More Spiritual Warfare - Part 4 And then I go on and talk about these three rebellions. These three rebellions were prevalent in Jewish thinking in Jesus’ day. And I mentioned in Dead Sea Scrolls, the literature they found is full of references to these three rebellions and the Jews of that time believed that they are the cause of the condition of the world. That's important. Now these three rebellions, what did they do? Well, the first one, Satan falling, [I wanted to make the point that I think Satan fell after day seven of creation since he was created in a day and I don't think there were days before Genesis 1. So, he fell after creation. And I can't find a verse in the Old Testament that says anybody joined Satan when he fell. He fell alone.] He didn't like God having a human family and he was all about ruining it for him. And so what does that fall create? Death and Sin. Suddenly death has entered into the world. And the book of Hebrews talks about them who through [or because of] the fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. This is a big deal and something's got to be done about it. And Sin has entered the world and all humans are under sin. How do we fix that? The second rebellion had to do with these sons of God coming into the world. This occurs in Genesis chapter 6, where we've got these sons of God and the daughters of men. I beat you over the head with that saying that those sons of God were indeed angels, supernatural beings, who made a plan to come to this earth and do this dastardly deed. [It's as if they want to create their own race of humans, hydrids] And all we get from Genesis is just that. no descriptions, nothing more descriptive. Although verse five of Genesis 6, we'll get to in a minute, is most telling. And I pointed you to the book of Enoch. And I said, you may not have heard about this book, but it was prominent in the understanding of the day before Jesus's time and during Jesus's time. And even when the apostles wrote, when Jude and Peter wrote, they quote from that book. So, it was known. And Enoch describes in detail what happens in Genesis 6. We read about these sons of God mating with the daughters of men. We read about these giants being born of them and they're men of reputation. And then the topic sort of drops except he makes this statement. Genesis 6 verse 5, “And God saw the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." How did we go from giants were born and that's that, to now the world is totally corrupt. What the sons of God did and their offspring, the giants, resulted in human depravity increasing at a scale not seen up till then. And Enoch describes in detail what they did to humanity. So the second rebellion brought in an acceleration of human depravity so bad and that didn't end with the flood. That human depravity and then knowledge that they taught was carried after the flood by the sons of Noah, by the wives of Noah's sons, I don't know, but it was there and it continued. So that's the effect of the second rebellion. And then I mentioned the third rebellion. And the third rebellion may be the most difficult one for us to grasp because it describes something. You scratch your head and say, "Did God really do that?" And Romans talks about God giving them [the nations] up. Three times he gave them up. And then we learn from the book of Deuteronomy 32:8-9 that what God did was gave them [the nations] to a number of his supernatural sons, principalities and powers, who were good, and says, "You guys now rule over these nations. I want nothing to do with them." So God disinherited the nations. And essentially says, you spirit beings of mine, rule over them and direct them in the right direction. He didn't want them to go off into bad things. And that's what we learn from the book of Deuteronomy. And Moses spells that out several times. And then we learn from Psalm 82 that God's going to judge them because they went bad and they turned to solicit worship from man. And man was only too happy to follow suit and they did. That's the third rebellion. And we are still feeling the effects of that today. Those supernatural beings are still ruling the Gentiles. They are lords over the Gentiles. That's why when we get saved, we make Jesus our Lord. He's the Lord of all the lords. And every Gentile Paul ran into, were idol worshippers. I think it was very rare for Paul to run into an atheist in his day. They worshiped the gods that were over them. And the good news is that the effects of the three rebellions that caused so much bad to happen upon the earth, Christ has dealt with in his death and resurrection. He conquered death. ‘Oh death, where is thy sting? Oh grave, where is thy victory?” Paul quotes [1Cor. 15.52-57] which says, "Behold, I show you a secret,” our bodies are going to be changed to incorruptible bodies at the rapture." That's part of Paul's message. Jesus has now rectified or resolved what Satan brought into the world. Death is defeated and sin is dealt with. What about the second rebellion? Human depravity, heights unknown. Well, for the kingdom saints, it happened when the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost and they were caused to do His will. But under Paul's message, our old man is crucified and we have the new man. And our battle that we fight today is the flesh against the spirit to not sin. Sin comes from the flesh. Sin doesn't come from these principalities and powers, That's the battle we have and one day we won't have that flesh one day we'll have an incorruptible body and what happens when our bodies are incorruptible, we don't sin anymore so that human depravity is resolved. And what about the third rebellion. These principalities and powers in Col. 2:15, Jesus spoiled them, He defeated them, He removed their authority over the saved, they're subject to Him now. And only the lost are still in darkness and are being influenced by these guys. So the devastating effects of the 3 rebellions have all been addressed, reversed, resolved by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Praise the Lord.