Transcription
[Music] Well, this morning we continue in our series on angels and demons. It's a fascinating look at a topic that maybe we hear a little bit about, but honestly, within the church, we don't talk too much about. The fact of the matter is, though, we live in a supernatural world. We live in a world that is populated by unseen supernatural beings whose activities intersect our life. Whether we see it or not does not negate the reality of their activity. For our purposes, we have generically classified them into two groups: angels, who are the good and godly supernatural beings, and demons, who are the rebellious and evil supernatural beings.
Now, the reason why we're taking time with this is because there are three things I think we have to settle in our heart. Number one, as believers, we need to be reminded, and as unbelievers, we need to be people need to be awakened to the reality of the unseen world and the beings who are a part of it. Second, it's important for you and I to think biblically about celestial beings. I'm afraid that much of what people, Christians, believe about angels and demons ain't necessarily so. It's conditioned by legend, by myth, by sentimentality rather than by the word of God. So, it's important for us to hear what the Bible says about it. Third, and I think maybe most important of all, is it equips us both to understand and to fight the good fight of the faith, to engage in spiritual warfare, because there is a spiritual battle.
Now, I'm going to say at the start of this because I'm going to get you ready to take a, a little bit of a journey with me. This is very unique. I'm going to, I'm going to venture to say that probably, if you've been a Christian for very long, uh, you have never heard somebody cover the text I'm going to cover with you this morning. Uh, but I want to. And I debated about doing it from before we started the series and, and really thought, probably I won't. But then the more I thought about it, the more I thought, you know, this is a very important topic for people to understand. It has a lot of bearing on, as you'll see at the end, as to how we view life, how we fight spiritual battles. I think you'll find it very, very fascinating. But I'm just going to say upfront that you're going to kind of have to lean in. You're going to have to press through a, through passages that are from what you might call the pots and pans section of the Old Testament. You know, places where you're not usually reading for inspiration and encouragement. But you'll find that when you do that, it is, uh, very interesting.
I want to talk to you today about the second demonic rebellion that scripture tells us about. Over the last two weeks, we looked at the first rebellion, the rebellion that happened in the Garden of Eden when Satan rebelled against God, tempted Eve, and mankind fell. We learned in those messages where evil came from, where Satan came from, what Satan does, and where Satan is headed. Let me say this: though Satan may arguably be the most powerful evil being, there is nothing in scripture that indicates he is over or in charge of all the other evil beings. That while they may share a united opposition to God, it doesn't mean they are united in their allegiance to Satan. So, as we come to this second rebellion, we're not going to be talking about Satan, but we are going to be talking about evil spirits who did something that is shocking as we talk about it today. And as Bible readers or Bible writers and authors reflect on it in the New Testament, they find it to be equally shocking.
The text we're going to start in is Genesis chapter 6. And so if you have your iPhone or, or, um, your Bible, you can turn there. We'll bring it up on the screen. Genesis chapter 6 to set the stage is, is the chapter where we're introduced ultimately to a man named Noah. Remember, he built an ark and there was a flood and the animals came onto the ark. It was God's, uh, preservation of mankind and the animal kingdom in the midst of a worldwide cataclysm. Prior to that, we have a prologue in the four verses that tells us a bit of what's going on on the earth at that time. Um, later in that prologue, there are statements like this, that God looked at men and the thoughts of their heart were only continually evil all the time. I mean, mankind was completely to the, to the core and to the person evil, with the exception of one man and his family, Noah. It's, it's an unthinkable thing to realize how evil the world was. Compounding the evil of humanity was the work of demonic beings who did something that is shocking. Let's read it.
"When men began to multiply on the face of the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came into the daughters of men, and they bore children to them."
Now, that passage will introduce more questions than we can possibly answer for two reasons. First and foremost, the Bible doesn't answer every question that we might have on this passage. Second, as we move through it, there are things we would ask of the text that, that there's just no way to be able to know some of the answers. But the Bible does give us some insight into some things. Let's pick it up in Genesis 6 and verse one. We'll just go verse by verse.
"When men began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them." So, uh, what it's saying there is it's not saying that as men began to multiply on the face of the earth, only daughters were born. We know that is not the case because in Genesis 5, it's a genealogy and it lists so-and-so begat this son and he begat this son and it lists all the sons. So, it's not, it's not saying that. What it's doing is the writer of Genesis is setting up a contrast in verse one to what we're going to read in the verses that follows in verse two. It's a contrast between the daughters of men and the sons of God. Look at it.
Verse two: "The sons of God saw that the daughters of men were attractive and they took as their wives and they chose." Now the question immediately arises: Who are the sons of God? And, and this is not as complicated as some people would want to make it because that phrase "sons of God" appears five times in the Old Testament and every single time it refers to celestial beings. Wow. You have it twice in this passage and then you have it in the book of Job. In Job chapter 1 and verse 6, we read this: "Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them." Remember we've talked about the divine council. We've talked about angelic beings, good and evil, who present themselves before the throne of God. And there is, there are things that happen. We looked at that in me in the first message. Here you have this council and the sons of God. These are, these are celestial beings, sons of God. Uh, the, the term itself doesn't necessarily mean that they are good angels. Satan's among them. So we know there are evil angels in this gathering. We look in verse, verse one of chapter 2 again: "There was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them to present himself before the Lord." Then you have the phrase in again in chapter 38:7 when God is saying to Job, "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? When the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy." So the term "sons of God" always refers to angelic beings. The use of the term "sons of God" is, is confined in that way. And the oldest interpretations of this text, the traditional Jewish one, the views of the rabbis and the conservative Jewish commentators, people like the at Hebrew University, uh, a man who's since passed away, Umberto Cassuto, who wrote a two-volume set on the first 12 chapters of Genesis, um, would say that the sons of God refers to fallen angels.
Now back to chapter 6 and verse two. "The sons of God," so you've got fallen angels, "saw that the daughters of men were attractive and they took as their wives any they chose." This is shocking. Fallen angelic beings having sexual relationships with human women. I mean, it's the stuff that people make have made movies about. It's, it's, it's shocking. It's hard to imagine. You say, "But I thought Matthew chapter 22 says angels can't marry, nor are they given in marriage." It, it doesn't say they can't. It just says they don't. We have then two options for understanding what's happening here. Either these fallen angels are inhabiting male human bodies and producing demonic offspring, which I think is a, uh, I don't think that's what it's saying. Or it's actual angelic beings who we know can appear in human form. We know that. I mean, what does the writer of Hebrews say? He says in chapter 13 and verse two, "Be careful to entertain strangers, for in doing so, some have entertained angels unaware." So we know that, that, that angels can appear in human form and, and look exactly like human beings. Whichever way you go on your understanding of that, what you have is fallen angelic beings overstepping their bounds.
And here's what's interesting. The New Testament commentaries on this. In 2 Peter, we have this in chapter 2 and verse 4: "For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment." So whatever these angels did, it was so bad that Peter's talking about that he, look at this phrase, "cast them into hell." Tartarus in the Greek. Um, we would transliterate it, he tarterized them. And that's not what you do with your fish when you're at the restaurant. You dip it in the little. No, he put them in hell in chains. The word has its roots in Greek mythology, but in Peter's day, both to the Jews and the Greeks, Tartarus was the worst place a person could go. It was the deepest pit. It was a place of darkness. And it was the place of worst eternal suffering. And by the way, other demons know about this group and they don't want to go there. You say, "How do you know that?" Well, because Jesus when he met the, the Gerasene demoniac, remember in Luke's gospel, we'll look at that in Luke chapter 8. This demoniac comes and Jesus begins to speak to the demons and, and he says, "What is your name?" And his legion, for we are many. And then they began to beg Jesus not to, uh, send them into the abyss, into that place. And they say, "No, let us go into this herd of pigs, 2,000 pigs." And Jesus let them go. And the pigs rushed down the mountainside into the Sea of Galilee and were drowned. And the people came out of the village and said, "Hey, listen. Uh, we need you to leave." And Jesus left. But suffice it to say, the angels or the demons know about that place.
So the question arises really, who are those angels that are in Tartarus? And what did they do that would cause God not to spare them? I mean, and what did they do to deserve that kind of punishment? I mean, because after all, you've got to, you've got to imagine there's a lot of really bad evil spirits running around doing a lot of terrible things and they don't get sent there. Well, in Jude verse 6, Jude talks about this and Jude's the second to last book in the Bible. Jude, incidentally, was a brother of our Lord Jesus Christ. Uh, so he was the son, the biological son of both Joseph and Mary. And "the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day." So notice they did not stay in their own position of authority but left their proper dwelling. They moved beyond the sphere of their celestial limitations as directed by God. You say, "In what way? What did they do?" Well, verse 7, the next verse says, "Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire." Whatever they did, it was like Sodom and Gomorrah.
Now, what is it that the Bible tells us happened at Sodom? Remember in Genesis chapter 18, that two angels come in to Sodom and when they come in, they're sitting in the town square and Lot comes in from working in the field and Lot says, "Uh, hey, you need to come stay with me." And they're like, "No, we'll just hang out in the square." And he's like, "Uh-uh, you need to come with me." And he knows sooner gets him in the house, they're having dinner and the men of the city, the Bible says, gathered around Lot's house and they wanted Lot to bring the two men out who were in fact angels so that they could have sexual relationships with them. In other words, what you have at Sodom is you have the men of Sodom lusted after angels. Here you have angels lusting after humans. Say, "When did that happen?" Well, there would be some indication that it happened at the time of Noah because in 1 Peter chapter 3 and verses, uh, 18, 19, 20, 21, it talks about that. We'll be looking at that next week. And then in 2 Peter chapter 2:5, it places it around the time of the flood.
But let's go back to Genesis chapter 3 for the sake of time. "Then the Lord said, 'My spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh. His days shall be 120 years.'" Now, what that is saying is that that is not saying that people are going to live to be 120 years old. We know that's not true because the story is in the context of Noah. And Noah, as we're introduced to him in a few verses later, is 500 years old. He'll be 600 years old. It'll take him 100 years to build the ark, and then he'll live 350 years after that. We also know that Abraham, generations later, Abraham lives to be 175. His son Isaac lives to be 180. His Isaac's son Jacob lives to be 147. So, we know it's not saying that. You say, "What's it saying?" What God is saying is in the midst of this evil, as we read this prologue prior to the flood, God is saying, "Listen, I'm going to give men 120 years to repent." Which says something about the incredible grace of God. In his justice, he must judge. In his love and care for people, he doesn't want anybody to be there. He would rather people repent. And so he's saying, listen, 120 years, judgment is coming.
Then we read this, "The Nephilim." I want you to remember this word, Nephilim. The word is plural in the Hebrew and it's translated, it means giants. So, "the giants were on the earth in those days." Say, "What do you mean giant?" Just, just how you and I would understand giants. "The giants were on the earth in those days. And also afterward, how where did giants come from? How do, how do we get giants in here? When the sons of God came into the daughters of men, and they bore children to them." Yeah. The giants are the offspring. The Nephilim are the offspring of demonic beings cohabitating with human women. Goes on and says, "These were the mighty men. These were in the Hebrew, the Gibborim. These were these were warriors. These are demonic quasi-human giant warriors, fearsome, who were of old the men of renown." So what you have is you have when the evil spirits cohabitate with women, it creates giants. The Bible calls them Nephilim. And you can read the story in Genesis 6, 7, 8, 9. God judges the earth. He wipes out all of humanity except for Noah. And Noah and his family repopulate the earth.
But I want you to notice something here in, in this verse. "The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward." In other words, they were there during the days of the flood, but then the Nephilim show up again a little later in the Old Testament. It's very, very interesting. Maybe you have read the Bible and you've, you've come across this, this story and you've thought, "Okay, they're wiped out." But then all of a sudden you're like, "Well, where did they come from? They're back again. I thought everyone was wiped out in the flood. How, how could they be back?" And this verse answers it. "And also afterward." So there's an angelic demonic rebellion that says, "God, I'm not going to stay just in the spirit realm. I'm going to go cohabitate with women for the purpose of producing offspring that will be demonic warrior giants." And it happens before the flood and it happens again after the flood. You say, "Well, where do you see that after the flood?" You see it in Numbers 13.
When you come to Numbers 13, let me just set the stage. Now, we're millennia, a couple of millennia after the flood. Moses, remember Moses, he leads the children of Israel, the nation of Israel, up out of Egypt and, and, uh, you know, they're, he's going to lead them into the promised land. And he says, he says, "Here's what we're going to do. I'm going to take representatives from each tribe in Israel, 12 of them, and I want you guys to go up and spy out the land, look around, see how the land lays, see what's there, and bring back a report on the land, whether it's good, whether it's not good, what it's like, so that we know, you know, we can go up and take it." And the spies come back and the spies say, you know what, the land is amazing. And they talk about all the good things of the land. And then they get down to the end of their report and they say, you know, there's just one problem and, and it's a really big problem. Literally, there are giants in the land. Yeah. Look at it.
"However, the people," so it's great land, great land, love the land, awesome land. "However, the people who dwell in the land are strong and the cities are fortified and very large. And besides, we saw the descendants of Anak there." You say, "Well, that's, how do you know that's a giant?" Look at it in verse 33. "And there we saw the Nephilim. Remember that name? The sons of Anak." So the Nephilim, now there's a well-known giant by the name of Anak, and the Bible tells us three of his sons' names because Caleb, who is one of the spies who believed they could take the land, he kills the three sons of Anak. But the Anakim are now will be known as a people group as Anakim. So if you have Anak or Anakim, so it says, "We saw there the Nephilim. We saw giants, the sons of Anak, and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers. And so we seemed to them." We can't take the land. We can't go up there. There's giants. And we felt like a little tiny grasshopper. And they thought we looked like little tiny grasshoppers. This is a very interesting thing that you see.
So, if we could put it this way, because I'm going to read you some other scriptures. The Nephilim are the sons of Anak or Anakim. They're also the Rephaim or Rephaim, because there are giants in that whole region. It's very, very interesting. Now let's go to Deuteronomy chapter 2. And Moses is recounting before he dies the journey God took the nation of Israel on. And, uh, you, you remember this story that the children of Israel, they were afraid of the giants. They said, "We can't fight them." And they wouldn't go up into the land. And so God judged them and said, "You're going to have to spend 40 years in the desert." 40 years pass and now a new generation's there. And, and they're going to, they're going to go up and take the land under Moses and Joshua.
"And the Lord said to me," that's Moses, "Do not harass Moab or contend with them in battle, for I will not give you any of their land." You say, "What's happening here?" So, as the nation of Israel is coming up to take the land of Canaan, they're going to have to go through some countries to get there. And he's saying, when you get to the land of Moab, you're going to have to pass through there. You don't get their land. Don't try to battle them. Don't try to attack them. But then it tells us a little bit about kind of their history. "For I will not give you any of their land for a possession because I've given R," that's the land of Moab, "to the people of Lot." Those are the descendants. You know, Lot was their, was their founder, for a possession. "The Emim formerly lived there, a people great and many and tall as the Anakim." So there are giants that lived in Moab. They were called the Emim. They were as tall as the Anakim. Like the Anakim, they're also counted as Rephaim. So that's another name for giants. So you could call all of these, the Nephilim could be called Anakim. They could be called Rephaim. They could be called Emim, but the Moabites call them Emim.
Now hold with me here because you're going to set, I'm going to give you more names and you're going to be like, "What in the world is this about?" But hang on for just a second because when it all comes together, it's going to like blow your mind. Okay? So get ready to get your mind blown. Okay, here we go. Next scripture.
"And when you approach the territory of the people of Ammon," now this is another. So you have Moab, you have Moab, you have Ammon, and I'm going to show you a map here, and it'll all make sense. "Do not harass them or contend with them, for I'll not give you any of their land. And, and here's what he says. It's also counted as a land, the land of Ammon, as a land of the Rephaim." What? That land's got giants in it, too. Rephaim. "The Rephaim formerly lived there, but the Ammonites called them Zamzumin. And the people, a people great many and tall as the Anakim, but the Lord destroyed them before the Ammonites." What you have is you have God wiping out the giants in that particular case. It's, it's very, very interesting.
Now, Deuteronomy chapter 3 and 11. They're going to go up and they go, they go past Ammon and now there there's a kingdom called the Amorite kingdom led by a guy named Og, king of Bashan. He was the last survivor of the giant Rephaim. He's a giant. His bed was made of iron and was more than 13 feet long and six feet wide. So, you're wondering how big these people are. They're giants. So they're big. Joshua will recount Og and say he was a remnant of the Raphaim. And here's what's interesting about this. He's from Bashan. Bashan's literally the place of the serpent. In extra-biblical literature, you say, "What does that mean?" That means literature that's not Bible literature. The Ugaritic texts. It says that beings came down from heaven onto Mount Hermon, went over to Bashan, the place of the serpent, cohabitated with women, and produced giants. So the pagan people understood that to have happened. And in the Bible, we have a record, an explanation of some of that.
Now, what happens is Moses takes care of all of the east side of the Jordan River. And now Joshua is going to lead the people into conquer the land of Canaan. And when Joshua goes in there, if you read the battles, and we won't take time to look at, he kind of goes over here and then he goes over there. And it's like it's a targeted campaign. And there's certain cities where he kills everyone and burns the city to the ground. But there's a lot of cities where he doesn't. I don't know whether you've ever asked why does he kill everybody in some cities and burn it to the ground and why doesn't he in others? And let me tell you why this is important because there are people who doubt the veracity of the Old Testament and refuse to believe in the bi, the biblical God because they say, "What a nasty God because he goes into the land of Canaan and wipes whole people groups out. How can that be a God of love?" This answers that question because what you have is you have Joshua going in and doing a targeted campaign and the places where he's burning the city to the ground and wiping everybody out are the places where you have the Nephilim living. It's a very interesting thing to look at and to watch.
Look at it in Joshua chapter. This is a summary of the military conquest. "And Joshua came at that time and cut off the Anakim." So that's, remember the Nephilim, "from the hill country, from Hebron, from Debir, from Anab, and from all the hill country of Judah and from all the hill country of Israel. Joshua devoted them to destruction with their cities." That means he wiped them out and he didn't leave anybody alive. And you're going to read that five times in the record. He does it on five different places. He wipes everybody out and doesn't leave anybody alive. Burns the city to the ground. Now watch this. "Now there was none of the Anakim left in the land of the people of Israel." It was a campaign to eradicate these demonic quasi-human people. "Only in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod did some remain." Let me just suggest you see this name Gath. That town Gath. Yeah, we know the name of a giant who lived in Gath. Yeah. Yeah. What's his name? Goliath. Yeah.
Look at it in 1st Samuel chapter 17. "Then Goliath, a Philistine champion from Gath, came out of the Philistine ranks to face the forces of Israel. He was over 9 feet tall." I'm just telling you, this is where Goliath comes from. He is one of the Nephilim. He is a, he is the product of a demonic union between evil beings and human women. You, you see, he's not the only giant that David and his forces will fight. Later we read in 2 Samuel this: "Once again the Philistines were at war with Israel. And when David and his men were in the thick of battle, David became weak and exhausted. And Ishbi-benob was a descendant of one of the giants and his spearhead weighed more than seven pounds." I mean, it's got, you've got to be a pretty big giant, pretty strong person to have a spear and the tip of it seven pounds. And then it goes on and it, it says he was armed with a new sword and he cornered David's about to kill him. Go on to the next giant. We'll just kind of read through these. "And there was Saf, another descendant of the giants. And during another battle, a Gob, Elhan son of Jaare-oregim the Bethlehemite, killed the brother of Goliath of Gath." And then you read on and there's a, another, and they encountered a huge man with six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot, 24 in all, who was also a descendant of the giants. But when he defied and taunted Israel, they killed him. I mean, now the question is, what's the point? Some of you are like, "What's the point?"
Remember, we're talking about spiritual warfare. Yeah. Yeah. This was a demonic rebellion intended to thwart God's plan. Right? Put it to you this way. Abraham, a thousand years before David, 500 years before Moses, Abraham. The Bible says this: "The God of glory appeared to Abraham and said, 'Leave your people, your father's household, your people, and your country, and go to the place I will show you as an inheritance.'" And Abraham makes this several hundred mile journey, and he winds up where? In the land of Israel. And when he's there at Israel, at a place called Bethel, Genesis 12, the Bible says this: "God appeared to him and God said, 'To you and your descendants I will give this land,' and through you all the nations of the earth will be blessed." Do you know what's interesting? Abraham lives in the land. He's at Hebron. There's no giants there. When he's there, he goes around the land. There's never a mention of giants. But the evil spirits heard God's promise to Abraham and the evil spirits said, "You know what? We're going to stop him." Watch this. This is a very interesting thing. Give me the map here if you wouldn't mind.
Here's a map of Israel. Here's Edom, and there were giants there. Here's Moab. There were giants there. Here's Ammon. There were giants there. Here's the Amorite kingdom here and here. And this is where Og, the, the giant with the 13-foot long bed. He's there. Here's the land of Philist, the Philistines. There's giants there. This is all desert down here. So when Israel's going to come and invade the land God has given to them, they're going to go through here. There's giants there. They're going to go through there. There were giants there. They're going to go through there. There are giants there. There were giants there. There are giants there. And when they go into the land, there's giants here. There's giants. There's giants scattered throughout the land. What are those giants doing there? Why are they there? They've set themselves up. Look at this. They've surrounded the land with demonic giants. And then they filled the land with giants because what they're saying is, "God, do you think you're going to give Abraham the land? We'll see." And what is it that when the spies go up to the land? Oh, it's a great land. There's just one really big problem. There are what? Giants. It's a very interesting thing. It's the giants.
Let me ask you this. Are the giants a physical enemy or are they a spiritual enemy? Both. Who does Moses have to defeat to enter the land? He's got to defeat demonic giants. Is that a physical battle or is it a spiritual battle? It's both. When Joshua enters the land, there are certain places that he has to focus on. There are demonic giants. Is that a spiritual battle or is it a physical battle? It is both. Joshua eradicates the giants from the land of Israel. They're only left in the land of the Philistines. You go to the book of 1 Samuel and here you have Samuel, this great prophet. He's leading the nation. God is blessing him. But the people say this. They say, "You know what? We don't want you to lead us. We want a king." And God says to Samuel, "They haven't rejected you. They've rejected me." And so the people are petitioning for a king. Who is their enemy going to be from chapter 12 to chapter 31? It's going to be a group of people called the Philistines who have demonic giants.
So what do the people of Israel, what do they want in a king? Look at it. We, you hear it right here. "And finally, Saul." Saul's the, the one who they really, they really want him as king. "Son of Kish is chosen and they're asking where he's at and the Lord said, 'He is hiding among the baggage.'" So they found him and brought him out and he stood head and shoulders above anyone else. And Samuel said to all the people, "This is the man the Lord has chosen as your king. No one in all Israel is like him." And all the people shouted, "Long live the king!" And do you know what happened to Saul? In 1st Samuel 31, he was killed by the Philistines.
You see, there's a lesson in all of this for us. There's a spiritual world and there are spiritual forces and our human nature is to just look at the physical and just to say, you know what? I'm going to solve this problem physically. I, I, I, I'm going to solve it. So, here's what the Israelites do. We're facing giants. What are we going to do? Better get the tallest person we can to lead us. And what happens? He's killed by the giants. What's God's solution? God says, "When you're fighting giants, the issue is never going to be your height. It's always going to be your heart." Because the person God wants is a man after his own heart. Because when you're a person, when you understand that there is a spiritual battle, when you understand there's a spiritual realm, when you understand that the problems that we face aren't just physical, when you understand that there are powers of darkness that are working, that there are demonic beings that are set against you, then you approach the battle completely differently.
If you want to know how David approaches the battle, he's the one, the man after God's own heart. Watch this. It's, it's an amazing thing. David goes to fight Goliath. And when he goes, he says to the Philistine, to Goliath, "You come against me with the sword, the spear, and the javelin." In other words, I'm not going to be drawn into trying to battle you merely with physical weapons because physical weapons will get me killed. Some of you are making a tragic mistake in the way you live life. You look at it only through physical eyes. Wow. So good. And life is spiritual. Yes. And there's powers of darkness arrayed against you. Paul says this, "We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers." Right, pastor? The problem is not that you can't get along with your mate. It's that the devil is in there. That's right. The problem is not your manager. It's that there's enemy forces arrayed against you trying to discourage you, trying to stop you, trying to thwart you. The problem isn't that you don't have enough money or that you need a raise or that you, I mean, yes, on the, there is a physical dimension to life, to be sure. But can I just say, much greater, much more important, and much more necessary for you and I to, to understand is that life at its heart is a spiritual battle.
David understands this. This isn't a physical battle. "I come against you in the name of the Lord." Hallelujah. We're going to look at that because the name of the Lord, when we come in the next few weeks, the name of the Lord is attached to a very important angel, the Angel of the Lord. And the name of the Lord is very, very powerful. David understands, listen, when I come against you, I don't need to know how to throw a javelin better or how to, how to be able to fence with you with the sword. I don't need to know that as much as I need the power of the Lord on my life. And when I face the giants in my life with his power, with his anointing, he says this: "I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of, of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied." Yes. Listen, he sees it as a spiritual battle. He sees himself as, as part of God's work, God's kingdom, God's plan. Do you see yourself that way? Do you understand there's more at stake than just you? And because there is, you're, you've got heaven's armies engaged in battle. He says, "This day the Lord will hand you over to me, and I'll strike you down and cut off your head." I mean, this is a young man who doesn't know how to use weaponry. How does he have that kind of confidence? Because he understands this. Watch this. He says, "Today I'll give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel, and all those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or by spear that the Lord saves. For the battle is the Lord's, and he will give all of you into our hands." He understands that there's a battle that on his own physically he'll never be able to fight and win. Do you understand that? I mean, you may not be looking at a literal 9-foot giant, but you may be looking at some. I just believe this room is filled with people who are fighting giants. And we have to understand the Bible's telling us something. Giants have a demonic background. You said, "Boy, John, I think you're really, you're really stretching this." Look at what Paul says again in Ephesians 6 and verse 12: "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood." Right? Your battle isn't just a physical battle, "but it's against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." Your battle may look physical, but it is to the core spiritual. And if you try, like Saul, to say, "Well, they're tall, so I'll be tall." or they use a sword so I'll learn to use a sword, you will lose every single time. But if you, like David, say, "This is a spiritual battle. I may see a physical giant and may he, may he have a physical spear, but I know this: the battle is the Lord's and the Lord is the one who will win the battle, right? Not me with my little slingshot." Is he going to use a slingshot? Sure he is. But he knows it's not going to be his strength or his aim that's going to place that stone in the giant's head. It's going to be the power of the Lord guiding that rock to the p perfect place to slay that giant. And God will get all of the glory. You're in a spiritual battle. You're not wrestling against flesh and blood. That's the purpose of this series is to say you have to use spiritual weapons to win a spiritual war. You have to have a spiritual outlook if you're going to fight a spiritual battle. And all of life is a spiritual battle. All of it.
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