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Amazing Facts

Pride

Doug Batchelor

The Prince of Pride, Part 1

This presentation is brought to you by the Friends of the Amazing Facts Ministry.

Many legends and stories from around the world talk about flying dragons and some may even contain a kernel of truth.

Paleontologists have discovered the fossilized bones of giant flying reptiles called petrosaurs, or winged lizards.

They've got long, thin beaks, bony crests on their head.

The largest Petrosaurs weighed over 500 pounds and had a wingspan of nearly 40 feet.

Petrosaurs had necks that were up to 10 feet long and their legs up to 7 feet long.

To someone watching from the ground, the legs trailing behind a flying petrosaur might have looked like a flying dragon with a pointed tail.

Some petrosaurs may have even survived the flood.

In the 5th century BC, the Greek historian Herodotus wrote about winged serpents in Arabia.

Friends, we know of at least 1 dragon that exists today.

While some people think he's just a religious legend, Scripture insists that he is very real and determined to deceive as many as possible.

So join me today as we take a closer look at this enemy, the 1 the Bible reveals to be the notorious Dragon of Revelation.

♪♪ Now, as we always do, We use Bible stories to understand these theological teachings of the gospel.

We're going to look at a story that you find in the book of 2 Samuel, chapter 14, dealing with Absalom.

Absalom, His name, it means peace of the father.

We've learned shalom means peace, Abba means father or papa.

And so he was 1 of the favored sons of King David.

It goes to great lengths to say that from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head, there was no blemish in him.

And it talks about how he had this long luxuriant hair that would grow so much every year that he would even, they'd weigh it.

I found that theologically, hair gets men into trouble in the Bible.

Anyway, there's a scripture that says, go up thou bald head.

Anyway, so he had the long hair and he wanted to be king.

He's very, David didn't give him maybe enough discipline and he was a little pampered prince in the palace of King David during the glory days.

Everyone kind of adored him, and he became very self-consumed and Very proud.

Now he had an older brother named Amnon that was really next in line to be king.

When Amnon mistreated Absalom's sister, Absalom had his brother killed.

And then he fled the kingdom for a little while.

Eventually he wormed his way back into the favor of his father, back into the kingdom.

And then after that point, Absalom would go and he began to exalt himself in the kingdom.

It actually says he got 50 men and horses to ride before him and say, here comes Prince Absalom and everybody, everywhere he went, it was like a parade.

He was in all the tabloids, I suppose, because of his good looks.

And then when people came to King David and they needed to have some judgment issue resolved, Absalom would meet them at the gate before they got to the king and say, what's your problem?

Oh, yeah, that makes good sense I'm with you if I was king I would I would judge in your favor and he started to do what some of the politicians do where he blew sunshine at everybody and tried to make everyone feel they were so wonderful and he would embrace those that came to the king for judgment and the Bible tells us you can read in 2nd Samuel 15 he did this probably for a couple of years he stole the hearts of the men of Israel.

Now you steal something that doesn't belong to you.

He took the allegiance of the people that they should have had for the king from David, who was a good king.

And they took it and he stole it for himself.

Finally, when he realized that he had more support than David, it broke into an open rebellion.

Absalom got some of the leaders and the generals and the people to support him.

They blew the trumpet, said, Absalom is king in Hebron.

And then as he was making his way to Jerusalem, a messenger told David Absalom is trying to steal the kingdom.

David said, look, he's going to destroy the city.

And David took some of his soldiers and his family.

The Bible says David went up the Mount of Olives weeping.

Do you know Jesus went up the Mount of Olives weeping also, wept over Jerusalem.

Finally, they engaged in battle and you know, like Alexander the Great, you read in the Bible, David never lost a battle.

The Bible talks about David fighting with the Philistines like Goliath, Ammonites, Edomites, Moabites, Syrians, Egyptians.

So it's not smart to go to battle against David.

And David's smaller group of soldiers, they routed Israel and those who followed Absalom.

And as they were retreating, the Bible tells us that Absalom, on his mule, he was riding through the woods and he looked back to see if he was being gained upon and his head got stuck in a low branch, in the fork of a branch of an oak tree, calls it a terabinth tree, and the mule went out from under him, and he was left hanging between heaven and earth.

The mule went under the thick boughs of a great terabinth tree, and his head caught in the tree.

Probably his hair got wrapped up, all that beautiful hair.

So he was left hanging between heaven and earth.

Now before I go any farther, here you've got a picture of a son of David hanging from a tree between heaven and earth.

Do you find that picture in the New Testament?

And when Joab the general saw him there, and he, General Joab fought with David, and he thought this young, this young spoiled brat has caused all this death in the kingdom.

Even though David wanted everyone to show Absalom mercy, Job said, he's just going to cause more problems.

And he took 3 darts and pierced his heart.

Kind of like the nails in the hands and feet of Jesus.

But the rebellion of Absalom is an allegory for something that happened in heaven.

Our study tonight is on the Prince of Pride.

And let's look at the story from the lesson in our, from the questions we're going to see in our lesson today, and I think we're going to learn a lot from that.

First question, what was the name of the rebellious prince in heaven, and why did he rebel?

You can read here in Isaiah chapter 14 verse 12, how you are fallen from heaven.

And he may have lived millions or billions of years before he finally rebelled, we don't know, but he was the highest of God's angels.

It says, you have said in your heart, I will be like the Most High." So now if you have your Bible and you turn to the book of Isaiah chapter 14, start with verse 12, how you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning, how you are cut down to the ground, you who weaken the nations.

For you said in your heart, he didn't betray it openly first, I will ascend into heaven.

I will exalt my throne above the stars of God.

Stars are often used to describe angels in the Bible.

I will also sit, meaning enthroned, on the mount of the congregation.

On the farthest sides of the north, that means the highest place.

I will ascend above the heights of the clouds.

Yet you will be brought down to Sheol, to the lowest depths of the pit." So here you've got this very powerful, not just very powerful, the most powerful angel of God, and he begins to think, God is getting all the worship.

The Prince of Pride, Part 2

This presentation is brought to you by the Friends of the Amazing Facts Ministry For 9 months between 1898 and 1899 2 famous man-eating lions of Savo terrorized workers employed in the construction of a railway bridge in Uganda.

As the death toll rose, construction was brought to a virtual standstill.

The workers said they refused to continue until protection could be provided.

Finally, the reign of terror was brought to an end when Lieutenant Colonel J.H.

Patterson succeeded in tracking and killing the 2 lions that had devoured 135 men.

The lions are now on permanent display in the Field Museum of Chicago.

Even more deadly was a tigress in India that was reported to have killed and eaten 436 people in 1907 before it was killed.

But the record for man-eating goes to 1 lion that has devoured more than all these other cats combined.

1 Peter 5, verse 8 advises us, be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil is going around like a roaring lion seeking whom he might devour.

So how can we be protected against this man-eater?

Join me, friends, today as we continue our exploration to understand the originator of sin, the devil.

♪♪ Well, friends, we have a very important study tonight.

We're going to be talking about why is there evil in the world?

And this is 1 of the big reasons that some people have problems believing in God.

They say, if there is a God, if God is good, then why is there so much suffering?

Why would God create this world and innocent children, innocent people suffer?

If God is powerful, then why doesn't he stop the evil?

If he can do anything, why doesn't he just make everybody be good and make everything peaceful?

And people struggle with the problem of evil.

It's 1 of the most important questions and I tell you there's nothing more important than what we're talking about.

There are 2 titanic powers that are at war in the world today And there's a reason that God does not just snap his fingers and annihilate Satan.

And when you understand the issue, what's going on behind the scene, it begins to make a lot more sense.

And we're going to be dealing with the subject of did God make a devil is there a devil?

This is not a subject that I enjoy talking about because I'm preoccupied with the devil a matter of fact I avoid Ministers that want to always preach and talk about the devil.

But I think it's appropriate to talk about what God talks about and there's warnings in the Bible about the power of evil.

Even professional boxers or football players, before they go to engage an opponent, they sit down with a coach and they watch videos and films of the tactics of the enemy, so to speak, so they can understand what's going on.

The Lord wants us to understand something about the nature and the tactics of the devil.

And I can tell you the devil is not happy about this program tonight because we're going to be exposing What his plans are the Bible tells us and Jesus warns us about that The devil is mentioned quite a bit in the book of Revelation What powerful beings work under the devil's command.

You can read here in Revelation 12, verse 4, his tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth.

Who are these stars that were following Lucifer?

You can look at Revelation chapter 12, verse 9.

He was cast to the earth, and His angels were cast with Him.

So, most of the time when we say, well, the devil tempted me or the devil made me do this, Of course, the devil doesn't make you do anything unless you're demon possessed.

I think it was Flip Wilson used to always say the devil made me do it.

And first of all, the devil is not omnipotent.

But the devil has fallen angels, his minions, probably millions of them, 1 third of the angels in heaven.

And if God has guardian angels for every person, and there are billions of people in the world today, you know the Bible actually gives us the highest number that is found in Greek.

It applies to the angels of God 10, 000 times thousand 10000 times 10000 and thousands of thousands tries to describe this Innumerable company of angels they're described as coming in a cloud when Jesus returns So God's got a lot of angels, but one-third of them followed Lucifer in his rebellion.

He kept saying, you know, God's not fair.

We should have the power of God to create, have our own worlds.

And as he began to plant those desires in his heart, in the hearts of the other angels, by the way, what did he tell Adam and Eve?

If you eat this fruit, you'll be like God.

He began to plant his desires in the hearts of the other angels.

By the way, what did he tell Adam and Eve?

He began to plant his desires in the hearts of the other angels and they followed him in his rebellion.

Ultimately, they were cast to the earth because it was only on earth that Satan found another race of creatures Made in God's image that followed him instead of God God said do not eat of the tree the Word of God said do not eat of the tree Lucifer said go ahead eat of the tree.

When they chose to obey Lucifer instead of God, Paul says in Romans chapter 6, whoever you obey, that's whose servant you are.

The dominion of the world that Adam had received was handed over to the devil.

And even Jesus calls the devil the prince of this world.

He said, the prince of this world comes and he has nothing in me.

That's why the devil said to Jesus, if you fall down and worship me, you don't need to die for this world.

When the devil meets God in some heavenly meeting, and God says, where did you come from?

God knew, but he's asking for the sake of others.

He said, I came from the earth, from walking up and down and to and fro in it.

It's my territory So people say why is there all this evil in the world?

It's because our first parents made a decision Not to follow God and God allowed he allows things to play out You know, we live in a country where we get to elect our leaders.

And what we elect, we experience for the next 4 years.

Good or bad, I'm not advocating any party, it's just you're going to live with the consequences of your choices.

And that's what's happening in the world right now, is we are living out the consequences of the choices that were made by our first parents.

God just wanted the whole world to see what is the result of following the devil's government.

The devil said, if I was in charge, we'd be happier in the universe.

God said, all right, you found a world that's listening to you.

Answer A, Satan who deceives the whole world.

Deception is not just the same thing as just telling a lie.

Deception is when you commingle truth with error.

See, in 1 sense, the devil's got an advantage over God because God can only use truth.

The devil can, he can tell the truth when it's to his advantage, and then he mixes in a lie.

He wins people's support, and then he lies.

He gives you, you know, 99% orange juice and 1 drop of strychnine.

And how much of the world does the Bible say he's deceived?

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Pride

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The Prince of Pride, Part 2

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