GOD'S PURPOSE FOR HUMANITY: THE DEVIL'S
GREATEST NIGHTMARE
Part 2
April 3, 2011
MF
Blume
John 3:1-5 Phillips NT 1-2 One night Nicodemus, a leading Jew and
a Pharisee, came to see Jesus. "Master," he began, "we realize that you
are a teacher who has come from God. Obviously no one could show the
signs that you show unless God were with him."
(3) 3 "Believe me," returned Jesus, "a man cannot even see
the kingdom of God without being born again."
(4) 4 "And how can a man who's getting old possibly be
born?" replied Nicodemus. "How can he go back into his mother's womb
and be born a second time?"
(5) "I assure you," said Jesus, "that unless a man is born from
water and from spirit he cannot enter the kingdom of God. Flesh gives
birth to flesh and spirit gives birth to spirit: you must not be
surprised that I told you that all of you must be born again. The wind
blows where it likes, you can hear the sound of it but you have no idea
where it comes from and where it goes. Nor can you tell how a man is
born by the wind of the Spirit."
The overall plan of God from Genesis was to have MAN RULE WORLD.
- God gave it not to angels nor anything else.
- JUST MAN.
- Man is spirit, soul and body.
- God is Spirit.
- Animals are soul and body.
- But MAN has both the SPIRIT and BODY required to be conduit for
HIS KINGDOM to pass from invisible to visible.
You must be born IN THE WORLD and of A WOMAN, AND THEN BE BORN OF
GOD’S SPIRIT ON EARTH.
- ANGELS cannot get into it.
- You need a BODY and you need the SPIRIT OF GOD.
- It’s meant for mankind
- Human beings.
- Those in God’s Image.
- ADAM KEPT HIS body but lost the SPIRIT Contact.
Jesus died since it was a HOLY Spirit that had to get in us, and the
death supplied the blood that our sins might be washed.
1 John 4:1-3 Complete Apostles' Bible (1) Beloved, do not
believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are from God;
because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
(2) By this the Spirit of God is known: Every spirit that
confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God,
(3) and every spirit which does not confess that Jesus Christ has
come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the
Antichrist, which you have heard that it is coming, and now is already
in the world.
Satan will not confess Jesus CAME IN FLESH.
Mark 5:7 Complete Apostles' Bible (7) and crying out with a
great voice he said, "What have I to do with You, Jesus, Son of the
Most High God? I adjure You by God, do not torment me!"
Matthew 4:3-4 Complete Apostles' Bible (3) And approaching
Him, the tempter said, "If You are the Son of God, speak so that these
stones may become bread." (4) But He answered and said, "It
is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that
proceeds out of the mouth of God.' "
He will not sit still while MAN rules, and he got Adam out of the
picture.
- Satan is in fits over MAN ruling this earth.
- Adam was his target.
- He was cast out of heaven and heard about man in God’s
image to rule the earth and knew man would cast him out of earth, too!
- But Jesus came and satan could not get Him.
- Satan hates the thought of MAN ruling over him in the world.
- Devils would only call Jesus SON OF GOD, but not SON OF MAN.
Satan’s last resort is to distance us in our minds as far from
Jesus as He can, so we do not grasp the KINGDOM authority we have and
deal with him.
Without a body you are illegal.
- So we must be born of a woman and or water.
- But that is not all!
- WE ENTER KINGDOM when born of SPIRIT.
Satan got Adam and Eve before they ate fruit of LIFE.
- GOD’S SPIRIT IS LIFE.
- Eating fruit of life is representative today of LIVING BY POWER
OF THE SPIRIT and not fleshly ingenuity.
Jesus told satan, “MAN shall not live by bread alone.”
- Satan attacked and asked if he was “SON OF GOD.”
- Jesus answered saying he was a MAN!
- Not just GOD.
- Jesus’ favourite title was SON OF MAN - 85 verses in NT.
- 45 for SON OF GOD.
God intended HUMAN BEINGS to rule this world.
- Not animals, not angels.
- Man was made in HIS IMAGE.
- The go-between between two realms – the spiritual and
natural.
- Man’s human spirit and human body are the windows into the
two realms that God wants to bring into harmony.
- We are living souls.
- Our spirits are like the windows to non-physical and the bodies
to the physical.
Jesus acted as a MAN contacting GOD, showing us the way to do so.
- AS A MAN he was tempted of the devil and AS A MAN he reacted and
dominated the devil.
- People get this wrong and think it is GOD dealing with the devil
when it is God manifested in FLESH AS A MAN.
- Dealing with the devil as a man who knows how to wield the power
of God.
Jesus was made LOWER THAN ANGELS.
Hebrews 2:9 KJV But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower
than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and
honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.
He LEARNED OBEDIENCE.
Hebrews 5:8-9 KJV Though he were a Son, yet learned he
obedience by the things which he suffered; (9)
And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal
salvation unto all them that obey him;
It was lost by a MAN and had to be returned by A MAN.
1 Corinthians 15:21 KJV (21) For since by man came death,
by man came also the resurrection of the dead.
So Jesus AS A MAN enacted all the necessary means to bring man back,
and showed us victory while He did so.
- The devil’s greatest nightmare is for us to realize we have
the potential to live like Jesus Christ, since He did what He did as a
human being like us who learned to depend on the SPIRIT.
- BY MAN would come all the victory.
- Jesus had to accomplish all this as man SINCE IT HAD TO COME BACK
BY MAN.
- He had to do overcome the enemy the way we can.
Jesus was SKILLFUL in the WORD OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.
Hebrews 5:13 KJV For every one that useth milk is unskilful
in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe.
That is why he used the WORD to defeat the devil.
Everything Jesus quoted was words to ISRAEL IN THE WILDERNESS JUST as
He was!
- This story shows us the best picture of a Christian maturing in
order to breach the barrier into KINGDOM power, represented by Canaan.
- Jesus enacted that same journey out.
- He would BEGIN his ministry after his wilderness temptations.
- He came to Jordan where he was baptized then went into the 40
days as Israel went 40 years.
- And Jesus used the same words Moses spoke to Israel.
Matthew 4:3-4 Complete Apostles' Bible (3) And approaching
Him, the tempter said, "If You are the Son of God, speak so that these
stones may become bread." (4) But He answered and said, "It
is written, 'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that
proceeds out of the mouth of God.' "
Before we quote the words Jesus quoted, notice what the chapter is
about:
Deuteronomy 8:1 Complete Apostles' Bible (1) You shall
observe to do all the commands which I charge you today, that you may
live and be multiplied, and enter in and inherit the land, which the
Lord your God swore to your fathers.
Sounds like ADAM’S PURPOSE:
- Gen 1:28 – be fruitful, multiply and replenish earth, have
dominion.
Here is the verse Jesus quoted from.
- TRY TO FIGURE OUT WHY JESUS USED THIS.
Deuteronomy 8:3 Complete Apostles' Bible (3) And He
afflicted you and straitened you with hunger, and fed you with manna,
which your fathers knew not; that He might teach you that man shall not
live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth
of God shall man live.
Notice that God intended Israel to learn TO LIVE BY WORD OF GOD.
- He made them hunger and suffer without food and then said
he’d give them manna.
- But giving this manna was not all there was to it.
- INSTRUCTIONS on WHEN to get the manner and NOW MUCH TO TAKE, and
WHAT TO DO WITH IT went along with that manna.
- GET EARLY IN MORNING, or it rots away.
- TAKE ENOUGH FOR ONE DAY alone, not for the next day, or it rots.
- Take twice as much on 6th day for none come on 7th.
- And that gathered on 6th day did not rot overnight as it did any
other night of week.
- This proved reliance on WORD OF GOD would keep them and not just
food in and of itself.
By making Israel get food ONLY by complying with INSTRUCTIONS every
day, God was showing Israel FOOD IS NOT ENOUGH.
Jesus used that statement to respond to the devil.
- He was letting the devil know HE WOULD NOT ASSUME TO PROVIDE FOR
HIMSELF, because He would rest in God to provide food for Him.
- God would give instructions, no one else, least of all THE DEVIL.
This is related to the temptation of Eve the serpent.
- Notice it is about EATING FOOD.
- Fruit of knowledge of good and evil.
- The connection with the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil
and the temptation to turn stone into bread was LIVING INDEPENDENTLY OF
GOD’S DIRECTION FOR US.
- Satan knows we are ONLY HALFWAY THERE, and incomplete and
therefore useless to God when we are HUMAN BEINGS, PERIOD.
- Man was created to HOUSE GOD’S SPIRIT.
- Satan wants us to act independently of God.
- React in our own strength in our own wisdom to deal with life.
- He knows God created us to house His Spirit and BE EMPOWERED BY
THAT SPIRIT, and in this way we will RULE THE WORLD.
That is why the serpent tempted the woman to consider being her own
god, herself.
- He tried the same thing with Jesus.
- But Jesus took the truth God was showing Israel by checking
Israel out to see if they would obey His word or not, by connecting
ability to obtain food to strict obedience to instructions that
determined how and when Israel would be fed.
Satan fears a human who is driven on hearing from God and being led by
the Spirit.
- He knows this is what man was created for.
- Paul taught that people who try THEIR BEST will never be able to
accomplish the good they desire to do.
- He taught that always resorting to the FLESH – human
resourcefulness and human power – causes us to fall short.
Romans 7:22-23 GNB My inner being delights in the law of
God. (23) But I see a different law at work in my body---a
law that fights against the law which my mind approves of. It makes me
a prisoner to the law of sin which is at work in my body.
Romans 7:25 GNB Thanks be to God, who does this through our Lord
Jesus Christ! This, then, is my condition: on my own I can serve God's
law only with my mind, while my human nature (FLESH) serves the law of
sin.
Romans 8:1 Complete Apostles' Bible (1) There is therefore
now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk
according to the flesh (HUMAN NATURE), but according to the Spirit.
Paul said when he is “ON MY OWN” he messed up.
- ON MY OWN means not relying on higher power of God.
- When we act ON OUR OWN, ONLY OUR MINDS can he serve God’s
law and not our flesh, since when we try to serve it with his flesh we
wind up serving sin.
- So then WE MUST NOT WALK AFTER THAT FLESH, or NOT TRY TO
SERVE GOD WITH THAT FLESH ANY MORE.
- Serve God with the SPIRIT.
- RELY ON HIGHER POWER!
THIS IS THE DEVIL’S GREATEST NIGHTMARE.
It is what satan tried and succeeded with Adam and Eve, and what he
failed to do with Jesus.
The entire truth of SEATING WITH CHRIST in His Kingdom throne over all
powers is based upon our having DIED WITH JESUS.
Romans 6:8-11 Complete Apostles' Bible (8) But if we died
with Christ, we believe that also we should live together with
Him, (9) knowing that Christ, having been raised from the
dead, no longer dies. Death is no longer master over Him.
(10) For what death He died, He died to sin once for all; but
what life He lives, He lives to God. (11) Likewise you
also, consider yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in
Christ Jesus our Lord.
We are required to CONSCIOUSLY see ourselves as ALIVE FORM THE DEAD
like Jesus, and present ourselves to God IN THAT STATE in order to have
God EMPOWER US BY HIS SPIRIT.
Romans 6:13 Complete Apostles' Bible (13) nor present your
members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present
yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as
instruments of righteousness to God.
Then He will QUICKEN or MAKE ALIVE or EMPOWER your mortal body while it
is still mortal, and you will overcome sin.
Romans 8:11-12 Complete Apostles' Bible (11) But if the
Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who
raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies
through His Spirit indwelling in you. (12) Therefore,
brothers, we are debtors--not to the flesh, to live according to the
flesh.
Notice it says we do not have to live after the flesh because the
SPIRIT can GIVE LIFE to our mortal bodies.
Satan knows that if we live according to the flesh we can get no where.
- That is exactly what he encouraged eve to do.
- Forget the LIFE of the Fruit of Life.
- The fruit of Life is the SPIRIT OF GOD IN OUR LIVES.
- That is why Paul said if we WALK AFTER THE SPIRIT we will live.
