Star Wars: The Great Controversy | Dr. Conrad Vine

that I gave you guys a little bit of freedom because we started our health segment while we were still finishing up our dinner, but it looks like 90% of you guys are done. So, I'd like to encourage all of the peripheral families that are off to the tables to kind of take up the seats in the middle. Uh, I know Pastor Conrad is going to be able to look you guys all in the eye much easier if you guys are all right here in the front row. So, he promises that he doesn't bite often. So, please come and take up the front the the middle section if you will.

That'd be really awesome. Thank you very much. Uh, good evening everybody. What a beautiful night here in Kihei. Yes.

[clears throat] So, I'm just recovering from that um health shot I just took. I'm assured it's good for my health. We'll see in the next hour or so whether it really was, but I I'm trusting that it's going to be a blessing for me. You know, I've been trying to keep cool all day and I've got this heat rising inside of me. So, um anyway, I'm not sure the air con is going to cool me down on the inside.

So, uh it's going to I'm going to share with you tonight my topic is called Star Wars. And I'm going to talk tonight about the origin of evil and why is there suffering in our world today. And so uh can you just make sure is our microphone on? I hope it is. Can you all hear me back there?

Yes. Yeah. Okay. So I'm going to talk tonight about why there is suffering in our world. I've entitled the talk Star Wars and this is going to be our journey tonight.

We look at first of all we read that there was war in heaven. Then there was war in the Garden of Eden. And then there is now war on earth. And so yeah, I just need to cut out the source of interference here. So um this is going to be our journey tonight.

And let me ask you a question. Uh does anybody here live a life where you've never experienced any suffering? No. You know, they they say that um you know, I maybe I shouldn't make this joke, but maybe I will. Why is it that men never remember their wedding anniversaries?

Because the joy of receiving a wife is offset by the pain of receiving a mother-in-law on the same day. So, it kind of equalizes itself out. But the pain and suffering is a universal human condition. You cannot go anywhere on planet earth today and find a place where there is no pain and suffering. Today I went with my w my wife along um boardwalk.

Is it the wier beach? Is that what you call it? And it's it's absolutely stunningly beautiful. Stunningly beautiful. And but I know from years being a pastor that behind every front door, whether there is a Ferrari or a Ford, there is always a story to tell.

There's always some kind of suffering going on. It may be divorce. It may be depression, it may be death, it may be disease, it may be drugs. Um, but everybody's got a story to tell. Everybody's fighting their own battles.

And so tonight, we're going to ask ourselves, why does this happen? And does this happen purely at random or is there something we can do about this? And so we're going to start out by looking at war in heaven. And the Bible actually tells us in Revelation 12:7, it says, "And war broke out in heaven." I don't know how you feel about that, but that's kind of a shocking statement, isn't it? Like most people want to get to heaven.

And the idea that you're going to go to a war zone is like, man, I'm not sure I want to get to heaven. And so, the Bible says war broke out in heaven. Now, the good news is this is in the past. It's not in the future, but there was war in heaven at some time in the past. And this idea of the war in heaven, it gives us an idea of the origins of evil and the origins of all human suffering.

And so Jesus spoke about Satan um in this way in John chapter 8 and verse 44. Jesus said this. Now you are speaking to the Jewish leaders. He said, "You are from your father the devil and you choose to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him.

So according to Jesus, Satan was a murderer from the beginning and there is no truth in him. So let's go back to what the Bible says happened in heaven during that war um that caused so much suffering throughout our world. And the first text we're going to look at is a text famous to many Adventists. It's Ezekiel 28 12-15. And this describes um Satan um before his fall in heaven when his name was Lucifer.

Satan has a variety of names in the Bible. But in heaven before the fall, he was called Lucifer, which means the bearer of light. And this is what the text says. It says, "Thus sayaith the Lord God, you are the signance of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God.

Every precious stone was your covering. Carnelon, chryselite, and moonstone, barrel, onyx, and jasper, sapphire, turquoise, and emerald, and worked in gold were your settings and your engravings. On the day that you were created, they were prepared. With an anointed cherub's guardian, I placed you. You were on the holy mountain of God.

You walked among the stones of fire. You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created. And then you have that fatal sentence in the Bible. It says, "Until iniquity was found in you." So before Satan fell in heaven, before he was a fallen angel, he was what we call a covering angel. He stood in the presence of God.

He was one of the guardian angels or the cherubim in heaven. He walked among the stones of fire. His covering was of the most beautiful, precious stones that you can imagine. But then something happened in Satan. It says until iniquity was found in you.

And the text goes on to say why this iniquity or sin was found in Satan. It says later in the same chapter, it says your heart was proud because of your beauty. You corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor. I don't know how you feel, but sometimes I look at these movie stars walking down the red red carpet at Hollywood and the first thought that comes to my mind is what a bunch of humble people. They [clears throat] normally strut their stuff.

Yes. They they they show their stuff. They they they say they walk with a certain self-confidence. Um those movie stars certainly strut their stuff, particularly those who know they're very good-looking. And so it's no surprise to find out that Satan, his heart was proud because of his beauty.

And he corrupted his wisdom, a gift from God for the sake of his splendor. The book of Isaiah describes in a bit more detail what was going on in the mind of Satan that caused him to sin and lead to the war in heaven. And so the prophet Isaiah says this, "How you are fallen from heaven, O day star." And some versions say Lucifer. Um, some translations say day star, but Lucifer was the name of Satan before he fell in heaven. Says, "How you are fallen from heaven, oh Lucifer, son of the dawn.

How you are cut down to the ground, you who met laid the nations low. For you said in your heart, and notice the next section, there are five I wills." I' I put them up in red on the screen there. It gives you an idea of what Satan was thinking about. It says Satan is thinking in his heart, number one, I will ascend to heaven. Number two, I will raise my throne above the stars of God.

Number three, I will sit on the mount of assembly on the heights of Zafon. Number four, I will ascend to the tops of the clouds. And fifthly, I will make myself like the most high. Do you notice a pattern of thinking in Satan's behavior here? There's one consistent theme is I will five times I will ascend.

I will raise I will sit. I will ascend and I will make myself like the most high God. And so in Satan in the fall in heaven um he was a beautiful angel. He was most beautiful of the angels but his heart was corrupted because of his splendor. His heart was filled with pride because of his beauty.

And he thought well I'm not happy just to be a covering angel. essentially he wants to take the throne of God himself. He wants to be the ruler of the universe. He doesn't see why God is on the throne of the universe. Uh he wants to be on the throne of the universe himself.

And so we go back to that opening text that we look at. It said and that war broke out in heaven. And I've put there in the Greek the word the word is polymos. We'll come back to that in a minute. It says war broke out in heaven.

Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. Michael is another name for Christ. We see when Jesus appeared to Joshua in the book of Joshua chapter 5, he appeared as the commander of the armies of the Lord. And so uh Christ and his angels fought against the dragon that is Satan. It says the dragon and his angels fought back but they were defeated and there was no longer any place for them in heaven.

The great dragon was thrown down that ancient serpent who is called the devil and Satan the deceiver of the whole world. He was thrown down to the earth and his angels were thrown down with him. Say, "Wow." So there was war in heaven and Christ and his angels fought against Satan and his fallen angels and Satan lost that battle and his ang and his angels were cast out of heaven and they were cast down to planet earth. Satan together with his fallen angels. Some people call them demons.

We find them called demons in the New Testament. But Satan and his angels have been cast down to this planet earth. And therein lies the source of all human suffering. Now that word war, it's not the normal word for war that you find in the New Testament. The word there is pmos.

We get the word English word palemic from that. What is a palemic? A pmic is a piece of propaganda that's pushing you to to um accept a certain idea as being true. If something is pmical, it means it's it's arguing a certain perspective in a discussion. So the war in heaven, it wasn't so much physical fighting between angels and swords or like lightsabers like in the Star Wars movies.

The war in heaven was a battle about truth. It was a battle about truth. And God is truth and his throne is based on truth. So if there's a war about truth, it's a war about the nature of God, his character, and his government. And essentially, can God's government be trusted?

And that question, can you trust God? Which happened in the Garden of Eden. The book of Revelation goes on to say in the same chapter, "But woe to the earth and the sea, for the devil has come down to you with great wrath because he knows that his time is short." So, Satan is angry and he knows that his time is short. He knows that when Christ comes again, Satan is going to be destroyed. So, Satan is angry.

He's been cast out of heaven. And while he's down here on planet Earth, he wants to take as many humans beings down with him as he possibly can. And so, Satan is the source of the suffering that we experience in our world today. The book of Jude written by the brother of Christ says this in verse six. It says, "And the angels who did not keep their own position, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in uh he has kept in eternal chains in deepest darkness for the judgment of the great day." This verse tells us that those fallen angels are confined to the moral darkness of planet earth, cut off from all access to God.

It also tells us their actions are restrained by God because if those fallen angels could they would destroy every human being in their war against God. And so the warning is given from if by the apostle Peter because of this conflict that we are born into this great controversy between Christ and Satan. The apostle Peter says there he says discipline yourselves. Stay alert. Like a roaring lion, your adversary, the devil, prowls around looking for someone to devour.

So, Satan is like a roaring lion prowling around seeking whom he may devour. And uh if you're a regular human being, you know what suffering feels like. Yes. Sometimes evil comes knocking on your front door. And you wonder, "How did that happen?

How did this happen to me? How what happened to our marriage? How did things go wrong with our kids? How did these things happen?" Well, the Bible tells us that Satan is like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. Many years ago, my wife and I went to the Masai Mara in Kenya.

I was working in South Sudan at the time. We took a break. We went to uh to Kenya into the Masimara, the very famous game reserve there. and we we drove in. We drove all day with a guide and uh we booked to stay at a at an encampment in the middle of the Masai Mara.

Now, the Masai Mara is bigger than Maui, okay? It's huge and it's filled with lions and leopards and hippos and crocodiles. And right now, there's the migration going on right now as we sit here and millions of wilderbeasts are crossing the Masai the Mara River there and the crocodiles are all waiting for them. You've probably seen the clips on the internet. Well, we went to this camp in the middle of the Masai Mara.

And in the middle of the Masai Mara, there was about five or six white canvas tents, each with two cot beds in them. And I went up, I got out of my car, and I said to the guy, "Well, you know, are we taying in these tents?" He said, "Yes." I said, "Well, what's to stop the lions? We've been photographing 20 minutes down the road. What's to stop them coming in to get us at night?" And the guide says, "Well, don't worry. We have an electric fence." I said, "Well, where is this electric fence?" He said, "You see that little wire that run around your tent is 18 18 in above the ground, a single wire." He says, "That's an electric fence." He said, "The lions won't come anywhere near your tent because it's an electric fence." I said, "There's electricity in that fence." He said, "Well, I'm not sure." I said, "Let's just try it." So, do this.

No, there's no electricity in this fence. And the guy says, "Well, don't worry." He said, "The lions don't know there's no electricity. I can tell you that that was the worst night of our married life. Every time I heard a mouse scratching outside that white canvas tent, I had visions of the Tanzania maneaters that the that terrorized when they're making the railroads up the east coast of Africa. Um there was one famous camp where they lost dozens of men to maneing lions.

They would burst through the tents and snatch the workers at night. And I was thinking, "Oh Lord, if that if that lion comes through that tent right now, what am I going to do?" And uh so anyway, I didn't get much sleep that night and I was really grateful to get in the car the next morning and drive away from that uh from that tent where there was no any no power in the electrical fence. But I realized in that night when this verse says that Satan is like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour and you're living in a canvas tent at night and there's lions around you and they're hungry. I realized, man, I should be taking this spiritual battle really seriously because this is no joke. All of us carry in our bodies, in our minds, in our homes the scars of the attacks of this roaring lion.

We see it all across our society. We see um uh people are um medicating themselves with alcohol and with drugs and with endless sport. They're medicating with porn. They're medicating with um with music. People are trying to escape the pain of daily living.

And so many of our fellow neighbors and our citizens and our nation are just living under this crushing burden of pain and suffering. Some physical, some of it's mental and some of it's emotional. But wherever we see in our society, we see the impact of this roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. Satan's goal is not just to cause you pain, but it's to destroy you. And so there was war in heaven and Satan was cast down and now he's an angry lion seeking whom he may devour in Maui in 2026.

And it may well be that in your life you see the effect of Satan's attacks even sitting here tonight. It may be a wayward child, maybe a cancer diagnosis. It may be a marriage that's hanging on by a by a by a thin thread. It may be a financial crisis you're going through. It may be those nightmares from the past.

Uh maybe something happened to you as a child. Something did something to you. Almost everybody living in Maui today has got a story to tell of how Satan has been trying to destroy them. So the war then moves down to the Garden of Eden. [clears throat] And many of us are familiar with the story of the garden of Eden.

But the book of the new the book of the the new books of the new testament describe Satan and his angels in very stark terms. The apostle Paul in Ephesians 6 calls Satan and his ru angels the cosmic powers of this present darkness. Colossians 1:13 says that Satan his angels are the powers of darkness. And when Judas who was filled by Satan literally in John chapter 19 when when in John 13 when when Judas came to betray Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane Jesus says to Judas he says this is your hour and the power of darkness. So let's come to this idea of what happened in the garden of Eden.

We start out with the commands that God gave to Adam in Genesis chapter 2. And it says there, "The Lord God commanded the man, you may freely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it, you shall die." And so God said to Adam, "You can have all eat of all the fruit of the garden of of Eden, but there is one tree that you cannot eat." And God didn't want Adam to eat because he wanted to restrict Adam's freedom or Adam's happiness. Now, this was a test of Adam's loyalty and obedience to God. If God said, "Don't eat of this tree." The question was, would Adam accept God's judgment and God's um God's guidance and God's revealed morality, or would Adam decide that he was going to be the ruler of the Garden of Eden and he was going to eat from whatever tree he wanted? And so, uh, in Genesis chapter 2, Adam does not eat of the fruits of the tree of good and evil.

Now the phrase a knowledge of good and evil, it's a Hebrew idiom, it means um it means that you know everything that is good and everything that is evil and everything in between. It's like saying um I've traveled AC I've traveled across America from Hawaii to Maine. That means you've gone from west to east as far as you can possibly go. And so this expression, the knowledge of the tree of good and evil, and God was warning Adam that if you eat of this tree, you're not just going to know all that is good in this world, then you and your descendants are going to know all that is evil in this world as well. And you think carefully before you take of that tree, Adam.

Well, Genesis chapter 3, the serpent who's been cast down to planet Earth and he wants to rule on planet Earth because he [clears throat] wanted to rule in heaven, but he was cast out. The serpent appears to Eve and the story says this. It says, "Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God say, you shall not eat from any tree in the garden?" The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die." But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not die. For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you'll be like God, knowing good and evil." So, the first thing that Satan did in the Garden of Eden, I've underlined it there.

It says uh the serpent said did God say if you want to destroy your relationship you don't need to have a full frontal attack you just need to plant a seed of doubt and so when Satan said did God say or did God really say he was starting to plant doubt in Eve's mind you may think you have a perfect relationship with say your spouse until a work colleague says Who did I see your spouse with at that hotel yesterday? And that one simple question starts eating away like cancer on the inside and just adding one% of doubt to that otherwise perfect relationship. It will destroy that relationship before you realize it. And so when you introduce doubt, you start to destroy the relationship. So we see in this passage that Satan was the first theologian in human history.

He was discussing the word of God. Did God really say this? And having introduced doubt into the mind of Eve, then the next underlined p verse there, it says, "You will not die." So, first of all, Satan casts doubt on the word of God. Did God really say this? And when Eve has doubt in her heart whether God's word can be trusted, then Satan says, "You will not die, which was a direct the opposite of what God had said to Adam, which is in the day that you eat of the fruit of this tree, you shall die." And so, Satan moves from casting doubt on the word of God to flatly contradicting the word of God.

And so, Eve yielded to the doubt. She believed the lie and rather than accepting God on the throne of her heart, she chose to put self on the throne of her heart and she took of that fruit and she ate as did Adam. And that's what theologians call the fall. And so, Romans chapter 5 describes this tragic experience. It says, "Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, that is through Adam, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned." And so when Adam and Eve accepted the lies of Satan and said that they were going to be the gods of their own lives, they were going to sit on the throne of their own hearts, sin entered this world.

And along with sin comes death because the wages of sin is death. and his death spread to all of us because we are all the sons and daughters of Adam. We bear the consequences of what Adam did, but we don't bear his guilt. The Bible does not say that we are guilty of Adam's sin, but we live with the consequences of Adam's sin. Let me give you an example.

A father who goes out and drinks and comes home and beats the kids and beats his wife. those kids all and the wife all suffer the consequences of the father's sin, but they're not guilty for his drinking. And so, we all bear the consequences. We live with the consequences of what Adam and Eve did back then in what we call the fall. But we're not guilty of what Adam did.

And if you look at a Bible, [clears throat] here's my Bible here. Every story has three components. There's every movie has three components. Every novel has three components. Our brains are wired for this.

Every movie that you've ever seen has three components that you start out with a situation, then you have a complication and the rest of the movie is the resolution of that problem. Every movie has that basic structure. And the Bible is no different. You have Genesis chapter 1 and two is the situation, the perfect creation. Genesis chapter 3 is the complication.

That is the fall. And Genesis 4 through Revelation 22, which is pretty much all of the Bible other than the first three pages, is God's plan for our salvation. Is God resolving the sin problem on our behalf? And so sin came to the whole world and so did death and so did suffering because of what Adam and Eve did in that garden of Eden. And so, not only did they sin, but Satan became the ruler of this world.

Jesus called Satan in John 12:31, the ruler of this world. The Apostle Paul refers to Satan as the god of this world. And because sin enters into our world, we are now, as Romans 5:10 says, we are enemies of God. And Ephesians 2:3 calls us children of wrath or children of God's anger. We are in a planet in rebellion, estranged from God.

And so when the warf in heaven came down to the Garden of Eden, our parents failed that first test and sin and suffering entered our world. But praise God, God did not leave us in this fallen condition. He did not leave us on our own. He didn't leave us to kind of wallow in in in this this world of sin with no hope of of possible redemption. uh because immediately after uh the fall happened in the garden of Eden, God confronted the serpent and this is what God says to the serpent in the garden of Eden.

It says, "I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and hers. He will strike your head and you will strike his heel." How do you kill a serpent? You strike the head. And so what [clears throat] this passage tells us is that God will place enmity between the serpent and the seed of the woman. That is human beings are going to have a natural horror at evil.

That we're going to be repulsed by evil. That we don't want any part of evil. Even though evil is part of our world, most of us don't want evil to come knocking on our front door. And so there is enmity between us and evil. But the good news of the gospel, the first expression of the gospel in the Bible, it says he will strike your head.

That is the seed of the woman, the Messiah, the promised one of God, that is Jesus Christ. He's going to strike the head of that serpent. And if you strike the head of that serpent, what happens to that serpent? He dies. And so, right in the Garden of Eden, immediately after the fall, God gives us this first expression of the gospel, the good news of a Messiah of God who's going to deal with our sin problem once and for all.

And because of what that Messiah came to do, that is Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul goes on to describe the consequences or the impact of what Jesus did. He says, "Therefore, just as one man's trespass led to condemnation for all, that's the sin of Adam. We're all fallen human beings. We live in a world of suffering." So, the text goes on to say, "One man's act of righteousness, that is Christ's life, leads to justification and life for all.

For just as by the one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience, the many will be made righteous." I want to tell you this. I I meet with a lot of people who are dying and many people who are dying, they say, "Pastor, I don't think I can be saved." And why would you say that? Well, God can forgive my neighbor, but my life, I've committed too many sins. I don't think God could forgive me. They say things like, "Pastor, I've really messed up in this world.

I live with regret. I live with could ofves and would ofs and shoulds and I'm facing death now with no assurance of salvation. Now, how do I respond to them? Well, I say something that most people don't like. I say, "It's true you're a rotten sinner.

It's true that in and of your own self, you have no hope of salvation. It's true that you cannot earn your salvation, and it's too late for you to try and earn it now. It's true that left to your own devices, you are a lost sinner. And when you close your eyes, that's it. But the Bible says in this verse here, by the one man's obedience, that is the obedience and the perfection of Christ, the many will be made righteous.

You have the assurance of salvation not because you have lived a sinless life. You have the assurance of salvation because one man, that is the Messiah of God, Jesus Christ, he led the perfect life. And we can ask for God to apply that righteousness to our own lives. And so we have the assurance of salvation not because we are sinless but because Jesus lived the sinless life. So then we come to war on earth.

And uh what have I what do I want to describe here? I want to describe here the reality that when Jesus came the Messiah of God was promised in Genesis 3 in the garden of Eden immediately after the fall. Jesus did not come just to be a good teacher. Jesus had much greater purposes in mind when he came to this earth because God promised in Genesis 3 that a redeemer would come. And after Cain murdered Abel, a new boy was born to Adam and Eve called Seth.

And through Seth comes the line of the patriarchs and the line of the Messiah. God introduced a sacrificial system just after the fall to keep alive the promise of Messiah in the lives of those inhabitants of planet Earth. And those sacrifices provide the symbolic means by which our sins can be forgiven on the basis of our faith in God. When Noah alone was the righteous person left on earth and the line of the redeemer was under threat because it says Genesis 6, Noah alone was righteous on the earth. God brought about the flood um to make sure that Satan could not extinguish the line of the Messiah.

God then called Abraham out of earth the Caldes and he promised him that in you shall all the families of the earth be blessed through which God meant every family on Maui today has the promise of blessing from God through what what Abraham did in the line of Abraham because the Messiah was to come through the line of Abraham. The Messiah was to be a son of David and he was also to be of the line of Abraham which is what we read in Matthew chapter 1, the genealogy of Jesus. And so from Abraham to Isaac to Jacob down to King David and through Solomon and his line all the way through the Old Testament, there are prophecies after prophecies about the coming of the Messiah. Literally, it tells us in the book of Micah, 500 years before he was born, where Jesus was going to be born, Bethlehem of Judea. The book of Daniel tells us in Daniel 9, we'll look at this later, maybe later this week, exactly the year that Jesus was going to be born.

And that prophecy was given almost 700 years before the birth of the Messiah. We have we have the uh we have the exact dating of the of the birth of the Messiah. The Old Testament prophecies tell us what the Messiah was going to do. They speak about his ministry. They speak about the fact he was going to be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver.

They speak about the fact that he was going to be handed over and executed, but that one day he would rise again. Isaiah 53 is the most famous of those prophecies. It says, "But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed." And so the Messiah came to pay the penalty for my sins and for your sins. He came to um take our place to die the death that we deserve as sinners that we might have his eternal life.

And first John 3:8 says about the Messiah. It says the son of God was revealed for this purpose to destroy the works of the devil. And I say amen to that. That Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil. Uh Jesus came so that one day there be there'd be no more cancer, no more stroke, no more heart disease, no more family breakup, no more divorce, no more depression, no more disease, no more despair, no more broken families or estranged children.

Jesus came to destroy everything that Satan has done in our lives here on Maui. Jesus came to set that right one day. And I say praise God for that because the problems we face in our lives today are are beyond our ability to fix them on our own. If we could fix our own problems and our in our own bodies, our own minds, our own families, we wouldn't have so much self-medication going on in our society. But we have a society that's basically self-medicating everywhere you look because people are trying to navigate the pain of living with what Satan has done to this world.

When Jesus came, we read in the gospels that Herod tried to kill the baby all to tried to kill the Messiah. And because he wasn't quite sure which baby was the Messiah, he killed all the babes of Bethlehem. In Revelation 12 3-4, describe what happened. It says, "Then another portant appeared in heaven, a great red dragon, that is Satan, with seven heads and 10 horns and seven diadems on his heads. His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to earth.

That tells us that a third of the angels are now fallen angels or demons. And yes, let me tell you, those demons are here in Maui as well. I've been driving around Maui for 3 days. I've seen enough evidence of the occult, of new age, of people who are the practitioners of the dark arts to know that Satan has his strongholds here in Maui as well. And because he has his strongholds, people in Maui are paying a terrible price for that because of the curse of Satan.

Says, "Then the dragon stood before the woman who was about to hear bear a child so that she might he might devour her child as soon as it was born. And she gave birth to a son, a male child, who was to rule the nations with a rod of iron. But her child was snatched away and taken to God and to his throne." And so this passage here talks about the fact that Satan was thrown down to earth. He took a third of the angels with him and he tried to kill Jesus at birth when Herod killed all the baby boys of Bethlehem in order to kill the Messiah in the process. But when Jesus started his ministry, he gave a very famous sermon.

It's found in Luke chapter 4. It's called the Nazareth manifesto. Now these days, um, how do you know when a politician is lying? just as a general question. Okay.

You can tell they're lying because the lips are moving. It's a good indicator. All right. Are politicians um adept at making promises? Yes.

I've been seeing on my social media feed um there's elections coming up for the Maui Council from what I can see. And there are people making promises saying, "I helped out in the after the fires on the northwest of the island. So, you can trust me today to be on the city council and I promise to do this that or the other. I'm gonna bring jobs. I'm going to protect the environment.

I'm going to raise everybody's standard of living. And you kind of know, you want to believe it, but you know in your heart of hearts that it's probably not true. But when Jesus gave his first sermon in Luke chapter 4, he gave a number of promises. He was coming to bind up the brokenhearted, for instance. But the one I want to focus on tonight is this.

Jesus came to proclaim release to the captives. What is Jesus talking about? What Jesus is talking about is the fact that Satan has got many people in his grip. Many people experience demonization today. They experience the reality of demons in their homes, in their hearts, in their families.

And Jesus came to set people free from the grip of Satan even in 2026. And what I do as a pastor among preaching and other things is I get involved in deliverance ministry. And I see that it doesn't matter whether you're in West Africa or West Michigan or or the West Indies. It doesn't matter. People around our world are struggling under the oppression of demons.

And there is only one name that can set them free in this war and that is the name of Jesus Christ. It is not the name of any pastor. It's not the name of any church. It's not the name of any religious leader. What you discover is that the demons fear nothing and nobody other than the name of Jesus Christ.

And when Jesus started his ministry, he there was a showdown in the wilderness with with Satan in in Matthew's gospel and Mark's gospel. And Satan tried to deceive Jesus. And Jesus resisted those temptations. And because Jesus resisted the temptations of Satan in the wilderness, from that moment on, Jesus could go throughout his ministry and he could set Satan's captives free. When the Pharisees said that it's only by the power of Satan that he casts out demons, Jesus says, "No, you cannot enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods unless first you've tied up the strong man." By that, Jesus meant that I bound up Satan in the wilderness.

I conquered him in that showdown in the wilderness. And because I've conquered Satan, I can now freely go around and set his captives free. And so this war in heaven that came down to Eden is something that we live with in our world today. We read in the gospels that when Jesus had confrontations with demons such as here in Matthew's gospel chapter 8, this is what we read. It says, "Suddenly they," that is the demon shouted, "What have you to do with us, son of God?

Have you come here to torment us before the time?" That is the demons know that their ultimate destruction is assured. And they were upset that Jesus was casting them out of their human victims before their appointed hour of judgment. The book of Acts verse 10:38 describes the ministry of Jesus. It says, "God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. How he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil for God was with him." And I say, "Praise God for the ministry of Jesus Christ." You know, Jesus never lost a battle with a demon.

He never lost a battle with Satan. [clears throat] And if we're living under satanic attack today, we can ask Jesus to fight those battles for us as well because he's the only one in our universe who's never lost a battle with Satan. So when it came to Calvary that [clears throat] that turning point of human history and later we're going to speak about what actually happened on the cross of Calvary in another one of our talks in this series but just in brief here the first thing that happened at Calvary was that judgment was secured against Satan. Jesus spoke of it thus he says now is the judgments of this world. Now the ruler of this world will be driven out and I when I am lifted up from the earth will draw all people to myself.

So judgment was secured against Satan. You know I w went for a walk along the beach today and I saw a lot of people with a lot of jewelry on and one thing I noticed more than anything else is a lot of people have got crosses around their necks. It's the most common item of jewelry you see. It's a cross around somebody's neck. And um the cross was designed as an instrument of torture.

It was an instrument of humiliation. You could spend two or three days dying of crucifixion back in those days in the ancient Roman Empire. Um but the cross has become a symbol of victory of God's victory over the forces of evil. And the cross is always empty. When you look at the the jewelry on people's necks, the cross never has Christ on the cross.

The cross is always empty. Why is the cross empty? Because Jesus is no longer on the cross. He's no longer in the grave, but he rose from the grave on the third day and he's conquered death itself. And so when you when I see these crosses on people's necks, I don't know whether they're practicing Christians or not.

I don't know whether they understand the theology behind this, but the the the empty cross is a powerful sign that Jesus Christ has conquered death and he's conquered Satan and he's alive and he lives forever more. And so when when on Calvary judgment was secured against Satan. Secondly, we see on Calvary that the promise of salvation for fallen humanity, including us today in Maui in 2026, was fulfilled. Revelation 12 says this, "Then I heard a loud voice in heaven proclaiming," this is speaking about the victory on Calvary. Says, "Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Messiah.

For the accuser of our comrades, that is Satan, has been cast down, thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. Rejoice then, you heavens and those who dwell in them. And so what happened on Calvary was not just that judgment was secured against Satan, but the promise of salvation for us as fallen human beings met its fulfillment. That's a beautiful promise. The idea that Jesus fought my battles for me.

He died my death for me. He gained victory over Satan for me. He paid the penalty for my sins for me. What happened at Calvary was a beautiful and a profound thing. We also read that at Calvary, in this battle between good and evil that's been going on for millennia, that atonement was made for human sin.

1 John 4:10 says this, "In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent us his son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins." That word atoning means reconciliation or to be at one with somebody else. And so God sent his son to be the sacrifice of reconciliation between us and our heavenly father. This is the definition of love. Um, you know, when I was a teenage boy, um, we we learned about sweet nothings. Do you have sweet nothings here in in Hawaii?

When a teenage boy whispers something to a girl like, "I will love you till the day I die." If she's wise, she knows that this is meaningless. Because if she says, "No, I'm not interested." Tomorrow he's going to be whispering to another girl, "I will love you till the day I die." And if she doesn't reciprocate, then the next day he's going to find another young girl and say, "I will always love you till the day I die." We call these sweet nothings. Um I once studied with some Iranian Muslims and we were going through the gospels together. We came to the book of Romans and Romans chapter 5 has a beautiful verse. Romans 5 and verse 8.

It says this, "But God proves his love for us that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." So God doesn't just say to humanity, I love you. But he proved his love for us by sending his son to die for us on the cross of Calvary. That is not a sweet nothing. That is a profoundly beautiful truth that we can trust God because he already died for us while we were yet a planet in rebellion. While we were yet sinners, while we yet estranged from God, while we yet knew nothing about God, while we thinking we live our lives according to our own values and our own goals and our own objectives, even so, God sent his son to die for us to be a sacrifice of reconciliation.

And this is love that God sent his son to die for me and to die for you. So when Jesus died, it was a sacrifice of atonement. And then the uh final thing he did there was when Christ died on Calvary, God upheld the moral law that is the ten commandments and revealed God's true character. That God didn't just leave us to to stew in this world of sin. But God took responsibility for fixing the sin problem himself.

In the book of Genesis chapter 2, it says, "And the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground. Then he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. We know that Christ was that agent of creation, Jesus. And when Jesus, imagine Jesus creates Adam and that that body is lying there, that wonderfully intricate body, we are fearfully and wonderfully made, says the word of God. And when Jesus before Jesus bends down and he breathes into Adam's nostrils the breath of life, he looks at those hands which are created to do good works and one day those hands will be nailing nails through his own hands.

And he looks at th that lip those lips which are designed to sing praises to God that one day those lips will shout crucify. And Jesus takes a look at those feet which are designed to walk to distances to do good deeds for others. And one day those feet will men on walking will drag him up a hill a hill called Calvary in the notsodistant future. And so when Jesus bent down then he breathed into Adam's nostrils the breath of life he basically gave himself the kiss of death. But having created us and seen the fall take place.

Jesus didn't just walk away from his fallen creation. He took personal responsibility for fixing the problem. And he didn't just leave us in this world of sin. He came again to save us from the consequences of our own actions. The scriptures teach us that Jesus Christ has never lost an encounter with Satan or any of his demons.

And I say amen to that. When there was war in heaven, but war between Christ and his angels and Satan and his angels, Satan lost and Satan was cast out of heaven. Christ triumphed over Satan at his birth when Herod tried to kill him. And in the showdown in the wilderness, when Satan tried to tempt Christ in Matthew 4, Jesus triumphed over Satan in the wilderness once again. And all through his three and a half years of earthly ministry, wherever Jesus went, he never failed to cast out demons who from those who are under satanic control.

There was nobody beyond the reach of the power of Jesus Christ. And whenever anybody asked Jesus for help, Jesus inevitably cast out those demons. Christ triumphs over Satan's fallen angels while on earth the demons were cast out. Christ triumphs over Satan's temptations in the Garden of Gethsemane. Christ triumphs over Satan at Calvary.

And in the final crisis that is coming upon our world, Christ is going to triumph once again. And when Jesus comes again in the clouds of glory, there's a promise in 1 Corinthians 15 that Satan and his angels will face their ultimate destruction. And I say, praise God for that. that the source of all evil and suffering and pain will be gone forever more and it will no longer trouble the human race and it will no longer trouble um planet earth. You know people say well is that is God going to really kill Satan and so forth?

I say well if you have a cancer and you go to the doctor and the doctor says I can do um surgery and I can cut out the tumor then you're going to live a good life. Do you feel sorry for the cancer? No. What do you want the doctor? You want the surgeon to cut out that cancer and you don't want that cancer to be preserved on a petri dish.

You want it to be incinerated in the hospital incinerator. Yes. You want that cancer to be gone forever. It's never going to come back and trouble humanity and certainly yourself. And so Revelation 20 10 says that in the final judgment, Satan and his fallen angels will be cast into the lake of fire and face eternal destruction.

And I say burn, baby, burn. Because of all the suffering he's caused on planet Earth, because of all the suffering we've lived through just in this room alone, we were born into a sinful world through no fault of our own. And Christ has taken responsibility to win the battle over sin and to defeat Satan for us so that we might be restored to God. Was what do we say in conclusion tonight? The scriptures teach the good news that Jesus Christ is the savior of mankind.

Jesus was perhaps the greatest teacher of humanity in human history. But Jesus didn't come just to teach. He came to save. Our greatest problem today is not poverty. And our greatest need is not economic development.

Our greatest need is not homelessness and our greatest problem is not homelessness. Our greatest need is not for the government to build affordable housing. Our greatest problem this day these days is not racism and our greatest need is not racial reconciliation. Our greatest need these days is not having our problems not have is having an iPhone 13. Our greatest need is not needing an iPhone 15.

Our greatest problem is the reality of a personal malevolent evil being called Satan whose sole goal is to destroy us. And our greatest need to fight off that personal malevolent evil being called Satan. Our greatest need is a personal loving savior who has never lost a battle with Satan, who will fight those battles for us, who's never lost a battle with Satan, and who's promised us, I will never leave you nor forsake you. And that savior is Jesus Christ. And his promise to us tonight, our last slide on the screen.

I think our time is up here. His promise to us tonight is a beautiful promise. It's found in John 6:37. Jesus says this, "And anyone who comes to me, I will never drive away." That's a beautiful promise. God knows our past.

He knows our would ofs, our couldavs, our shoulds. He knows our regrets. He knows the things that we wish we could we could turn back time and have a redo on those things. He knows all of those things. He knows the things we're proud about.

He knows the things we're ashamed about. He knows the things we're happy to talk to other people about. He knows the things we don't even want to admit to ourselves. And yet, the promise of the Messiah of God is still this. If anyone comes to me, I will never drive him away.

There is no record anywhere in the Gospels of Jesus firing a disciple. Those disciples made all kinds of problems. They kept fighting among themselves who was going to be the greatest in the kingdom of God. Um they betrayed him. They denied him.

They fled when he was crucified. And Peter denied him uh the night of his of his trial. But there is no record that Jesus ever fired somebody who came to him in faith. I want to appeal to you tonight. Last [clears throat] night, last night we spoke about the fact that there is a God in heaven who who controls the flow of history and he's bringing history to a climax which is the second coming of Jesus Christ.

We saw in the prophecy of Daniel 2 that God is the Lord of history and God has revealed from times um from 600 BC all the way down to today how history is going to unfold and stay. We're living in the toes of that statue of Daniel 2. we are living um in and the next thing that's going to hit planet earth is the second coming of Jesus Christ. And last night I invited you to say, "Lord, I'm going to trust you for my future." And tonight, [clears throat] I just want to make an appeal to you. This this appeal that we all know we're in a struggle between good and evil.

We see that good and evil all around us. It's why we have law enforcement. It's why we have the military. It's why we put bars on our windows. We put locks on our doors.

We all know there is a struggle between good and evil. And we're caught up in it. There is a struggle between good and evil. It's between Christ and Satan. And tonight, I want to encourage you to choose which side of that struggle you're going to be on.

Are you going to be on the Satan's side, which case it's a pathway to predition? Are you going to say tonight, I'm going to be on Christ's side of the great controversy. I'm going to stand with him. I want him to be my champion. I want him to fight my battles for me.

I want him to fight the battles I cannot see, but know are there nonetheless. I know I'm under attack, but I'm asking Jesus tonight to fight those battles for me. I will never leave you nor forsake you is his promise to those who choose him tonight. His other promise is, "Anyone who comes to me, I will never drive away." Praise God. Praise God.

What a savior we have. And so tonight, if you um maybe last night, you say, "Lord, I want you to be the Lord of my life. I want you to guide my history ultimately to eternal life." Maybe tonight you're saying, "Lord, I want to be on the side of Christ in this great controversy. I want him to be my champion. I want him to fight the battles I cannot see.

I want him to fight the battles I cannot fight. I want him to rebuke the attacks of Satan on my body, on my marriage, on my home, on my finances, upon my children, and all whom I love and hold dear. We can ask Jesus tonight to play that role in our lives. Anyone who comes to me, says Christ, I will never drive them away. He came in the Nazareth manifesto, Luke 4, to set the captives free, to set people free whose lives are lived under the control and the attacks of Satan.

I gave my life to Jesus when I was 13 years of age. And he's done me no harm. I want to appeal to you tonight. Maybe you've already given your life to Christ. Maybe you've yet to give your life to Christ.

But we all know we're living in a broken world, in a messed up world. And there is only one person who can help us in this messed up world against the forces of evil that are arrayed against us. And it is the Lord Jesus Christ. I want to appeal to you tonight to ask Jesus to be the captain of your life to fight the battles for you that you cannot see so you gain victory in this world and the promise of eternal life tomorrow. I'm not sure what time it is.

I think our time is probably up here. But there was a very famous martyr in about he was his name was Polycarp. He lived in western Turkey modern city of Smyrna near Ismir. He was arrested at the age of 86. He was hauled before the Roman authorities.

This was about 160 AD. And the Roman authorities said offer some incense to Caesar and we'll let you go. And you have to say Kaiser curios Caesar is Lord. And Polycarp said no. He said yes curios Jesus is Lord.

I will not say that Caesar is Lord. And for that um act of rebellion against the Roman Empire, he was condemned to be thrown to the lions, but there was some bureaucrat in the in the um office that day who said, "Actually, it's after 3:00 in the afternoon and the lions can't be fed after that day." Literally, this is the story. And so, it's we might as well just chop his head off because the lions can't be fed after 3:00. Maybe they're on intermittent fasting. Who knows?

So, they chopped his head off. But before he had his head chopped off, Polycarp said to the Roman governor, he said this, "Four score in six years, that is 86 years, I have served my king and he has done me no wrong. Why now would I deny my king?" And I'm 54 and I will say, "Two score and 14 years I have served my king and he has done me no wrong. Why would I deny my king today?" And so I won't because he can do for me and with me and through me and despite me far more than I can begin to imagine oral hope I could do on my own. So tonight I'm going to bow our heads for a word of prayer in a moment.

I want to invite you as I pray to say Jesus I want to be on your side of the great controversy. I want you to fight these battles against Satan that I cannot fight for myself. I want you to rebuke the attacks of Satan and set me free from those attacks so I can be the kind of person you've created me to be. Let's bow our heads and we'll close with a word of prayer. Our heavenly father, I thank you that in this struggle between good and evil that we see all around us, you've not left us to fend on for ourselves, but you sent your Messiah, the man from Nazareth, who's never lost a battle with Satan, who's never failed to drive away a demon, who promised that he would never leave us nor forsake us, who's promised if anyone comes to me, I'll never drive them away.

Tonight, Father, we choose to take our stand with Christ in this great controversy. We're asking you, Jesus, that you will fight the battles we cannot see for us. That you'll rebuke the attacks of Satan on our homes, our hearts, our bodies, our marriages, our children, our businesses. I pray that we will see your power and your beauty in our lives in a powerful and a profound way from this day forward. Jesus, we're asking you to be our champion.

We're asking you to be our savior. We're asking you to defeat the forces of evil. And when you come again in the clouds of glory, we're asking you to come looking for each one of us. In your holy name we pray. Amen.

Amen. So, we know we don't have no meetings tomorrow or Wednesday night. Is that right? We're going to be back here on Thursday night.