<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Dalton SDA Church

Chester Clark

The Battle is On

It was on June 28 in Sarajevo, the city of Sarajevo, that the Archduke of Austria, Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austrian throne, and his pregnant wife, Sophie, were assassinated.

It was a Serbian nationalist by the name of Gavrilo Princip.

He was part of a terrorist group called the Black Hand, and he was seeking to make a political statement in harmony with his group's revolutionary goals.

This caused a chain of events that rapidly began to unravel the peace of Europe.

You see, a number of alliances had been put in place between the major European countries.

What those alliances meant, that if 1 country declared war on another country, those countries would come to their aid who were in a treaty with them.

Britain, France, and Ireland and Russia were all part of an alliance called the Triple Entente.

And the central powers were made up of Germany and Austria-Hungary.

And so, as this assassination had taken the life of an heir to the Austrian throne, Germany aligned itself with that country as they had a treaty, and Austria and Hungary threatened war on Serbia, and before long, Germany declared war also, because they had to come to the aid of their ally, and they also declared war on Russia and France.

Well, in the process of marching towards France, the German troops went through Belgium.

Belgium was technically neutral but they had an alliance with Britain.

And so the British came to the aid in the first battle that the alliance, the Triple Entente powers fought was there in Belgium.

And this began what we know today as World War I.

World War I was considered at the time to be the war to end all wars.

This was, at that time, a very destructive war, a widespread war, and of course, It was not the last world war, as World War II would come in the same century in fact.

But today we're going to consider the fact that this was not only not the last world war, it was not even the First World War.

There was a world war that began long before Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated.

Father in heaven, we thank you that you have given to us the opportunity to study Your Word today, and as we do so, we just confess our need for Your Spirit.

Lord, I pray that we might know Jesus better and love Him more because of the time we've spent studying Your Word today.

Long before World War I began in Europe, another war began, and it began in heaven.

The Bible tells us in Revelation chapter 12, beginning in verse 7, that there was war in heaven.

Michael and his angels fought against the dragon and the dragon fought and his angels and Prevailed not neither was their place found anymore in heaven This is an astounding verse when you think about it when you stop and think about what we know about heaven and then you consider the reality that war entered that place.

The passage continues and it says, the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent called the devil and Satan, which deceived the whole world.

This world became the theater of this war.

Soon after, it appears, this conflict began in heaven.

We're going to talk about that a little more in a little while, but let's first explore a little bit about why this conflict began in heaven in the first place.

Why was it that this conflict started, or how was it that this conflict started?

We're going to turn to our Old Testament passages.

Some of us will be very familiar with them.

It's always good to review and I like to be in God's Word and see what we can learn new every time, right?

Ezekiel 28, we find the account in the Prophet Ezekiel's prophetic language, symbolic language of the fall of Lucifer.

In fact, we might just back up to verse 14 because we could see for sure who it is that he's talking about here.

Now that phrase may not mean much to you, but to a Hebrew who is familiar with the sanctuary service this would mean a lot because there were 2 angels that God said they should make on the Ark of the Covenant.

Remember the article of furniture that was in the most holy place of the sanctuary?

They were to make these 2 angels, 1 on the right hand of the mercy seat and 1 on the left hand of the mercy seat.

These angels would cover with their wings over the mercy seat.

Now the mercy seat was actually the place that represented the throne of God in the earthly sanctuary.

And we remember that in the Old Testament tabernacle as well as in Solomon's temple, when the glory of the Lord filled the temple, we call it the Shekinah glory, it actually resided over the mercy seat.

Only once a year was the high priest to enter the most holy place.

You remember this from your study of the of the sanctuary service.

So this anointed cherub who covers is a phrase that is describing 1 of these 2 angels, those that are the closest to the throne of God, there would be no created beings with more access than these angels.

There'd be no created beings with greater knowledge of God than these angels, because they were right there, and they were privy to the conversations and to the decisions and to the very character of God.

The Bible says in verse 15, you are perfect in your ways from the day you were created.

I wish the rest of this story hadn't happened.

And of course, it's in the reality of the world that we see around us, till iniquity was found in you.

We sometimes refer to the mystery of iniquity.

It's because you really cannot understand it.

There's no way that we can explain, we know how it happened, we don't know why it happened.

We can't explain how someone that would be perfect could have iniquity found in them.

That's something that we cannot Rationalize it doesn't make sense.

I want you to know something friends There are certain things that our minds do not make sense of because God didn't intend for them to exist in the first place.

We are not wired for dying or for having people around us die.

That is a foreign element that God never intended to be a part of our experience.

And so death is a very difficult thing for us to process, and rightfully so, because God is not the author of death.

It's like a piece of malware, of corrupted code that's inserted into our programming.

It just causes hang-ups and crashes and it doesn't work properly.

And so, mystery, The mystery of iniquity.

That's something that we will never fully understand.

I'm thankful, though, before we get discouraged by the mystery of iniquity, I'm thankful the Bible also records the mystery of godliness.

The mystery that the God of the universe would become incarnate in human flesh, in His own creation.

But then, that He should bear my sins, bear my burdens, my heavy burdens as we learned today, that He should bear them and pay for their penalty on Calvary's cross, that is an even greater mystery.

That that same God can live in my heart and give me His presence and His divine nature and His power and His strength and His righteousness.

If your mind hasn't blown a few circuit breakers already, it should have, right?

We can't comprehend any 1 of these things, much less the entirety of the gospel placed together.

You see my friends, the mystery of iniquity is troubling, but the mystery of godliness, that Christ in you forms the hope of glory, that you can have salvation through Jesus Christ, that He died in your place for your sins, that mystery is the song of eternity for all the universe.

Oh, what a wonderful, wonderful anthem we will raise throughout all of the universe.

So Lucifer finds a problem with God's government.

Let's turn to our next passage here in Isaiah chapter 14.

Isaiah chapter 14, and we're going to read here a little more details about how this happened.

Again, I don't believe that we can rationalize why it happened, but we can see in Isaiah chapter 14 a little more of how it happened.

It will start actually in verse 12, Isaiah chapter 14 and verse 12, and this is what the prophet says, how are you fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning?

How are you cut down to the ground, you who weakened the nations?

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." That, by the way, is where the throne of God was.

I will ascend above the heights of the clouds.

What do you find repeating over and over and over?

He began to be jealous, began to be envious, began to think that I could do as well as so and so, and the so-and-so was not his neighbor, the so-and-so was not the angel across the mercy seat from him, so-and-so was God himself.

Perhaps Jesus specifically, but He was seeking to be equal, not equal, above God.

In fact, He thought He could do things better.

Back to Menu

The Battle is On

Transcript

Sponsor

Recorded

Sound Doctrine