This was the message I bought to the 2 Renmark Uniting Church congregations recently.
It is slightly different to how it was delivered.
The order of service and main Bible passage is after the sermon.
The Invasion of Planet
Earth
What a title!
No! We are not talking about Martians.
We will find out who,what ,when and where shortly.
How did the world get in this mess that it is today?
How come it’s getting into an even bigger mess?
You look at our society in Australia and the rest of the world over say
the last 50 years and it is remarkable how much evil and moral decay has set
in.
Things that were once considered very immoral are now dismissed as a
fair mode of doing things.
The world is full of people demanding their freedom to do whatever they
like and they are winning these freedoms.
At their own cost and those around them.
Drug taking is rife and now we are having marihujana being made a legal
drug in many parts of the world when medical evidence points quite clearly to
its danger.
There are epidemics of things like “ice”.
Families and relationships are crumbling.
People rejoice when they win their so called freedoms but in reality
they are putting themselves in bondage( to the devil).
And of course we have the rise of the pure evil of terrorism.
We have been invaded!
By the devil!
So who is the devil?
From the outset I will say it is 100% positive there is a devil and he
is alive and active on planet earth.
How did he get here?
How has he got such a foothold and is doing so much damage?
Lucifer, meaning angel of light, was one of God’s created angels who
decided he would try and usurp God as the ruler of the universe.
Lucifer is the devil(Satan).
He is not a guy with horns, a forked tail and a pitchfork.
We would soon run if we saw one of those.
He usually tempts us in the same way he did Adam and Eve.
“No harm will come to you. You will enjoy this.”
He is the one behind the temptation of Adam and Eve in the Garden of
Eden and is still our tempter.
Yes, Adam and Eve were our real initial parents created by God.
All people are descended from them.
Until the devil,the serpent, tempted Adam and Eve they had an idyllic
life.
They were in direct fellowship with their creator and were thoroughly
enjoying His creation and going about the jobs He had given them.
You can read about this in Genesis.
The whole scene is a blessed picture of peace.
We do not know how long this state of divine communion and mutual love
continued.
All we do know is that the heart of God found a unique joy with those He
had created.
Then out of nowhere appears this creature.
The invasion begins.
The serpent.
He may have looked like a snake.
This is recorded in Genesis Chapter 3.
Genesis 3King James Version (KJV)
3 Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which
the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman,
Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
2 And the woman said unto the
serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
3 But of the fruit of the
tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of
it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
4 And the serpent said unto
the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
5 For God doth know that in
the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as
gods, knowing good and evil.
6 And when the woman saw that
the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to
be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and
gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
7 And the eyes of them both
were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves
together, and made themselves aprons.
8 And they heard the voice of
the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of
the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden.
9 And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?
10 And he said, I heard thy
voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.
11 And he said, Who told thee
that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee
that thou shouldest not eat?
12 And the man said, The woman
whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.
13 And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the
woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.
Satan challenges Adam and Eve in a very beguiling way to disobey what
God has asked of them.
They eat the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge and immediately
they are afraid and realised they are naked.
“I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid….and I hid myself”
Genesis 3:10
Guilt and fear had simultaneously entered the world.
They hid themselves from God.
This word fear is the word for the emotion that has the whole world in
bondage.
At that point the devil had invaded planet earth and considered the invasion of planet earth was a great
success.
Fellowship was destroyed
between man and God , man was driven out into the agony of existence,outside of
the garden.
God was lonely and all of Satan’s
accomplices rejoiced.
Now there are many questions about why God would allow the devil and
evil to enter the world.
The devil wanted more than the power and authority God had given him.
He wanted to be like god and worshipped as God.
We don’t know the answers to these questions.
The Bible however tells us what we need to know, not what we want to
know.
We do know that for any creature to return God’s love they need to be
given freedom to say yes or know.
The devil had been given this freedom also.
Before Jesus came,after the fall, God had not given up on mankind and
still, as we read in the Old Testament, He gave instruction on Godly living and
spoke through His prophets.
The Old Testament clearly foretells the coming of the Messiah, Jesus,
and then He arrives on earth as a baby born of a virgin.
We heard about that again in our Christmas services.
In the NT we learn of His miracle working life and His death on the cross
and His resurrection.
The dying for our sins, the shedding of His blood as a sacrifice in our
place.
The victory that He has won over the devil.
We learn of the authority, His authority, He gives to us to deal with
evil and sin and the devil.
His authority over the devil is clearly shown in today’s Bible reading.
Now while we need to know much how to use the weapons ,spiritual
weapons, God has given us, so that we are not ensnared like Adam and Eve were,
I just want to focus on one of those weapons today.
The devil does not want the world to seriously consider he exists.
He does not want the world to understand that the Bible is God’s
revelation of His plan of redemption.
The word of God is one,and a very important one,
of God's mighty weapons.
The word of God!
“Hebrews 4:12King James Version (KJV)
12 For the word of God is quick, and
powerful, and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing
asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of
the thoughts and intents of the heart.”
And from Ephesians 6.
"17 And you will need
the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit—which is the Word of
God."
Note the "helmet of
salvation".
We do need to have the
question of our salvation settled before we can go into this battle, against
our invader, and use “the sword of the spirit” the
“word of God.”
So we have been hearing today of how the devil invaded the earth and the
minds of men and women.
The devil who is the driving force behind all the evil and rebellion in
the world.
So one of the simple ruses of the evil one is to convince people that the
first 3 chapters of Genesis, where we read about this invasion, are a myth.
In Genesis 3 we see the plan and purpose of satan in his attack in the
garden and his unique pattern he follows in all his assaults on mankind.
Now the theory of evolution is a neat package to help further the
devil’s cause.
It is used by many to attack the credibility of the Bible.
If people can be convinced the true story of creation and the temptation
by the devil is a myth, then why wouldn’t they accept the rest of the Bible’s
message as a fairy tale.
Now just a personal note and for consideration.
I was still believing in evolution when I became a Christian.
I thought at first that God had caused evolution but the more I looked
into it the more I came to dismiss that theory.
It is still a theory, not a fact.
Folks evolution is the fairy tale.
I am not knocking science.
There is true science and false science.
If it were not for medical science I possibly wouldn’t be standing here
today.
One fairy tale we know of is of the Frog Prince who is awakened from his
curse by the kiss of a beautiful maiden.
The only difference between that
fairy tale and the theory of evolution is several million years.
No amount of years, however how many millions, will turn a frog, a fish
or a monkey or any other creature into a man.
The much maligned Charles Darwin was one of the main culprits behind
getting this theory off the ground.
He started off a Christian but became agnostic much to his Bible
believing wife’s despair.
According to the book,”The Kiwi’s Egg”she believed the Genesis account
of creation.
They remained faithfully married to each other all their lives but you
can read about their conflict in the book.
Christians,
believe the Bible!
every word of it!
It is a matter of life and death.
For all of us.
Take it at Faith value.
So the one thing?
The one weapon of God we can all use.
The word of God.
The Bible.
We should read it and study it.
If you are challenged by today’s
message take some steps to thoroughly investigate the evidence for the truth of
the first chapters of Genesis.
Then share what you find whenever you can,
even though some may ridicule you.
A caution though,
share it when you have thoroughly studied the subject.
Know what you are talking about.
Become a champion for the Word of God.
The Bible.
You need to study your Bible thoroughly.
The devil knows the word of God,
the scriptures,
and tried to trick Jesus by misquoting
it when Jesus was tempted for 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness by the
devil.
Jesus countered all his arguments with scripture in correct context.
Promote the Bible as the whole truth,
including the story in Genesis of our creation,
and the part the devil plays in the fall of man.
So folks, particularly the younger people, study the word of God.
Find out that reputable scientists also believe the Bible and its Creation
account rather than Evolution.
We are not here by chance but by a deliberate act of God.
There are many fine books and Christian documentaries on this subject.
Older people here, it is equally as important no matter how old you are
to make sure you are right with God.
Don’t allow your faith to be nullified by the devil’s lies.
Just last weekend at the Parkrose Village Church service I was sitting
next to a little lady,
she is 94,
who told me that this,
meaning Christian fellowship and the Gospel message,
was what she had been longing for.
I think it was her first day in our church service.
A new resident.
She told me she had done much wrong in her life and did not think herself
worthy to be in the same room with all the other worshipers there.
She said she desperately needed to do something about being forgiven.
I prayed with her and assured her that the first step to getting right
with God is repentance.
I also assured her she would be accepted by the people present.
I arranged for her to have a follow up meeting with the Village chaplain
who had been leading the service that day.
What surprised me was that this was a service attended by about the same
amount of people as here, many in their 90’s.
It was just a simple service like this.
We did have communion incorporated into the service which always reminds
us of Jesus and His sacrifice on the Cross for us.
There were no bells and whistles, people leaping and praising God, which
is the impression you can get in some modern churches.
Obviously the Holy Spirit was working in her life at the late age of 94.
Where 2 or 3 are gathered in Jesus name then He is in the midst of them.
He was there speaking to this lady.
Ephesians 6:17 says
this.
"17 And you will need the helmet of salvation and the sword of the
Spirit—which is the Word of God."
We do need to have
the question of our salvation settled before we can go into this battle with
satan.
Maybe the Holy Spirit is speaking to someone here today who may over the
years may simply have been going through the outward motions of being
Christian.
The outward motions but no inner stirring or change.
No recognition that we are all sinners and need to be reconciled to God,
and seeing the need to share that with others.
If young or older people here today are stirred by
God’s Holy Spirit, don’t delay making a decision for Jesus or a rededication
and re affirming of your faith.
Folks don’t allow the devil in his subtle ways,to steer you away from Jesus.
Jesus has all authority over the devil and defeated him once and for all
on the cross.
When Jesus lives in us we have that same authority.
We do need to exercise it and not just keep the seat warm in Church.
I close with this reading.
Luke 10:17-20
Living Bible
17 When the seventy disciples returned,
they joyfully reported to him, “Even the demons obey us
when we use your name.”
18 “Yes,” he told them, “I saw Satan falling from heaven as a flash of lightning! 19 And
I have given you authority over all the power of the Enemy----------20 However, the important thing
is not that demons obey you, but that your names are registered as citizens of
heaven.”
Let us take on the
invasion of planet earth in our part of the world.
Amen
Order of Service for Renmark 28/1/18
Call to worship and Opening Prayer.
Hymn: “How Great thou Art”
Prayer of confession praise and thanksgiving
Hymn: “Jesus the name
high over all” AHB 150
Bible readings: Mark 1:21-28
Offering and Prayer: Geoff
Hymn: “Be thou my guardian and my guide” AHB 498
Bible reading: Genesis 3:1-13
Sermon: “Invasion of Planet Earth”.
Hymn: “I will sing the
wondrous story” AHB 173
Benediction: and Vesper
May or Lord God of Peace, bless and keep you
forever.
Bible Reading: Mark 1: 21-28
21 Jesus and his companions now arrived
at the town of Capernum and on Saturday morning went into the Jewish place of
worship—the synagogue—where he preached. 22 The congregation
was surprised at his sermon because he spoke as an authority and didn’t try to
prove his points by quoting others—quite unlike what they were used to hearing![h]
23 A man possessed by a demon was
present and began shouting, 24 “Why are you bothering us, Jesus
of Nazareth—have you come to destroy us demons? I know who you are—the holy Son
of God!”
25 Jesus curtly commanded the demon to
say no more and to come out of the man. 26 At that the evil
spirit screamed and convulsed the man violently and left him. 27 Amazement
gripped the audience and they began discussing what had happened.
“What sort of new religion
is this?” they asked excitedly. “Why, even evil spirits obey his orders!”
28 The news of what he had done spread
quickly through that entire area of Galilee.
