Alright, let's turn back there
to Isaiah chapter 24. I mean, I'm sorry, Isaiah 49.
Isaiah 49. Let's read that 24th verse. Shall the prey be taken from
the mighty, or the lawful captive delivered? Shall the prey be
taken from the mighty, or the lawful captive delivered? I can
think about nothing that would be more horrible than to be put
in prison. I mean to be put in prison, fastened
in prison, bound in prison. No ability to be free, no ability
to enjoy liberty outside and all the liberties and the freedoms
you have. Well, literally, historically,
that's what had happened to Israel. The mighty was the king of Babylon
and all his wicked forces. And the prey was Israel and Judah. They were the prey. Israel had
sinned against God. And so Babylon, God allowed Babylon
to come in and take them. So that Israel was the lawful
captive of Babylon because they had sinned against God. But the
Lord God promised, through His Word, sending Isaiah to them.
And He did it all for this purpose. He allowed them to be taken captive
to redirect their attention back to the Lord because they weren't
looking to the Lord. He did all this to deliver them
out, to show them He's salvation, not our hand. And so He sent
Isaiah and He told them that He was going to send a deliverer
from a far country. And Cyrus came. And He delivered
them out of the hand of Babylon. And then He delivered them all
the way across those desert sands, those treacherous desert sands.
And He delivered them back into their own land, back into Jerusalem. God promised it. God did it. He did it. Now all of that was
an historical picture to show us a spiritual picture. God operates
everything in history to show us Christ. That's what He does.
Now, this shows us what God has and is doing for His spiritual
Israel in sending His Son. Christ Jesus set His people free. And He's carrying us through
this world like they were carried across those desert sands. And
He shall deliver each of His children into heaven's eye. And
He shall not lose one. I've titled this Lawful Captives
Delivered. We're going to look first of
all at the prey and the mighty. Then secondly, we're going to
look at the deliverer and the deliverance. And then thirdly,
we're going to look at the end. The end. Alright, the prey and
the mighty. Verse 24 says, Shall the prey
be taken from the mighty, or the lawful captive delivered?
A few months ago, well it's been maybe a year ago now, we were
standing out in the front yard, Melinda, our kids and I, and
we were looking across the yard at a squirrel playing in the
yard. And while we were sitting there looking at the squirrel
playing in the yard, all of a sudden a hawk swooped down and picked
the squirrel up and took off with it. And the hawk dropped
it and the squirrel took off the other direction like it was
shot out of a cannon. But that hawk was the mighty. That was
the terrible one. And that squirrel was the prey.
That squirrel had no power over that hawk. The squirrel was the
prey, the hawk was the mighty one. Well, the mighty one that
has taken God's people captive, The terrible one is Satan. He's
the devil. And it's along with all his powers,
all his rulers of the darkness, all his falsehood, false religion,
and falsehoods in this world. Babylon, spiritual Babylon. His
names convey his power. His names in Scripture are the
strong man armed, a roaring lion, the great red dragon, Leviathan,
the piercing serpent, The prey are those that God shall save
by His grace. These are those that He chose
before the foundation of the world and gave to Christ Jesus,
His Son. God has always operated on purpose,
knowing who it was He came to save. He does nothing by accident. You don't buy a gift and set
it up on a shelf and hope somebody will come and get it. Neither
does God. He purchased the gift for somebody
and He brings it to them and gives it to them. God does everything
that way. But his people, like all mankind,
fell prey to Satan in the garden. Now here's the question, shall
the lawful captive be delivered? Satan's a crafty foe. If he'd
come into that garden, that old serpent, if he'd come into that
garden and he by force and by power took Adam captive, then
Adam would have been his unlawful captive. So, If he gets Adam
to transgress against God, against the law of God, then Adam and
all mankind become Satan's lawful captives. And so, Satan used
the woman. He used the woman. He beguiled
and tricked Eve. He did what Satan always does. He did what Satan's preachers
do. They always appeal to the woman. They always appeal to
the woman. Not only the physical female,
but also to the woman as being the church, the bride. They preach
to the bride and tell her she has power over the husband, over
Christ our husband. They preach to the church, the
bride, saying that she has to let her husband do something
to save her. She has to let her husband have
his way and save her from her sin. That's not true. But that's who Satan always appeals
to, the woman, to beguile her and trick her. Paul said, I'm
fearful lest as Satan entered the garden and beguiled Eve.
Your mind should be beguiled, tricked, turned from the simplicity,
the singleness that is in Christ Jesus. He's the salvation of
His people. Not you, not your work, not your
will, not your way, not our letting God do something. He created
the heavens and the earth. We're going to let Him do something?
No. No, no. So Satan used her and
he did what his preachers do. He crafted the Word of God. He
made the Word of God say something it didn't say. He came and he
said to the woman, you shall not surely die. God does know
that in the day you eat that fruit, your eyes will be open
and you'll be as God's, knowing good and evil. He told her there
was something that she could do by her hand to get something
for herself that God hadn't provided. That's the message of Free Will
Works Religion. There's something you can do
to add to God's work. There's something you can do
to get salvation in a way, in something that God hadn't provided.
Salvation is A to Z, the work of God. A to Z. So Eve gave to
Adam, and with his eyes wide open, he ate, and sin entered
in, and death by sin, and death passed upon all men, for all
have sin. And not only that, we're doubly
in bondage because we're born of His corrupt seed and we have
a nature that we're bound to. You can't do something other
than what your sin nature allows you to do. That's all we can
do. The sin nature is enmity against
God. It's not subject to the law of
God and neither indeed can be. The spiritual things that we
talk about and preach about, they're foolishness to the carnal
man, to the unregenerate man. He don't like them. He don't
want to know them. He don't want to have anything
to do with them because they take all the glory out of his hand
and they give it all to God and he wants the glory. So there
we are. We're bound under Satan's power
in our sin nature. Altogether disobedience to God.
I want you to listen to Scripture. If you want to look there, it's
in Ephesians 2.2. I'm going to go kind of quickly here. Ephesians
2.2. where in time past ye walked,"
Paul's speaking here to folks who've been called by the grace
of God. He says, in time past you walked according to the course
of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air. That's Satan. That's the devil.
You walked according to the prince of the power of the air. Now
listen to this. the spirit that now, right now,
Paul said, worketh in the children of disobedience. I had somebody
tell me one time, a priest on that gathering, the demoniac
of Gadara, and I was saying, this is our problem. We're under
the power of the prince of the air. And somebody said, I've
never been under the power of the prince of the air. Maybe
you still are then. Because right now that spirit
is working in the children of disobedience. So this is why
Satan is said to have the power of death. Not because he can
kill and destroy at his will. He can do nothing of his own
accord. But because he was the first
introducer of sin, which brought death, so he was the murderer
from the beginning. And his power is sin and death.
That's his power. It's sin and death. And it's
the law. Satan is the greatest legalist there ever was. He's
the greatest lawyer there ever was. He tempts his people, sinners
to sin, and then he takes the law and accuses them to God with
the law. He's a self-righteous religious.
Satan is. But here's the question of questions
now. We see that we became Satan's lawful captives. Here's the question
of questions. Shall the lawful captive be delivered?
Is that possible? Shall the lawful captive be delivered?
The chains of the lawful captive are as strong as the sanctions
of the law that is violated. That's true. In this country,
they're not very strong chains. A man can get off of his charges
if he wants to. But with God, you can't. The
chains of the lawful captive are as strong as the sanctions
of the law that he's violated. And how strong is the law of
God? How demanding is the holy justice of God? When Christ came,
he said, Verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one
jot or one tittle, one dotting of the I, one crossing of the
T, shall in no wise pass from the law till all be fulfilled. The Lord told Moses, I will by
no means clear the guilty. The wages of sin is death. The soul that sinneth, it shall
die. Every sinner shall die. Every
sinner shall die. Every sinner shall die the second
death. That's right. Every sinner shall bear the just
judgment of God Almighty. Every sinner shall. Every sinner
shall die either in a substitute or they're going to die in their
sins. But every sinner shall die. The holy justice of God
demands it. Now, here's another question
for you personally. Are you a sinner? Are you a sinner? There may be some here who think
that I talk about sin too much. You might think that I keep on
talking about sin, but have you noticed as we go through the
Scriptures, I'm just telling you what the book says. And every
one of these passages where we begin a new paragraph and a new
study in each one of these passages, they all start with this issue
of sin. That's where they begin. God
says that. He starts by addressing this
problem of sin. Now whether you know it or not,
you are a sinner. That's right. Admit it or not,
confess it or not, you are a sinner. Romans 3.23 says, all have sinned
and come short of the glory of God. Now, when you hear all have
sinned and come short of the glory of God, we're apt to think,
well, I'm one in a million. I'm in a pool of a million others
like me. Well, you just forget about all
the others and you just think about you. You are a sinner.
You are the sinner. Just think if there was nobody
else ever going to meet God but you, just you. The reason the
Scriptures keep on dealing with this sin issue, the reason they
keep on talking about this sin issue is because our life is
a vapor. It's a vapor. I can tell you,
it's amazing to me. I just told Melinda yesterday,
it's 2013. Can you believe that? I mean, back in the 80s, I remember
thinking in 2013, I was going to be hopping in my hovercraft
and driving down the street. You know how ignorant we think?
I was thinking, I'm going to hop my hovercraft and drive down
to the movie store and rent me a VHS tape. Riding my hovercraft
down there. We think, I mean, it goes by
like that. And in a blink of an eye, we're
going to meet God. We're going to be standing in
front of holy God in the blink of an eye. And you who are unconverted,
never professed to even believe Christ, and some who have. Some
who have and think they got it all cinched up because of something
they did. Those that are unconverted are dead in trespasses and sins.
They're under the curse. Right now, let me tell you where
you are. You're hanging over the pit of hell by a thread.
And it's like sin in an hourglass. And it's just going by, just
by the minute. And it's about to be gone. And
you're going to be standing in front of Holy God. You're in
the grip of the Prince of the power of the air right now. You're
His lawful captive. You've broken God's law. You're
under the curse. And you don't have a will to
be delivered. And you wouldn't come out of
that bondage even if you could come out of that bondage. That's
the sad thing. A guilty criminal can't justify himself. You ever
heard of that? A guilty criminal justifying
himself? A man on death row being his
own advocate and his own lawyer and justifying himself? You can't
walk an aisle to freedom You can't go up and shake a preacher's
hand and get freedom from this curse. You can't be baptized
into this freedom. Your mom and daddy can't baptize
you into this freedom. There's nothing a man or a woman
can do to get out of these chains. Nothing we can do to get out
of these chains. We're bound. And here's what
God's law says. You gotta die. You have to die. They have no ifs, ands, or buts
about it. You have to die. And God doesn't change His laws.
God doesn't change His laws and say, well, we think that's too
harsh. We want to execute somebody. God's going to execute all His
people. They're going to be executed. God will by no means clear the
guilty. So because it's the very holy law of God that fastens
our shackles tight, because it's the justice of death that must
be carried out upon the convicted, then this becomes the question
of all questions. Shall the lawful captive be delivered? How can
God be just and yet set the captive free in mercy? Now, let's talk
about the deliverer. Verse 25 says, But thus saith
the Lord, Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away,
and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered. For I will
contend with him that contendeth with thee, and I will save thy
children. Shall the prey be taken from
the mighty? Shall the lawful captive be delivered? The good
news is yes. Yes, they shall. Thus saith the
Lord. Not a man. Thus saith the Lord. Even the captives of the mighty
shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be
delivered. By whom? Who's going to do this? Look
at verse 26. I will contend with him that
contendeth with thee. and I will save thy children. I'm sorry, verse 25. I will contend
with him that contendeth with thee, and I'll save thy children.
The Lord God, Christ Jesus, God the Son, that's what He said
to God the Father before the foundation of the world. When
He entered into an everlasting covenant agreement with Him,
He said, I will save thy children. He gave Him a people, Ephesians
1 says, and blessed them with all spiritual blessings in Christ
when He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world.
And Christ agreed, I'll save thy children. You remember whenever
Joseph was down in Egypt, and his brothers went down there,
and Joseph sent them back up to Israel, his father, and he
said, bring back Benjamin with you. And Jacob didn't want to
let Benjamin go, because that was his youngest son. He loved
that boy. He didn't want to let him go.
And Judah entered into suretyship agreement with his father. And
this is what he said, I will be surety for him. of my hand
shall thou require him. If I bring him not unto thee
and set him before thee, then let me bear the blame forever."
That's what Christ told the Heavenly Father in eternity. Now do you
think he's going to lose one? No way. No way. He's surety for
his people. And then in the garden, God promised
Satan that Christ was going to contend with him. In Genesis
3.15, He said, I'll put enmity between thee, the serpent, Satan,
and the woman, between thy seed and her seed. That's Christ.
He's the only one that ever came from a woman who never knew a
man. He's the seed of woman. And He
said, in it Christ, the woman's seed, shall bruise your head,
and you'll bruise His heel. Which is worse, to be bruised,
the heel or head? the head. Christ will bruise
his head. And here's the promise to us
right here in this text. He said, I will contend with
him that contended with you. I came to destroy the works of
the devil, he said, and to destroy your enemies. He that committeth
sins of the devil, for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For
this purpose the Son of God was manifested that he might destroy
the works of the devil. He comes up until the cross,
up until He goes to the cross. Satan tried his best to contend
with the Lord. He tried to contend with Him
all through the ages. Satan tried to destroy the children
of Israel to prevent Christ from coming through the church. He
tried to do that all through the ages. And Satan tried to
destroy Christ as soon as He was born into the world using
Herod. Revelation 12 verse 4 says, the dragon stood before the woman
which was ready to be delivered. That's Mary fixing to deliver
Christ. For to devour her child as soon
as it was born. That's what He was wanting to
do. And He used Herod to do it. He said, kill all the babies.
Kill all the male children. Kill them all. We've got to get
rid of them. Why was that? When you see evil in this world
and it comes to pass. God said, the evil that comes
to pass in this world, the wrath of man shall praise Him. and
the remainder of it he will restrain. So when you saw that evil come
to pass in the world, what was it for? To glorify God. Did God glorify himself with
it? Sure he did. The angel of the Lord came and
told Joseph and he took Christ and he went down into Egypt with
him and by that God fulfilled his own scriptures. It says,
and he was there until the death of Herod that it might be fulfilled
which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet saying, out of
Egypt have I called my son. You see what I'm saying? The
devil's work and what he's doing is by divine permission, and
it only does that which is going to glorify the Father. And those
he uses to bring about evil in this world that we can see the
effects of Satan working on sinners in this world, that we can see
it's bringing glory to his name in some way, even though we don't
see it. That ought to give us rest. That ought to give us comfort
to know. Well, the word contend here means
sue. It means charge. It means accused.
Satan's the accuser of the brethren. And he tried his best several
times over to find something in Christ wherewith to accuse
him. You remember as soon as our Lord
was baptized, the Spirit took him into the wilderness, and
Satan tried, right there tempting him, tried to get something wherewith
he could accuse, wherewith he could contend with Christ and
accuse him and cast him down. But Christ overcame him. The
whole time the Lord walked this earth, He walked this earth,
and it was Satan using the Pharisees. It's Satan using false religion.
He was using the Pharisees to come and constantly say, when
you say you came to fulfill the law, but now Moses gave us the
law, we think we ought to be keeping the law. If you went
to priesthood in most churches today, they'd say, that's the
gospel. Believe on Christ and then keep the law. Go to Mount
Zion and then run back to Mount Sinai. That's what every church
is preaching. That's a lie. It's a lie. Christ fulfilled
it by death. By death. There's nothing else
the law can say to His people. Nothing else. And God's people
walk honorably by His Spirit following Christ, not following
the law. The death of Christ was not owing
to any sin of His own, and it was proven over and over and
over again. Finally, in the Garden of Gethsemane, when the Lord
was going, He said, Hereafter, I'm not going to talk much with
you, He told His disciples. He said, For the Prince of this
world is coming, and He's going to have nothing in me. And He
went into that garden, and we don't know what took place. All
we see is Christ there, sweating, as it were, great drops of blood.
But something was transpiring there where Satan was trying
to, again, get something he could accuse Him with. And Christ just
kept pouring out His soul to the Father. And the Father sent
an angel to strengthen Him. And so then He got up and He
went to the cross. And that's showing us what He
did with all that, never sinning. It's showing us that the death
of Christ was not owing to any sin of His own. It was showing
that He had none. His death was not due to any
power of the devil over Him. Christ submitted to death in
love to the Father and obedience to His command. He said, no man
takes my life from me, I lay it down. I received this commandment
from my Father and herein does my Father love me because I lay
down my life for the sheep. But after proving himself to
be that just one, after proving himself holy and spotless, then
it was Christ who contended with Satan. He contended with Satan. And here's the deliverance. Look
at verse 26. He said, I will contend with him that contended
with thee, and I will save thy children. How's Christ going
to accomplish the deliverance of his people? There's a threefold
manner in which this deliverance is accomplished. In redemption,
in regeneration, and in resurrection. That's how it's accomplished.
Now, first of all, by redemption through His death. Hebrews 2.14. Look there with me. Hebrews 2.14. Hebrews 2.14. For as much then as the children
are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took
part of the same, that through death, that through death, He
might destroy him that had the power of death, that is the devil,
and deliver them who through fear of death were all their
lifetime subject to bondage." That fear of death is awful.
You know what it will do? You know what it will do? That fear of
death will make you realize, I've sinned against God. I've
sinned against God. I've done exactly what my mother
and my father told me not to do. I fixed it get caught. I fixed it get in trouble. I
have broken the law of the land. I have broken the law of God. And you know what it'll make
us do? That fear of death. It'll make us start working as
feverishly as we can to sow us some fig leaves together and
try to cover up our nakedness. It'll make us go into a church
and say, I'm turning over a new late leaf from now on. I'm going
to be in the church every Sunday. This is my New Year's resolution.
And I'm going to be worshiping God from here on out. And all
that is, is Satan tangling you up in more chains and keeping
you right exactly where he wants you. He wants you to look at
your sin and be terrified that you're going to meet God and
go to hell and then start working as feverishly as you can to fix
it. And if He can get you convinced
that you have fixed it, you're doubly damned. Because now, not
only do you have to be saved from your sin, you've got to
be saved from a false profession and a false religion. That's
being twice blind. Christ being lifted up on the
cross, the world was judged. Look at John 12, the world was
judged. Right then, that's when judgment
took place, when Christ went to the cross, and that's when
the prince of this world was cast out. Look at John 12, 31. He said, now is the judgment
of this world. Now shall the prince of the world
be cast out. And if I be lifted up from the
earth, I will draw all men unto me. This he said, signifying
what death he should die. And so Christ willingly, he gave
himself to be crucified. Remember when they came and arrested
him? They came and they had swords and staves and all these things
and they were coming and they were going to take him by force,
you remember? And he said, when I was with you in the temple
every day, he said, you didn't stretch out any hands against
me. And He said, but this is your hour and the power of darkness. This is your hour. It's your
hour. And on that cross, God held back
the glory of His power. God removed His presence and
He allowed Satan and all his principalities and powers to
just let loose on Christ. every poisoned arrow, every fiery
dart, every fiend of hell, every wicked hand, every wicked sinner,
every power and principality and ruler of darkness, seen and
unseen, was hurled at Christ Jesus the Lord on that cross.
He bore the sins of His people and it was just that He had to
bear it. He's bearing hell on that cross for His people. He's
bearing the second death for His people on that cross because
that's what justice demands. And His people can't be justified
unless they die. Christ was bearing it for His
people. He was bearing the penalty of justice. He was bearing the
fiery darts of the wicked. And yet through all of that,
as God is just in allowing His Son to suffer this penalty at
His own hand. At the same time, He's our sanctification. And at the same time that He's
justifying His people and making His people righteous, He's that
Holy One who loved God with all His heart and soul and mind and
body. And He sat there on that cross
and He prayed, My God, My God. My God, My God. He justified him, vindicated
him, and said, You're holy. And he sat there and he prayed
to the Father, casting all his care into the hand of the Father,
saying, You won't suffer, You're holy one, to see corruption.
You won't cast me off forever. Thanking, praising the Father's
faithfulness all the while that He was satisfying justice for
His people. And by laying down his life, Christ spoiled principalities
and powers in him that had the power of death. And he took away
all Satan's ammunition. Took it all away. You know what
he took away? Our scapegoat took all our sins
upon himself. And that scapegoat was let go
into the wilderness and cut off. And that's what happened with
Christ. And all our sins were laid on Him and all our iniquities
and all our transgressions and He took them away. And took them
away so that they're gone forever. And our sin offering justified
His people of all our sins when He died. So that now the law
says, paid in full. Nothing else is owed. You got
a mortgage? You got a mortgage? When you
pay that last mortgage payment, you're going to keep paying mortgage
payments. Huh? Well, why then when Christ says
it's finished and He's justified His people, why do those that
claim to believe Him keep on wanting to try to say, no, it's
not finished. I got to do something. It's finished. The payment's been made. So,
our scapegoat took our sin away. Our sin offering, Christ Jesus
died, that Lamb that died with our sins upon Him, so that justice
is satisfied. And then our High Priest entered
in to glory with His holy perfection and His spotless, undefiled faithfulness
to His Father, and He offered Himself there, His own blood
there in that holy place. And that, my friends, is how
Christ is our redemption. He's our righteousness. He's
our sanctification. He's our redemption. And He's
our wisdom. And when you're given the mind
of Christ, this is what you find out. The result of Christ's obedience. The result of His death. The
result of His resurrection. The result of His ascension as
our substitute. The serpent's head has been crushed. The law has been satisfied. Satan's
power is broken. His usurped dominion over this
whole world was overthrown. Revelation 12, 9 says, And the
great dragon was cast out, that old serpent called the devil
and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world. He was cast out
into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. Jeremiah
31.10 says, Hear the word of the Lord, O ye nations, declare
it in the isles afar off, and say, He that scattered Israel
will gather him, and keep him, as a shepherd doth his flock.
For the Lord hath redeemed Jacob, and ransomed him from the hand
of him that was stronger than he. Shall the lawful captives
be delivered? They already have been. I already
have been. But secondly, this deliverance
has to do with our being regenerated. How is it that I can preach this
gospel to you, to some here, and you can go home completely
unaffected by it and completely just forget it by the afternoon
and care nothing else about it? How is that? How is that? Why
is it I don't stand up here and preach philosophy to you? Why
don't I stand up here and tell you some little moral stories
and try to encourage you to morally straighten up your act in the
world? Why don't I do that? You know down in the South, you
know what they're doing? They've been doing this for a
couple of years now. You know what they're doing in churches? They're watching
episodes of Andy Griffith and teaching a moral lesson from
it. You know what I think about that? You know what I think about
this legal, moral preaching that sinners are doing, that preachers
are doing in the pulpit? I hold it in contempt. I hold
it in utter contempt. And I'll tell you what, those
people that are hearing that mess and thinking that's salvation,
when they go to hell and they meet that false teacher in hell,
they're going to hold him in contempt too. They're going to
gnash on him. The more and more he tells that
lie and builds up his big giant church, the more people he's
got that's going to gnash on him when he goes to hell for
telling them the lie. I hold it in contempt. I tell
you why I don't. I tell you why I don't sit here
and tell you to turn over a new leaf and try to urge you and
urge you and urge you. Because through Christ, who's
redeemed his people, He's going to quicken through the Holy Spirit,
and He's going to overcome that evil spirit within the carnal
man of His people. The Prince of the power of the
air, that spirit that now works in the children of disobedience,
the only one that can overcome that is Christ. That demon-possessed
man in Gadabra, he had an unclean spirit. He was dwelling among
the tombs, dwelling among the dead. No man could bind him. They had tried to. They had tried
to bind him with fetters and chains and he broke every chain.
And no man could tame him. Nobody could. That's your problem. That's the unconverted man's
problem. You're dwelling among the dead. dwelling among the
dead. You've had various chains put
on you. Your mom and dad's tried to talk
to you. Different ones have tried to
talk to you. You've heard the gospel preached. Maybe some restrictions
have been put on you. Maybe you've come under the law.
Maybe you've come under legal conviction. None of those chains
have tamed you. You've broken everyone up. What's
it going to take? It's going to take a miracle
as real and as true as if God took you right there physically
and killed you and buried you and raised you from the dead.
It's going to take a miracle just that real. Christ is going
to have to come in. I preach Christ in Him crucified
because it's through the gospel that Christ enters in and He
takes control of His people, creating them anew. He said,
when a strong man armed keeps his palace, his goods are in
peace. And when Satan's got you, got his palace armed and surrounded,
he's got his goods in peace. But when a stronger than he shall
come upon him and overcome him, he taketh from him all his armor
wherein he trusted, and he divides his foes. And Christ has taken
away all his armor. He's the one stronger than he.
And he enters in and he creates you anew to make you see what
he's done, that he's taken away your sin, that he's satisfied
the law, that he's our advocate with the Father, our high priest
with the Father, our propitiation with the Father, so that now
when Satan comes around tempting you and trying to get you to
go back into false religion and go back into your legalism and
go back into trying to take your fig leaves and your filthy rags
and try to present yourself to God, now you say, No! No! There's my righteousness. There's my holiness. I'm complete
in Christ Jesus. And that's believe it on Christ. And He said when you believe
on Him, the devil will flee from you. You got no ammunition. You
got no gunpowder. You got no arrows to shoot at
you. They're all taken away. If you got no sin and the law
is satisfied and Christ is representing you complete before the Father,
what can He say? He can't say anything. Ah, when
Christ finished with that demoniac, he was sitting at the feet of
Christ clothed in his right mind. You know where you are right
now, sinner? You're not bound to Christ, you're not clothed
in righteousness, and you're not in your right mind. But when
Christ, if He comes in, Oh, that'll be the case. And I pray He'd
do that. I pray He'd come in this morning and He'll clothe
you in His righteousness and give you a new heart, a new mind,
the mind of Christ to see. The work's done. And then you'll
be praising the Father who's delivered us from the power of
darkness and translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son.
Well, here's a third thing. 1 Corinthians 15. 1 Corinthians
15. I'm going to show you this and
then I'll close. 1 Corinthians 15. Look at verse
52. He's going to deliver us by resurrection.
Now you couldn't die and redeem yourself. You couldn't make yourself
born again any more than you can make yourself born again
the first time. And we can't resurrect ourselves. You see
the works all of God. Look here now, here's what he's
going to do, verse 52. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at
the last trump, For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall
be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this
corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.
So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and
this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought
to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting?
O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, and
the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth
us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. He's put away our
sin and satisfied the law for us. No more strength. The stinger's
gone. The power of death's gone. And
then here's the last thing. Then comes the end. Look back
at our text now. I tell you what, you turn over
to Revelation 12. I want to show you something.
I'll read our text to you. It says, I will feed them that
oppress thee with their own flesh, and they shall be drunken with
their own blood as with sweet wine." Now listen to this carefully. Even though Satan is defeated,
though he cannot separate God's people from him, though he cannot
hinder the cause of Christ, he's like a mad pit bull on a chain. And he's barking and carrying
on and raising a fuss all the time, all that he can, because
he don't have much time. Look at verse 15. And a serpent
cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman. He cast
out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman that he might
cause her to be carried away of the flood. And he and the
earth helped the woman. Look at that, the earth helped
the woman and opened her mouth and swallowed up the flood which
the dragon cast out of his mouth. Now our text says, I'll feed
them that oppress thee with their own flesh, and they'll be drunken
with their own blood as with sweet wine. Satan spews out the
flood of his heresy. He spews out the flood of evil
and the flood of wickedness. He spews out the flood of every
kind of trial and thing that he can come up with to try to
harm you. And you know what happens with
all that flood of heresy? He does it to try to carry away
the bride, to carry away the woman from Christ, His redeemed.
But you know what happens by God's divine direction, and God's
divine appointment, and God's divine predestination, and God's
divine providence? The earth, all the heretics in
the world, and all of the wicked men and women in the world, and
all of them, you know what they do? They open their mouth wide
and they drink it up. They drank up Satan's flood so
that his people are not harmed. Now when you look around you
and you see people, people, I can't believe it, I can believe it,
but people just taking, they just open their mouth and take
it hook, line, and sinker. What are they doing? What's going
on around us? God is protecting his people. Don't get in a fuss, don't get
on your soapbox and start talking about how bad the world is and
the shape it's in. It's exactly how God has purposed
for it to be. And God's using everything that's
taken place in it, good and evil, for this purpose. To save His
people, protect His people, provide for His people. Oh, the earth
opened her mouth and swallowed up the flood. That's what's happening.
That's what's happening. He's feeding them that oppress
you with their own flesh, and they're drunk with their own
blood as sweet wine. You know, sweet wine didn't have
much alcohol in it. It took a lot of sweet wine to
get you drunk. And they're drinking a lot of sweet wine. All the
while of her fornication, they're drinking it in a lot. A lot.
But I'm glad, aren't you? Because there's a lot of it to
go around. And I'm glad they're drinking it in. I don't want
to drink it. Everything in this world is according to God's providence,
and nothing will separate His people from Him. He said, No
weapon that is formed against you will prosper, and every tongue
that shall rise against you in judgment thou shalt condemn.
This is the heritage of the Lord, and their righteousness is of
Me, saith the Lord. And in the end, in the end, when
we get that resurrection, and in that judgment day, The Lord
will justly leave all our oppressors to bite and devour themselves. He said in Revelation 16, 6,
they have shed the blood of saints and prophets and thou has given
them blood to drink for they are worthy. But in that day,
The Lord assures you who trust Him. You who right now are enduring
the slander from men and who are enduring men saying, why
do y'all believe that gospel? Who are enduring men saying,
you put too much confidence in that stuff. I mean, it's okay
to be religious. Just don't go off the deep end with it. and
ones that would try to separate you and try to get you out of
it, and mothers and fathers that slander you and condemn you and
say things to you. You know what's going to happen
in that day? God's going to vindicate you. He says in that day, verse
26 of our text, Isaiah 49, He says, And all flesh shall know
all of them will know. All of His people are going to
be made to know Him in spirit and in truth. But that day, every
knee is going to bow and every tongue is going to confess. And
all flesh shall know that I the Lord am thy Savior and thy Redeemer,
the Mighty One of Jacob. You like being with people in
the know? You like being on the side of the victor? You like
being on the side of the ones who who everybody turned against,
but in the end, it ends up he's the right one. And people say,
you like being on the side of that one? That's the side his
people are going to be on. And he's going to say, now, the
rest of this evil world, see these people? I'm their Redeemer,
and I'm their Savior, the mighty one of Jacob. Amen.