.
If the rocks are truly millions of years old, there should be no helium left.
Yet granite rocks show that helium has only been “leaking” for a few
thousand years.
Sea floor mud
Each year, water and wind erode 20 billion tons of dirt and deposit them in
the ocean.
The average depth of sediment in the ocean is 400 meters deep.
At the present rate of erosion, the ocean’s sediment would have been
deposited in 12 million years, not the three billion years that scientists tell
us the oceans have existed.
A better answer to the sediment is a world-wide catastrophic flood.
In 1994, Dr. Mary Schweitzer found a T. Rex bone, and when they sliced into
it and found a surprise.
“It was exactly like looking at a slice of modern bone. But, of course, I couldn’t believe it. I said to the lab technician: ‘The bones,
after all, are 65 million years old. How
could blood cells survive that long?’”
Mary Schweitzer, Montana State
University Museum of the Rockies, Science 261:160, July 9, 1994.
Maybe the bones weren’t really 65 million years old.
In another dig, they were transporting a bone back to the lab and had to
break it in two to get it into the helicopter.
It stank when they broke it in two.
Inside the bone they found blood vessels and blood cells that were still
flexible and when stretched returned to their original shape.
Dr. Schweitzer tested the tissue 17 times because they couldn’t believe
what they had found. (Science 24
March 2005, p. 1852)
If Job is describing dinosaurs, how
did they survive the flood of Noah?
Noah’s ark was HUGE.
437 ft. long, 73 ft wide, 43 feet
tall.
The size of 522 train stock cars.
The largest dinosaur eggs were
still only the size of a bowling ball. God may have brought to Noah young,
immature dinosaurs before they grew too large.
:16 See now, his strength is in his hips, And his power is in
his stomach muscles.
:16 His strength is in his
hips
The hips are the upper part of the hind legs.
In describing a Diplodocus … (show picture of dinosaur on hind legs eating
from a tree). Scientists say…
“Studies of weight and stress distribution in the skeletons suggest that
the animals raise their forelimbs and pivot their bodies around the hind limbs
with little effort.” (Diplodocus, a sauropod)
Dinosaurs of North America, Dale
A. Russell, NorthWord Press Inc., 1989, pg. 72
Compare the difference between the upper legs and the lower legs. The “strength is in his hips”.
:17 He moves his tail like a cedar; The sinews of his thighs are tightly
knit.
:17 his tail like a cedar
A sauropod dinosaur’s tail …
“…probably weighed several tons…”
“The length of the tail, around 30 feet to the tip helped distribute the
dinosaur’s weight.”
The Age of Dinosaurs, Peter
Dodson PhD, Publications International, 1993, pg. 52.
Some have suggested that behemoth was a hippopotamus or an elephant.
But look at an elephant’s tale and compare it to a sauropod. Which looks like a “cedar”?
:18 His bones are like beams of bronze, His ribs like bars of iron.
:18 beams of bronze
An apatosaurus weighed about 30 tons
“it also had legs built like pillars…”
The Age of Dinosaurs, Peter
Dodson PhD, Publications International, 1993
:19 He is the first of the ways of God; Only He who made him can
bring near His sword.
:20 Surely the mountains yield food for him, And all the beasts of the
field play there.
:21 He lies under the lotus trees, In a covert of reeds and marsh.
:22 The lotus trees cover him with their shade; The willows by the
brook surround him.
:23 Indeed the river may rage, Yet he is not disturbed; He is
confident, though the Jordan gushes into his mouth,
:24 Though he takes it in his eyes, Or one pierces his
nose with a snare.
:19 the first of the ways of God
God pulls out the big guy for Job to examine and realize just how big God
is.
Further Dinosaur resources:
DVD: “Dinosaurs and Creation” – Mace Baker Ph.D.
DVD: “Dinosaurs!” – Dr. Don Batten
41:1-34 Leviathan
:1 “Can you draw out Leviathan with a hook, Or snare his tongue with
a line which you lower?
:2 Can you put a reed through his nose, Or pierce his jaw with a hook?
:1 Leviathan
Leviathan – livyathan –
leviathan, sea monster, dragon; large aquatic animal
The exact meaning is unknown; the root word means “twisting”, some sort of
“twisting monster”
Some of your translations use “crocodile”, but watch God’s description.
Whatever it is, it’s pretty scary.
The word is only used five times in the Old Testament – twice in Job, twice
in Psalms, and once in Isaiah.
(Job 3:8 NKJV) —8 May those
curse it who curse the day, Those who
are ready to arouse Leviathan.
(Psalm 74:14 NKJV) —14 You broke
the heads of Leviathan in pieces, And gave him as food to the people inhabiting the wilderness.
(Psalm 104:26 NKJV) —26 There the
ships sail about; There is that Leviathan Which You have made to play there.
(Isaiah 27:1 NKJV) In that
day the Lord with His severe
sword, great and strong, Will
punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan
that twisted serpent; And He
will slay the reptile that is in the sea.
:2 put a reed through his nose
The language is that used to describe the taking of slaves, putting rings
through their nose, being in control.
:3 Will he make many supplications to you? Will he speak softly to you?
:3 make many supplications to
you
Is this creature going to be so
afraid of you Job that he’s going to beg for mercy?
:4 Will he make a covenant with you? Will you take him as a servant
forever?
:5 Will you play with him as with a bird, Or will you leash him for
your maidens?
This creature is no pet.
:6 Will your companions make a banquet of him? Will they apportion
him among the merchants?
:7 Can you fill his skin with harpoons, Or his head with fishing spears?
:7 fill his skin with harpoons
Some have suggested that Leviathan was a type of whale. Yet whales can be
harpooned. Leviathan apparently can’t.
:8 Lay your hand on him; Remember the battle— Never do it again!
(Job 41:8 The
Message) If you so much as lay a hand on him, you won’t live to tell the story.
:9 Indeed, any hope of overcoming him is false; Shall one
not be overwhelmed at the sight of him?
:10 No one is so fierce that he would dare stir him up. Who then is
able to stand against Me?
:10 Who then is able to stand against Me?
“Job, if you can’t capture Leviathan, what makes you think you can
challenge Me, the One who created Leviathan.”
Lesson
Fearing God
Jesus said,
(Matthew 10:28
NKJV) And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.
But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
There are plenty of things to be afraid of in this life, but the only
“fear” that keeps you on course to do the right thing is the fear of God.
:11 Who has preceded Me, that I should pay him? Everything under heaven
is Mine.
:12 “I will not conceal his limbs, His mighty power, or his graceful
proportions.
:13 Who can remove his outer coat? Who can approach him with a
double bridle?
Are you going to be able to skin a Leviathan?
Are you going to tame him to put a bridle on him and ride him?
:14 Who can open the doors of his face, With his terrible teeth all
around?
:15 His rows of scales are his pride, Shut up tightly as
with a seal;
:16 One is so near another That no air can come between them;
:17 They are joined one to another, They stick together and cannot be
parted.
This animal had its own tightly fitted armor.
:18 His sneezings flash forth light, And his eyes are like the
eyelids of the morning.
:19 Out of his mouth go burning lights; Sparks of fire shoot out.
:20 Smoke goes out of his nostrils, As from a boiling pot and
burning rushes.
:21 His breath kindles coals, And a flame goes out of his mouth.
:21 a flame goes out of his mouth
It’s at this point that all of our guesses about Leviathan being a crocodile
go out the window.
Some commentators think this is just poetic or hyperbole, like,
When the crocodile churns up the
river and blows out water, the sun reflects from the vapor; and it looks like
fire and smoke from a dragon’s mouth (Warren Wiersbe)
I can’t help but think that God is describing a fire-breathing creature.
There are four verses to describe the fire just in case you think the first
verse was a little vague.
There is a small creature that has fire abilities.
The bombardier beetle that has an explosion producing mechanism. It has the ability to produce and shoot out
two chemicals (hydrogen peroxide and hydroquinone), along with special
“inhibitor” chemicals (two enzymes called catalase and peroxidase) that allows
the beetle to fire boiling hot noxious gases into the face of its enemies with
a loud pop.
A fire-breathing dinosaur sounds a bit like those mythical creatures, dragons.
Are they mythical?
:22 Strength dwells in his neck, And sorrow dances before him.
:23 The folds of his flesh are joined together; They are firm on him and
cannot be moved.
:24 His heart is as hard as stone, Even as hard as the lower millstone.
:25 When he raises himself up, the mighty are afraid; Because of his
crashings they are beside themselves.
The bravest of the brave are afraid of this creature.
:26 Though the sword reaches him, it cannot avail; Nor does spear,
dart, or javelin.
Weapons bounce off this creature.
:27 He regards iron as straw, And bronze as rotten wood.
:28 The arrow cannot make him flee; Slingstones become like stubble to him.
:29 Darts are regarded as straw; He laughs at the threat of javelins.
:30 His undersides are like sharp potsherds; He spreads pointed marks
in the mire.
(Job 41:30 NLT) Its belly is
covered with scales as sharp as glass. It plows up the ground as it drags through
the mud.
:31 He makes the deep boil like a pot; He makes the sea like a pot of
ointment.
:32 He leaves a shining wake behind him; One would think the deep
had white hair.
:33 On earth there is nothing like him, Which is made without fear.
:34 He beholds every high thing; He is king over all the
children of pride.”
Dragons
It seems that the concept of a creature known as a “dragon” is just about
universal in all cultures around the world.
The Encyclopedia Britannica expresses amazement that “The belief in these
creatures apparently arose without the slightest knowledge on the part of the
ancients of the gigantic, prehistoric, dragon-like reptiles”
In other words, they are surprised that ancient peoples from all around the
world came up with this common idea, even though they supposedly lived millions
and millions of years after the dinosaurs supposedly roamed the earth, or
thousands of years before dinosaur bones were “discovered”.
Chinese people have been digging up dinosaur bones and used them in various
ways for over two millennia. They just
called them “dragons”.
“The interpretation of dinosaurs as dragons goes back more than two
thousand years in Chinese culture. They
were regarded as sacred, as a symbol of power, and their use in medicine, recorded
in Chinese medical texts dating back to the sixteenth century BC, still occurs
today.”
Dong Zhiming (Chinese evolutionary
scholar), Dinosaurs From China, p. 9
Nebuchadnezzar mentions “dragons” in an inscription on the wall of Babylon
(see pic)
“Babylon, the exalted city, the city of the god Marduk. At the entrance of its gates, I set massive
bulls and fearsome dragons.”
Nebuchadnezzar II 604-562 BC, inscribed on the Wall of Babylon,
in the Metropolitan Museum of Natural History, New York City.
Jeremiah prophesied of the fall of
Babylon one day…
(Jeremiah 51:37 AV) And
Babylon shall become heaps, a dwellingplace for dragons, an astonishment, and
an hissing, without an inhabitant.
Hebrew - tannim
Ancient secular historians mention dragons.
Roman historian Pliny (AD 70) wrote,
“Africa produces elephants, but it is India that produces the largest, as
well as the dragon…”
Pliny, Natural History
Claudius Aelianus (AD 220) wrote,
“The Phrygian History also states that dragons are born which reach ten paces
in length…”
Aelianus, De Natura Animalium
He also wrote about …
“…a dragon in India, which, when it perceived Alexander’s army near at
hand, gave such a prodigious hiss and blast, that it greatly frightened and
disturbed the whole army”
John Gill (1809) on
Micah 1:8
Jordanus (AD 550) writes,
“These dragons grow exceeding big,
and from their mouths cast forth a most pestilent breath…”
Jordanus, The Wonders of the East
St. George and the Dragon
The story about St. George rescuing the king’s daughter from a dragon seems
to originate somewhere around the 7th century.
An old book about natural history
and medieval medicine, some of which is true and some of which is
superstitious, contains a woodcut picture of a dragon.
The dragon has dermal spines. Just like the dinosaur Acrocanthosaurus.
Hortus Sanitatis by
Jacob Medenbach (1491)
Egypt
Babylon
Greece
Rome
England
Ireland
Denmark
China
Japan
Aztec
Nazca of Peru
American Indians
Francis Schaeffer, philosopher-theologian, has written, “I am not at all
convinced it has been proven that the dinosaurs became extinct prior to the
advent of man. I believe there is much evidence, ancient and modern, to
indicate that dinosaurs and humankind existed on earth contemporaneously, and
that human beings, while they probably lived in different regions than
dinosaurs for the most part, did on many occasions encounter the sometimes huge
and fearsome creatures. The memories of these encounters were so vivid and deep
that they were passed down in a multitude of cultures as legends, painted on
cave walls, represented in pottery, and written of in literature.”
What do you think?
Satan
I find it interesting that the two concepts of “dragons” and “Satan” are
written off in the world as some sort of myths.
Yet we have learned that Satan is very real. It’s one of his greatest deceptions to fool
the world into thinking he doesn’t exist.
A couple of lessons…
Lesson
Don’t play with Satan
(Job 41:5 NKJV) Will you
play with him as with a bird, Or will you leash him for your maidens?
I get the feeling from some people that they think they’re smarter than
Satan. I remember one fellow telling me years ago that he was going to use
Satan’s own tactics against him and what he meant was that he was going to lie
and trick someone into being good. It didn’t work. It caused a lot of grief.
Satan is a cruel task master, not someone who is going to be your slave.
Quote from Dilbert: Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, because you
are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.
Lesson
Use the right weapons
(Job 41:26 NKJV) Though the sword
reaches him, it cannot avail; Nor does spear, dart, or javelin.
Satan, like leviathan, is FAR too big for us to handle on our own with our
own kinds of ideas or weapons.
We need God’s weapons.
There are the only weapons that are effective against Satan.
(Ephesians 6:14–18
NKJV) —14 Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on
the breastplate of righteousness, 15 and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of
peace; 16 above all,
taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery
darts of the wicked one. 17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit,
which is the word of God; 18 praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit,
being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the
saints—
Lesson
Satan is going to lose
(Isaiah 27:1 NKJV) In that
day the Lord with His severe
sword, great and strong, Will
punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan
that twisted serpent; And He
will slay the reptile that is in the sea.
(Revelation 12:7–11 NKJV) —7 And war
broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon; and the
dragon and his angels fought, 8 but they
did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer.
This war will take place in the
middle of the Tribulation period. Up until that time, Satan has and continues
to have access to heaven. He is known as the “accuser of the brethren”.
9 So the great dragon was cast out, that
serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he
was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. 10
Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, “Now
salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ
have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day
and night, has been cast down. 11 And they
overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and
they did not love their lives to the death.
Victory over Satan comes from three
things:
The blood of Jesus is what covers our sins. It is what has paid the
price for our sins so that when Satan accuses us, he has nothing against us
because God has forgiven us.
The word of testimony not only includes telling people what Jesus has
done in your life, but it included God’s Word, which is the testimony of God’s
people.
Not loving their lives to death, how can Satan defeat you if you’re willing to die for
Jesus?
Lesson
Pride and dragons
God described Leviathan …
(Job 41:34 NKJV) He beholds
every high thing; He is king over all the children of pride.”
This too is an apt description of Satan.
Pride is the sin that caused Satan to rebel against God:
(Isaiah 14:13–14
NKJV) —13 For you have said in your heart: ‘I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt
my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation On the
farthest sides of the north; 14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be
like the Most High.’
God is opposed to pride.
(1 Peter 5:5–6
NKJV) —5 Likewise you younger people, submit yourselves to your
elders. Yes, all of you be submissive to one another, and be clothed
with humility, for “God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble.” 6 Therefore humble yourselves under
the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time,
I wonder if this isn’t somehow a bit of a warning towards Job against
pride.
It seems that as the arguments have gone on between Job and his friends,
that there has been a bit of pride slip into Job’s remarks.
And when things turn around for Job, part of what happens in his life is a
shift towards humility. He will exclaim:
(Job
42:6 NKJV) Therefore I abhor myself, And repent in dust and ashes.”