Identifies Michael the Archangel as a warrior angel assigned to protect Israel and contend with the devil, contrasting his respectful approach with the irreverence of false teachers. Drawing from Jude 8-9, the message explains that Michael, while disputing with the devil over Moses' body, did not bring a reviling accusation but invoked God's authority. This illustrates the principle of respecting authority, even that of the devil, who is presented as a fallen angel, Lucifer, who rebelled against God and gained authority over this world. The sermon concludes by emphasizing that while Satan currently holds authority, this will ultimately be taken away and given to Jesus Christ, who is exalted above all names.
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Betty and I are staying this week in the lodge, otherwise known as the eleventh province of Canada. If you don't believe that, just walk around at a night when everybody's in for the night and look at the license plates on the car. Jim McDonald was introduced as being from Ontario, which he is, Peterborough, but all of you people from Ontario knew that that was not an Ontario accent. Probably you knew that it was a Newfoundland accent, and I must say I enjoyed listening to him and hearing that accent. He could have gone on for another twenty minutes.
I wouldn't mind it. Because Betty and I spent seventeen years, the first seventeen years of our ministry in Canada, thirteen in Prince Edward Island, but the first four in Newfoundland. And by the way, that's pronounced Newfoundland, not like you Americans pronounce it, Newfoundland. It's Newfoundland, understand, rhymes with understand. And we had two of our four children were born there, two daughters. The older of those two daughters, Rebecca, is momentarily expecting her second child. We're waiting to hear news. This will be an open adoption type of thing. And the birth mother, who is also the birth mother of her first child, has been with her now for about four or five weeks.
supposed to have been in labor when they brought her over from Michigan to Illinois four weeks, six weeks ago. But she's pretty well due, I think, at this point. So we're waiting word to hear about another grandchild. And then the second of those two girls that were born in a little cottage hospital, eleven-bed hospital in a fishing village in Newfoundland. The second girl, Rachel, was Mrs. Michael Malatek, and she and her husband and two little children were commended two years ago. by an assembly in northern Wisconsin, another one in Glen Ellen, Illinois, and they are serving the Lord in Istanbul. So we appreciate your prayers for Rachel as she serves the Lord out there.
And not always, well, it seems to be a fairly safe place right now. They haven't had any word of any particular dangers, but in that land, all with some fanatic and target on you. if they find you. And it's a hard place to get a gospel witness out because you can't go there as a missionary. You have to go as a teacher or something else. So anyway, those are the two Newfoundland members of our family. And we have one girl born in Prince Edward Island and one son born in Illinois before we went to Newfoundland. He married a Prince Edward Island girl and she's the one that died in November that I told you about on Sunday night. Now let's go to the scriptures. to the New Testament, to the book of Jude, next to last book in the Bible.
A little epistle to Jude. And when you cite verses from Jude, you don't have to give a chapter number because there's only one chapter. So when we say we're going to read Jude eight and nine, that only means we're going to read two verses and not two chapters. Jude eight and nine. The passage really begins back in verse two where the writer, Jude, says he is writing to warn people to contend earnestly for the faith, which was once for all delivered to the saints because certain men have crept in unnoticed, ungodly men who turned the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Then he gives an illustration about Sodom and Gomorrah and the time of Noah's flood. And then he says in verse eight, Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, reject authority, and speak evil of dignitaries. Yet Michael the Archangel in contending with the devil, when he disputed about the body of Moses, dared not bring against him, the devil, a reviling accusation but said, the Lord rebuke you. Verse ten, but these, these false teachers that have crept in, they speak evil of whatever they do not know, and whatever they know naturally like brute beasts and these things they corrupt themselves.
Now, of course, the reason for this passage is because of the reference to Michael. Our subject these evenings has been, meet the angelic VIPs, the very important persons among the angels. and we started out with Gabriel, the great messenger angel who appears four times in Scripture and always delivers message and always messages that have to do with the first and second coming of Christ as far as our Bible record goes. He may be sent on other messages as well that are not recorded in the Bible. But he is essentially a messenger angel positioned in the throne room of God. His role is not to be a guardian angel for one of us, but he is stationed by the throne of God, waiting God's call to service.
And so he is certainly an angelic VIP. And then we came to Michael, who is not a messenger angel at all, but a warrior angel. And we talked last night about how evidently, from various passages in the book of Daniel, there are angelic beings, satanic, demonic beings, behind most of the kingdoms of this world, trying to influence and control those kingdoms. And that was evidently a territorial assignment given to them, perhaps even before they became fallen angels. And there is then Michael, who is not a fallen angel, but the archangel of God, as he's called here, the archangel, who is assigned to the nation Israel, and he fights for Israel, and he stands for the nation Israel.
And we saw him in two passages in Daniel. And then we saw him in Revelation chapter twelve, when there will be war in heaven, and Michael and his angels will fight against the devil and his angels in that coming day that opens up the great tribulation period. We talked about that last night. Now there are four passages in which Michael appears by name. This is the fourth one, and we'll touch on it, and then we'll move on to our third named angelic VIP. Michael the Archangel, verse nine, was in contention with the devil. Now this happened at the very end of the book of Deuteronomy. It's not mentioned there, but we know that the event is mentioned there.
Moses died. And Moses went up into a mountain to overview the promised land because he was not allowed to go into it. And he died there in the mountain after having had a glimpse on it must have been a spectacularly clear day of the Holy Land from way up in the north at Mount Hermon. far to the south and then he died there and God buried him and no one knew where his grave was but the Old Testament tells us that that God buried him now here in this verse we learn that there was an argument about that burial about the body of Moses that evidently and I have to fill in here because we are not told any details but the implication is that the devil claimed that body and that God wanted that body preserved in some special way, perhaps so that Moses could reappear on the Mount of Transfiguration with Elijah.
Remember, Elijah did not go to the grave and his body decay away, but Elijah was caught up to heaven with a chariot, a fire that came for him, and Moses probably did not go into the grave to decay away. We don't know what happened to his body. We don't know what the details were, and we can only speculate, but we do know this, that there was a dispute between Michael the Archangel and with the devil about the body of Moses. Now this suggests to us that the devil has some claim over the human body in respect to death. Perhaps the devil claims the right that ashes do ashes and dust to dust.
That until the rapture of the church when we go into the grave we do die physically and the body decays away. The Bible says the last enemy that will be destroyed is death. And Satan has some territorial rights here, I do believe, in respect to this. And this verse certainly suggests that. And Michael was disputing with him about that. Now you'll notice that the context of this illustration, for it is an illustration, Jude is illustrating a principle that of not speaking evil of authorities, of not speaking evil of dignitaries, of not rejecting authority. In verse eight he says, these dreamers defile the flesh and they reject authority and they speak evil of dignitaries.
And then he gives the illustration of a dignitary, the devil, an authority, the devil. And he points out that Michael the archangel did not speak evil of the devil. he dared not bring a reviling accusation against him. That is, he didn't say, you dirty devil or something like that and slander him with reviling words, but only said to him, the Lord rebuked you, which is to say, when he talked to the devil, he said, God has authority over you and God rebuked you in this matter. In other words, I can't do that. I can't rebuke you. even though I'm the archangel, only the Lord can rebuke you, and you're wrong here, and may God rebuke you in this matter.
So he treated the devil with a great deal of respect, and the passage speaks of the devil as one having authority, as a dignitary. Now, what we're coming to here, of course, is where did the devil come from? How did he get to be the devil? Did God create the devil? How did evil come into the universe? Did God create evil? And while these are somewhat philosophical questions that it would be very difficult to answer with any kind of an explanation, I think all of us would quickly say, no, that it's unthinkable that God created evil.
And God did not create the devil because everything God created was good. And that therefore, the traditional view that's been held by Christians for centuries is correct, that God created a high-ranking angel that's commonly known as Lucifer, and that that angel rebelled against God and became the devil. That God didn't create an evil being, but when you rebel against God, you are very likely to become evil, not because you want to be. Not because Lucifer wanted to become evil, but because once you rebel against God, that's the only way you can go.
That's sort of a principle that's built into God's universe. But then nevertheless, the devil retained the authority over this planet that he had when he was Lucifer. His authority was not taken away. His access to heaven was not taken away and will not be taken away. until you get that scene in Revelation twelve that we close with last night when when Michael and his archangels fight and Michael and his angels fight against the devil and his angels and the devil loses and is cast out of heaven and is no longer able to have access to heaven and then the passage in Revelation twelve says and then he's going to vent his fury on this earth because he knows that his time is short so the devil is very active on this earth now And he has access to heaven and he's the accuser of the brethren.
He'd go up to heaven and accuse you. And he'd say, God, you can't bless that Christian. Look what that person's doing in his life. He'll accuse you up there. At the midpoint of the tribulation, he'll be thrown out of heaven and no longer able to go there. But he'll roam the earth and he'll bring on that time of great tribulation when not only is the wrath of God being poured out, but the wrath of the devil's being poured out on the earth as well. And what an awful time that's going to be. Now one thing is obvious from what I've said here, and we're going to be turning to some scriptures that will back up this, but one thing is rather obvious that this is all true, then the one place where the devil is not is hell. He is not in hell. He is not in the lake of fire. Jesus told a parable about the people being gathered before him on the great resurrection day, and he says to those on one hand, come.
you blessed of my father, enter the kingdom prepared for you. And he says to those on the other hand, depart for me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angel. The hell was prepared for the devil. God did not make hell for people. And the people that go there go there because they reject God's free offer of heaven and eternal life. Those two verses in Matthew are very beautiful to sit down. They're in Matthew twenty-five if you want to look at them sometime and compare them word by word. Come, depart. Come, ye blessed. Depart, ye cursed. Come, ye blessed into the kingdom. Depart, ye cursed into everlasting fire.
Come, ye blessed, into the kingdom prepared. And then the two verses part company. It says, prepared for you. The kingdom prepared for you. And it doesn't say, depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for you. Because God didn't prepare the everlasting fire for you. He prepared it for that arch enemy, the devil, and all those angels had followed him and became demons. And if people go into it, it's not because God made the lake of fire for them. It's because they refused to take the free gift of salvation. that's offered in the Lord Jesus. A marvelous passage to look at the words of the Lord Jesus in that respect. Of course, the devil has succeeded in caricaturizing himself through the comic strips and the cartoonists and all that as wearing a red suit and having horns and a long tail and carrying a pitchfork and being down there in hell, shoveling the coal.
And I don't know how you shovel coal with a pitchfork, but the whole thing's a lie anyway because he's never been in hell. The devil has never been in hell. In the very end of the Bible, almost the last two or three chapters, it says that he's going to be cast into the lake of fire where the beasts and the false prophet are, and he's going to be tormented there forever and ever. That's his future and not his present. But he has an authority in this life. And just before we go on to talk about that authority that he has in this world, I want to make an observation. about this passage that is rather relevant, I think, to our situation today.
Michael did not bring a railing accusation against the devil, but only said the Lord rebuke you. Now, it seems to me that there is a great deal of irreverence that occurs in evangelical Christianity in respect to the devil. I've heard some cute little children songs that sort of make fun of the devil. And frankly, I don't think I would want to use one of those songs because I think that does not show the authority, the respect for authority that's called for in this verse. The devil is not a little funny little joke that children can laugh about. It's a dead serious affair. But even more important perhaps is this practice that seems to be rather common among Christians today, especially some that I hear on television.
of talking to the devil when they pray and rebuking him in their prayers. Now you just listen to some of these prayers that you hear on television and maybe you hear from others and people will start out in one prayer, start out talking to God halfway through the prayer all of a sudden you realize they've started talking to the devil and rebuking him and calling down judgment on him and so forth. And I have some question in my mind about whether we can do that. Even Michael, the archangel, does not feel free to make accusation against Satan. He dared not, it says here. He dared not bring a reviling accusation against him.
I wonder how Michael feels when he hears modern Christians rebuking the devil. Now, the Bible says resist the devil. It does not say rebuke the devil. The Lord Jesus rebuked the devil. Get thee behind me, Satan. But I wonder whether we have that kind of power to do that. Michael said, the Lord rebuke you. Michael limited himself to saying that God would do the rebuking. All right, now that's enough on that subject. You could just think about that. I don't know all these answers. And sometimes I'm putting some of these questions, these statements in question form. Is it possible that Satan has authority over the earth today?
that has not been taken from him. I think I see that in the Bible, but these are not dogmatic Bible statements, and God only gives us little insights into the angelic realm. In the book of Daniel, in passages like this, we get little insights, but let us not become authorities on the angelic world. Only curious people wanting to know as much as God wants us to know, and willing to realize that there's not very much we know about what's going on in this unseen world. And that's why, of course, we go to prayer. And we have to win satanic battles by prayer because the angels have to do the fighting.
We can't do it. Now let's look back at a few paths. Let's start turning back through the Bible toward the beginning to Romans chapter thirteen. Romans chapter thirteen. verses one and two this has to do with political governments it does not have to do with the devil but there's a principle here that I think is important let every soul be subject to governing authorities Romans thirteen one let every soul be subject to governing authorities for there's no authority except from God and the authorities that exist are appointed by God therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God Not unlike that passage in Jude in some respects.
But here's the idea that authority is appointed by God. Now, is it possible that God appointed angels into authority? Is it possible that God appointed Lucifer as having authority over this planet? And it was on this particular planet where the rebellion against God occurred. And that Satan has never lost his authority over this planet. Not yet hasn't lost that authority. And this is his domain. And it was here on this planet that God, after Satan's rebellion, put Adam and Eve and challenged the devil on his own territory by putting human creatures here, and then the devil attacked those creatures.
We may say more about that later in the week. But this expression here, appointed by God, is the expression that I wanted to bring to your attention. John's Gospel, Chapter Fourteen. john's gospel chapter fourteen and verse thirty these are the words of the lord jesus the night before he went to the cross in what's called the upper room discourse john thirteen fourteen fifteen and sixteen he's talking to his own little inner band of disciples and he says in john fourteen thirty i will no longer talk much with you the ruler of this world is coming and he has nothing in me.
The prince of this world, I think the King James says, I'm reading from the new King James Bible tonight. The ruler of this world or the prince of this world, the Lord uses this expression three times of the devil in these chapters, this upper room discourse. Jesus called him the ruler of this world. Again, does that mean that he has some God-given authority over it that has not yet been taken from him? Matthew's Gospel, Chapter Four. Now, this is a very significant passage, I believe. Matthew Chapter Four, The Temptation of the Lord Jesus. Forty days in the wilderness, being tempted of the devil.
And then at the end, after the forty days, the tempter comes to him, and he says, if you're the Son of God, command these stones be made bread. And the Lord says it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Then the devil takes him up to the holy city and sets him on a pinnacle of the temple and says, cast yourself down and the angels will bear you up. And he quotes scripture and the Lord answers him by quoting scripture. It is written, you shall not tempt the Lord your God. And now verse eight, the third temptation. Again the devil took him up on an exceedingly high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. The devil displayed before the Lord Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.
And he said to him, all these things I will give you if you will fall down and worship me. All these things I will give you if you will fall down and worship me. He said, I've got the authority over all these kingdoms and I'll turn all this authority over to you. You can be the king and rule all these kingdoms. and I'll be the emperor and you just bow down before me and submit yourself to me and I'll put all this under your control. And the Lord Jesus never challenged his right to make that offer. The Lord didn't laugh at him and say, oh, Satan, you can't offer that. You don't even have that power. That's a phony offer. The Lord didn't say that at all.
He did not challenge Satan's right to make that offer. And you know, when you get to the thirteen chapter of Revelation, When you read about the dragon, who's the devil, we saw last night, the dragon will have this great beast that comes out of the sea, this antichrist, this world ruler, and he will give him exactly what he offered to the Lord Jesus. I'll read that passage to you in Revelation chapter thirteen. It's very vivid. Revelation thirteen, one, I saw a beast rising up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns and so forth. And the dragon gave him his power, his throne, and great authority.
So they worship the dragon who gave authority to the beast. And skipping down a few verses, it says of this ruler, authority was given him over every tribe, tongue, and nation. That's the world ruler that's coming that's sometimes called the Antichrist, and the authority will be given him by the dragon, who in Revelation is the devil, the serpent, Satan. And here he offers it to the Lord Jesus. Well, he must have that authority in order to offer it. He's got some authority over this world. Probably goes back a lot. Some of them may go back to the Tower of Babel. Some of them may go back before that. Can't really say too much about that. But I think that's the significance here.
And the Lord answers him by saying, away with you, Satan, for it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God and him only you will serve. Get behind me, Satan. You're only to worship God and I can't bow down before you because the Bible says only to worship God. So then, if this is the case, where did Satan get this authority? And why does he have it? And there are only two passages in the Bible as far as I know that help us solve the riddle of Satan's authority. And they are Isaiah fourteen and Ezekiel twenty-eight. Let's turn to Isaiah fourteen first. Isaiah fourteen and Ezekiel twenty eight and you can remember these passages because twenty eight is twice fourteen it'll help to remember those two numbers Isaiah fourteen and Ezekiel twenty eight and they suggest that Satan was created as a glorious top-ranking angel who later revolted against God and became the devil now before we scan these passages let me say this about them This interpretation of these two passages has a long consistent history going back at least to the second century AD.
Nevertheless, it is rejected by many current evangelical commentaries who say nothing about the devil here, just the king of Babylon and the king of Tyre. And then there are many others that say, oh no, these passages go far beyond those earthly kings. And without these two passages, If they don't apply to the devil, then we are left totally in the dark about the origin of the devil and about the entrance of sin into the universe. Remember, it didn't come in through Eve and Adam because the serpent came in and tempted them. How did the serpent get to be evil? The tempter called God a liar before Eve ever took the fruit of the tree.
So evil was already there in the universe. And in the light of this powerful argument, I stand by the interpretation of these two passages as referring to Satan. All right, the one in Isaiah fourteen, starting in verse twelve. You have the king of Babylon early in the chapter, but now we seem to move beyond the earthly king of Babylon now to a power behind the throne. Verse twelve, how art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer! Son of the morning, how art thou cut down to the ground who didst weaken the nations? For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend unto heaven.
I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. I will also sit upon the mount of the congregation and the sides of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will be like the most high. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit. they that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee and consider thee saying is this the man who made the earth to tremble who did shake kingdoms who made the world like a wilderness and destroyed its cities who opened not the house of prisoners so we go back to the beginning there verse twelve how are you fallen from heaven how are you cut down to the ground this would be describing the judgment that fell upon satan at the time of his rebellion against God.
The word Lucifer, the name Lucifer is quite interesting here. It is a Latin word. I have a random house dictionary definition of it here, but I seem to misplace that. All right, well, it's the Latin word that means light bearer. The Greek word is phosphorus, the carrier of light or the bringer of light. And it was used in ancient times to represent Venus, the next brightest thing in the universe after the sun and the moon. And particularly to represent Venus in the morning when it brought on the sun.
I don't suppose the ancients knew that the evening star and the morning star were the same planet. And they call that morning star Venus, Lucifer in Latin, the light bearer. A sun of the morning, you see. How are you falling from heaven, O Lucifer? son of the morning. And that was how that name comes into the picture here. He was the bright one. He was the one who introduced the day. He was cut down to the ground when he decided that he wanted to be like God and ascend above the heavens. Before the week is over, we will look a little more closely at those verses of what he decided to do. But I want to go to Ezekiel chapter twenty-eight. Now, Ezekiel chapter twenty-eight.
In verse two, son of man, the son of man here is Ezekiel, son of man, say unto the prince of Tyre, now this is the earthly king, say unto the ruler of this city of Tyre, this Phoenician city on the Mediterranean, thus saith the Lord God, because thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said, I am a God, I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas, yet thou art a man and not God, thou set thine heart as the heart of God. This is a judgment now on an earthly king, not the devil. And this earthly king had exalted himself like King Herod did as being God and accept praises as if he were God.
We've seen some of our recent rulers in the world do the same sort of thing. And the judgment of God falls upon him for that. Verse five, by thy great wisdom and by thy merchandise hast thou increased thy riches and thy heart is lifted up because of thy riches pride you see pride and setting himself up as god verse six therefore thus saith the lord god because thou has set thine heart as the heart of god behold therefore i will bring strangers upon me the terrible of the nations and so forth verse nine wilt thou say before him that slayeth thee i am a god but thou shalt be a man and not god in the hand of him that slayeth thee thou shalt die the deaths of the uncircumcised by the hand of foreigners for i have spoken it says the Lord God.
That's blasphemy and pride, and God would judge him. Now we have that strange shifting that often occurs in prophecy of going into a different realm, going beyond the earthly king. And so in verse eleven now, in verse twelve, you have the king of Tyre. And here again, this seems to be the one, the angelic power behind the throne. In other words, Lucifer, the devil. Verse twelve, Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyre, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord God, thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.
Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God. And none of those things were true of the earthly king of Tyre. He was not that full of wisdom, certainly not perfect in beauty, and he had not been in the garden of Eden. This is going beyond that one. Going on through verse thirteen, down toward the end of verse thirteen, it speaks of, in the day that thou was created. He's a created being. The king of Tyre was not created. He was born. But this one was created. Verse fourteen, thou art the anointed cherub that covereth. I have set thee so. Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth.
Now the cherub. Remember the cherub. the cherubim, two of them, that were in the tabernacle, statues of gold with wings outstretched over the mercy seat, covering the mercy seat, covering over the seat where God was seated, so to speak, and anointed, the anointed cherub that covers. Now, maybe this means that he was given a high position in the throne room of God. Or maybe the word covereth has to do with his administration rather than the presence of God in the throne of God. I don't know just how to interpret these passages.
But I see something here of authority and very high position in the next phrase in verse fourteen. I have set thee so. God grants this authority. I have given you this position. You were in the holy mountain of God. Verse... thou was perfect in thy ways from the day thou was created till iniquity was found in thee till iniquity was found in that is this rebellion this pride this I'm going to be like God I'm going to set myself up as God I'm going to be the rival for Jehovah and then iniquity was found in him and then that terrible judgment came upon him in which he became the wicked one the devil And perhaps the earth was cursed along with that.
You may take that subject up tomorrow night, what effect this had on the earth. And I think maybe I'd like to talk about the first chapter of Genesis and the various theories as to creation and how they relate to this passage. We'll see. But here is the fall of Lucifer, the angelic VIP that comes to be known as the devil. Now, I don't like to end this message on that kind of a negative note. So I want to remind you that if he does have this authority today over this earth, if these are his kingdoms, if he's the one that's exercising authority and stirring up wars and troubles and all that, someday it's all going to be taken away from him.
And the Lord Jesus is going to be king of kings. and Lord of Lords. But it's God who's going to take it away from Satan. And the Lord Jesus did not allow the devil to make that offer to him and give him those kingdoms. The day will come when God will withdraw that authority and will give it to the Lord Jesus. And so we'll conclude with a passage in Philippians two. I thought about using Revelation, where you have the second coming of Christ. And on his side was written the name King of Kings and Lord of Lords. But I instead would like to turn you to Philippians chapter two, a very familiar passage that tells us how the Lord Jesus comes to have or will come to have the authority.
Let this mind be in you, Philippians two five. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. who being in the form of God did not consider it robbery to be equal with God. You see, Lucifer said, I'm going to be equal with God. Isaiah fourteen. I'm going to be equal with God. I'm going to be God. The Lord Jesus was already there. He was the uncreated second person of the Trinity. He was already equal with God. And it wouldn't be thievery for him to hold on to that. It was thievery for the devil. It was robbery for the devil to try to claim that. But it wasn't for the Lord Jesus just to keep it. because it was his to start with. But he made himself of no reputation. He gave that up. That is, he gave up that position of being in high place.
He took upon him the form of a servant and coming in the likeness of men and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. The Lord came down from heaven. He stepped down and down and down, coming into this universe. until he went to the cross, even to death, even to the death of the cross, which was the death of a criminal, treated as if he were a criminal. That was not an honorable death, dying a cross. That's like going to the electric chair of the hangman's noose today. And so he went to that kind of a death for us. Therefore, verse nine, therefore, God has also highly exalted him.
Why did God exalt him? not because he aspired to be equal with God, but because he gave up his reputation. He gave up his position of equality and came down to this earth born in a stable and lived without a place to lay his head and went to the cross for us. And therefore God has highly exalted him and given him the name which is above every name that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow of those in heaven. and those on earth and those under the earth and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. So we have that wonderful Messiah, King of kings and Lord of lords.
Hallelujah. He's going to have this authority when God takes it away from the devil and gives it to the one to whom it rightly and morally belongs. I'd like to ask you to sing with me a closing hymn tonight that fits this subject. number one hundred and ninety six because I'm not really here to preach about the devil we need to learn about him we're here to preach about Christ and his exaltation Jesus shall reign whereer the sun does his successive journeys run his kingdom spread from shore to shore till moon shall wax and wane no more we'll sing the first and the last verses of one hundred and ninety six