The Darker Side

Real life presents the Jack Hibbs podcast with intention and boldness to proclaim truth, equip the saints, and impact our culture. Hey everybody, what's the deal? What's going on? A lot of spiritual out of being talked about in America today seems to be somewhat of a spiritual awakening. I think that's true to some extent. I think it's also very dangerous on the other side of that. So let's talk about the darker side. You can get the outlines of this podcast by going to jackhibbs.com slash podcast. Today, if this podcast lifts you up and encourages you to live a more fulfilled life in Christ, then make sure you leave us one of those five star ratings. To us, that's like saying, amen or yes, then that rating will encourage others to listen. Now open your hearts to what God's word has to say to you. Here is Jack Hibbs. Hey everybody, welcome back to the Jack Hibbs podcast. We are so glad that you were with us. We are very excited by the way, just kind of behind the camera off to the side stuff that has been going on. You should start seeing some changes in the not too distant future anyway. We're gonna kind of change up the set a little bit and try to also make it something that we can at times have a special guest more often where we interview people that would be very relevant topics. There will house of expertise that will definitely be an additive and enhancer a insight into various things that you and I deal with in life as a believer. And so we're excited. When I say change, I mean change where we make it even more Christ centered, even more, biblically relevant. So we're excited about that. So one of the things that we need to talk about is what the world seems to be talking about more. The spirituality of the world, especially young people today, I'll explain this in a moment. And that is in the realm of spirituality, which there's a real increasing craze about this. Some people would say, oh, we're on the brink of a revival. I hope so, but I can guarantee you this. The kind of stuff that I'm hearing and what we're gonna talk about today is not in the area of revival. Now some very naive or ignorant Christian who doesn't know the word might say, look, isn't this great? These kids are so spiritual. That's not great. It's not good unless Jesus Christ is the epicenter, the source, the core, the focus, the origin, and the finisher of that spiritual reality. Why do I bring this up today? Because, and I don't mean to be funny about this. In fact, I'm dead pan serious about this. I think it's a really, really smart thing for you to get alone and watch Peter Jackson's rendering of Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. And the reason why I bring that up is because it is a, it's Hollywood's version of trying to remind you, of course, they're trying to do justice to the great J.R.R. Tolkien, a Christian believer who led C.S. Lewis to Christ, great influencer in his day at Oxford University. But he took the world that he saw in World War One. And while he was in the trenches and while he was in the Great War, Tolkien as a believer was having a hard time coping with the inhumane treatment that war brought to Europe, brought to his eyes. It challenged his faith. He challenged his view of what was going on. How could, here is, here is the big thrust to what eventually gave birth to his, his epic work, The Lord of the Rings, was how could humans do this to other humans? How could humans inflict this kind of torture on another human? And he was really struggling with that. And I do believe God gave him his insights and understandings to what we call The Lord of the Rings. Now, when I say Lord of the Rings, many people just take that as, as just the movie, you got to remember, the movie was made from his book and the series from his books. Okay. And so for Tolkien, he looked around and he said, there's no explanation for this, except for what the Bible talks about. And that is, we may be warring against each other physically in this battle. But I think we're playing this out in the physical realm because it's a mirror. It's a mirror image of what's happening in the invisible realm. And that was an extremely insightful understanding because when you look at your Bible, for example, I'll just talk about Daniel for a second. When Daniel is fasting and praying, we don't realize till later, Daniel doesn't know this till later that the day that he began to pray to the Lord, the Lord gave an answer to Daniel's prayer. And the answer to Daniel's prayer was angel, I want you to go and give this answer to Daniel Gabriel, go tell Daniel, here's the answer to your prayer request. Speak to him, reveal yourself to him. It's important that this happen, but go. And it's later that we find out that Daniel was fasting and praying for 21 days. And then the angel arrives and says, Daniel, I was given the answer to your prayer request a long time ago, but for 21 days, the powers in the atmosphere over Persia resisted me. In fact, I had to call Michael in to help me in this fight in the spiritual invisible realm for me to be here. In fact, and when I'm done speaking to you, Daniel, I've got to go back and contend in this spiritual war. And it was a tremendous insight into what's going on in the invisible realm. Spirituality is a reality that is beyond the reality that you and I are experiencing right now. This microphone, my skin, this table, it's not the reality that long endures. The reality that endures is the spiritual realm that you and I cannot see. Jesus made this very clear. He talked about his kingdom being the kingdom that is not of this world. And yet the kingdom is here. The kingdom is among you. Then of course, Jesus said regarding the believer, the kingdom is inside of you. How can that possibly be true? Well, it's only true to your understanding is if you understand biblical realities. It's true if you believe it or not, but the reality is it's existing. And don't you dare think that it doesn't exist because you can't touch it, smell it, or feel it. In fact, some Christians, you want to be careful when you say, I just want to see, I want to see what's in the spiritual realm. God, show me what's in the spiritual realm. Yeah. According to the Bible, everybody who's encountered that world, like Daniel, winds up being literally physically sick. And so we're going to spend some time. This is probably going to be a two-parter at least. But let's start with this up front. And that is, we're going to be talking about what is not an exhaustive title, but it's a title enough. And that is biblical demonology. Biblical demonology. And the reason why I hesitate to use that as the full title is because you'll hear in this time together, I believe that there is a profound difference. Look, I recognize that my view is not modern. My view is more of one of antiquity. But I believe that there's a difference between fallen angels and demons. I don't know if we'll get a chance to talk about that. We'll see how it goes. But for the argument, for the sake of this argument, let's talk, let's put a banner over the top of this conversation. And it is what is biblical demonology? Why does it matter? And so, number one thing is that we're hearing a lot about spirituality. Man is built to be spiritual. That's why people embark upon things seemingly benign, I don't believe they are, such as those, you know, those lucky eight balls that you shake. And it's kind of like an eight ball sayons for yourself. I think that's such bad news. Weegee boards, bad news. There are all kinds of things like this, bad news, sayonses, bad news, a tarot cards, bad news, going to a palm reader, bad news. Some my opinion, but all that stuff has an origin in the book of Deuteronomy. And you can start reading in Deuteronomy chapter 13 all the way through to chapter 18, bad news. We know that King Saul went and disguised himself and consulted with the witch of Endor because he wanted to know what he should do regarding issues of the kingdom. And God busted him on this. And why? The scripture says in the book of Deuteronomy that a witch or a one that is in delvin and channeling or spirituality outside of God that the witchcraft, these things are real. They are real. The Bible says they're real. And you don't mess with them. And that's why God said in the Bible that you cannot suffer these types of those who practice these things to live. They must be put down. Why? Because they are of demonic activity. It's real. And they will lead people astray. You see, well, so what's the big deal? Here's the big deal. We're talking about ultimately the loss of souls, the loss of someone's spiritual life away from Christ and inheriting spiritual death, which is that even that is a little bit of a confusing thing because there is no such thing as the end of spiritual life even for a non-believer. When we say spiritual death, we're actually talking about those who are in hell, those who have been deceived, those who are suffering. They live forever, but they live in a forever hell, a forever death. But don't think there's annihilation. Don't think that there's unconsciousness. There's no such thing. The Bible is very clear. Jesus, the epistles by the apostles, the Old Testament, when a person dies in this world, their body dies. Their soul, their spirit lives on forever once having been created. And so let's talk about this right now. Let's talk about Satan. Let's talk about Satan. What's going on right now? Because a lot of people are talking about spirituality. Number one, is I have a beef with two camps within the Christian church. I have a beef with them for this reason. There are those who tend to lean or do lean into the Pentecostal group to the point of hyperpentecostalism regarding biblical demonology, meaning this. Everything's a demon. They'll meet a Christian who's having a hard time stopping the smoking of cigars. They have a demon of nicotine. They meet a Christian who has, they're struggling with getting victory over their temper. They have a demon of anger. Everything is explained away by this demon. You have this demon, that demon. You need to be exercised because you have this demon. Listen, number one, read 1 Corinthians, in fact, read both 1st and 2nd Corinthians because the city and the believers of Corinth were highly spiritual people, super spiritual. But because they didn't have any knowledge, they became hyper in their spiritual understandings. And so Paul writes to them and says, hey, and I'm paraphrasing, friends, obviously. Paul writes to them and says, listen, you guys, can you guys get calmed down a minute? Because first of all, know this. When you bow down and pray to an idol, you're praying to a demon because these idols, these animals are these idols or these totem poles or whatever you want to call it, these icons, their entry points for demonic activity said knock it off. But then he also said, listen, you guys need to understand something. That Christ will not share you the temple of the Holy Spirit with demons. He's not going to live inside you and allow a demon or Satan to live inside you too. And you're not an apartment with vacant rooms. If you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ and you're born again, you are sealed by the Holy Spirit unto the day of redemption. And the scripture is clear, he will not share you with belile or beeldzebub or Satan. It's not going to do it. Now, if you know, watch my fingers. If you know somebody who's a Christian and they're possessed, then they're not a Christian. Okay, wake up. Don't think that Christianity is so frail, fragile and powerless. Oh, no, no, no. Many times we're guilty of assuming someone's spirituality for Jesus because it makes us feel better. We need to wise up and get smart about this. When somebody tells me that they're a Christian, I do not believe them. I'm sorry, I'm going to tell you right up front. If somebody meets me in the mall or at the beach or, you know, wherever and says, Hey, hi, I'm a Christian. I don't believe that. They don't know, I believe that. They don't know that I'm holding them in suspect. If somebody says to me, Hey, I know you. I saw you on TV. You're that pastor. I'm a Satanist. Ah, much more relaxed meeting the Satanist because I don't expect anything from him, but lies and stuff that Satan says it's good to do. As soon as somebody says they're a Christian, now I got to wait and check them out and see if they bring forth fruit that is actually Christian. Are you hearing me? There's a lot of responsibility that when you, when somebody says they're a Christian because now I got to watch you and you have to watch me for the next 30 days and we'll see how that goes. But if somebody says they're a non-believer or they're a Satanist, that goes down a lot easier because I don't expect anything from them because they've not employed the name of Christ. So let's talk about Satan's origins. Let's put them, let's put them in the right proper place because the hyperpennacostal group will deify so to speak, promote, grandize, Satan's behind everything. For those of you who are older, do you remember Flip Wilson told us the devil made me do it. Everybody blames stuff on the devil and they don't take any responsibility for their dumb decisions or they're given into their godless pleasures. They need to repent and get right with God. There's no doubt about it. But don't blame it on the devil. If you keep blaming on the devil, then you'll never repent of anything. Okay. We'll get back to this, maybe this this episode or the next one, maybe you can remind me, but even during the millennium that's yet to come when Christ reigns on earth, Satan will be bound for a thousand years and people will still be sinning in the millennium. They're still they're still going to be bad actors in the millennium. How is that possible? Because we don't need Satan to lead us astray. We lead ourselves astray because Jeremiah tells us that our heart is desperately wicked who can know it. Okay. So that's a topic later in this podcast or later in the next episode. But also from the hyperpenicostal group, we have to address this. There are those who predominantly traffic in the reform camp and they avoid they don't they won't even mention Satanic stuff. They won't even go there. It's just not in the vocabulary to go there. They have to sterilize the whole thing. They don't know what the deal is. They they'll read the gospels and they'll say that happened then or it can't happen now. And so they'll talk a lot about mental illness. They'll talk a lot about psychological issues, psychosis, multiple personalities. They'll they'll actually wind up giving more credit to psychology than just the pure unadulterated perfect word of God. And so you don't want the pendulum to swing so far to one side that you deny that there's demonic activity because you're going to have a really big problem because Jesus said demonic activity as we get deeper into the last days is only going to increase. It's going to get worse. So I don't know what my brothers on the reform side are going to do with that. But we also have to be careful that we don't go to the hyperpenicostal side and say, you know, I just saw Satan walk by and look over there that firehards just turned into a demon. I don't know what's going on. This is crazy stuff. So we need to have a balance and the balance is the Bible period. Let's talk about Lucifer. Lucifer was the name given to him by God. Lucifer. He is in the Old Testament. The angels are referred to as two, listen, listen, two things. They're referred to as stars. They're also referred to as sons of God, angels in the Old Testament, exclusively not not people, not humans in the Old Testament, exclusively angels are referred to as sons of God. They're also known as ministering spirits. They are servants of God throughout the Old and New Testament. So when we talk about Lucifer, that was his name prior to his fall. Who is this angelic power? What is he? And what is he not? So again, this is a, this is not a deep course on biblical demonology, but it's enough to get you going. By the way, if you want to get really deep into this, I highly recommend to you a book. If you can find it, it's not easy. It's titled biblical demonology by Merrill. Merrill with two hours, Merrill Unger, UNGR. I would not waste my time with any other book except that book by Merrill Unger. So Lucifer is a created being. He's created. We know from Colossians chapter one, we know from Hebrews chapter one that not only are angels created, we also know this from the book of Job that they are created, but the Bible tells us that Jesus is their actual creator. Jesus Christ Himself created the angelic world. And this of course predates the creation of the physical universe. Because we know that when the physical universe was created by Christ, that the sons of God sang worship to the Lord at the moment of creation. They were there. They saw it happen. They saw the physical world created, though they themselves are created. They were created before the physical world was created. But listen, Satan is a created angelic creature. He is in the order of what we know from the Bible as an archangel or a a cherubum of high rank. We don't know all the names, or if there are other names, we're not aware of a no-catholic theology will give you names, but that's only from extrabiblical writings. But we know that Michael is an archangel. We know that Gabriel is an archangel. Lucifer is an archangel. There's a little bit of debate. I'm not exactly sure the full answer myself, but in the book of Revelation is a badden, is a badden, another name for Satan, or is a badden, another fallen angel that is of an archangel status that's debated. But we know this that there are a few mentioned in scripture. We know for sure there are three archangels mentioned in scripture certainly. And Lucifer is one of them. Lucifer, Michael, Gabriel. But he's created. And because he's created, his character, his nature is limited. Satan is not everywhere. He can't. He's localized. He can only be where he is. But does that give him tremendous power being in the spirit realm to traverse the universe quickly? Yes, absolutely. He can do that. But he's localized. He cannot be, for example, here at this very moment, and in Moscow, in the Kremlin, or in the White House, or in Tanzania. He can't do that. But he clearly has a highly advanced communication system with his fallen angels. The Bible tells us that when Satan fell, when Lucifer fell, he was able, in the fall, the scripture tells us to deceive one third of the angelic host. Now, generically speaking, when Satan deceived one third of the angelic host, we don't know how many that means. We don't know. We don't know the number. Because the angelic world appears to be almost impossible for you to fathom in the way of number. So when the Bible says he led one third in deception, can you imagine that? Who's the father of lies according to the Bible? Lucifer. He's such a perfect liar that he was able to so convince one third of the angelic host to rebel against God and go with his plan. That's how powerful he is. But listen to this, who's equal to his power? Well, we know for sure there are two angels equal to his power, Michael and Gabriel. You see, well, how about what about Jesus's power in relation to Lucifer's power? It's impossible to compare, cannot do it. I say impossible, because it's not like it's so close, not exact opposite. Lucifer, Satan is not equal to Jesus's power. Lucifer's power is equal to Michael's power or Gabriel's power. But Jesus is the second person of the Trinity, the Son of God. Jesus is the creator. There is no comparison of God's power to Satan's power. I'd love this. Listen, this little side note. Years ago, Amir Sarfate, a dear friend of mine, brother. We've been friends. I don't even know how long. Many decades, three decades or more. So Amir said, man, we were going up to, we were walking up to, back in those days, you could go to the temple mount without getting in trouble. We were heading up that way, going right over near the hotel and getting ready to ascend to the temple mount. And Amir said, man, you know what, he goes just a couple of weeks ago, he said, there were some Nigerians singing and they looked beautiful. They're all colorfully clad and they're purple and orange and green and blue robes and they're Christians having come from Nigeria and they were singing. And one of the songs that they were singing is one that I hope will help you remember this podcast. And the song somehow goes like this. They were talking and saying about the power of God. And in that song, there's this line. Uh, Jesus power, super power, Satan's power, powerless power. And they were singing and we're cracking up because Amir broke out and they're in the retelling of that. And so he's doing it. Satan's power, powerless power. Jesus power, super power. Well, that's true. That's a great way to remember this. Satan's power. He's got power, but it's powerless power. Jesus power, super power. Now, if you don't have Jesus Christ in your life, you're a sit and duck for Satan's powerless power. You cannot compete against his powerless power. He will kick your tail and he will blind your eyes and he'll steal your heart and he'll do it with all the little bells and whistles and all the glittery parts and the things that shine and get you all giddy. That's how he just sucks you in. So your power, if Satan has powerless power against Christ, you have powerless power against Satan. You're a sit and duck. But if you're a believer, Satan literally has no power over you literally because the Bible says in 1 John 4, 4, greater is he that lives in you. That's a reference to the Holy Spirit than he that is in the world. That is a reference to Satan and his cohorts. So his origins, we can look at this and it's a full study for your own. Isaiah chapter 14, write that down. Isaiah chapter 14, write it down and Ezekiel chapter 28, write that down. Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28. If you want to start knowing a little bit more about the nature of Lucifer and Satan and his attributes, you'll start there. And I just see right now we're at a time. We're at a time. This might be a three-parter because we're going to get back together and do part two together. In the meantime, get a copy, biblical demonology by Merrill Unger, read Isaiah chapter 14 very carefully. Slow read. Read it in its context fully and Ezekiel chapter 28 fully in its context. Man, I'm sorry to cut you guys off, but I got to do this. So listen, remember, I don't know all the terminology about all this podcast stuff. Some day I'm going to learn it, probably not. But we want you to click the bell, give us the thumb, do the stars, tell people about it, spread the news, help us. We would love for you. If you're getting anything out of these, you know what you can really do? You can help us by messing with the algorithm for podcast. If you give us a reaction, comment, thumbs up. If you give us your response, it moves us up the rank and the computer sees it happening and then our podcast will fall into a category where it will get more views by people because they'll say, hey, this is trending. Hey, what's going on here? What's this guy talking about? And so it helps. Please do that. Please. So remember, everybody, you can find out more and more. We're doing a lot of stuff constantly. We're trying to wear ourselves out for Jesus. And so if you go to Jackibs.com, there's sermons. There is all kinds of things there. There's live services that are broadcast. There's archive services. There's materials. There's so much there at Jackibs.com. Go there, please. Of course, this is the Jackibs podcast. And there's just a lot happening. We're trying to just cover every area so that we can get the word of God out to more and more people before I either drop dead or Christ returns. It doesn't matter to me. So God bless you guys until next time. We'll see you. This Jackibs podcast as well as all the broadcast outreach opportunities are listener supported. Will you consider partnering with us through a special gift? Go to Jackibs.com to learn more and stay connected.