the Deliverer from her sin in the garden of Eden. That child was
Cain. But Cain ignored God’s instructions on how to do the atonement offering, and became a murderer of Abel, Eve’s second son. Now she hoped her third child would accomplish her desire for a Deliverer—Seth. Well, Seth stayed righteous and Christ was indeed
descended from him. So Satan failed on Attempt #1, since the lineage
continued despite the small family that he brought evil into.
Attempt #2: Many of Satan’s followers, also known as fallen angels,
came to earth and married earth women, bearing babies that grew up to be “mighty men” and “men of renown.” (I have a couple blogs on this wild idea–which was believed by church fathers; refer to those blogs with DNA in the title).Grown up, they were called Nephilim (Gen.6:1-4, NIV). They were also wicked; and from other appearances in Scripture, they were super-tall and, obviously, very strong. Why not? They were half mortal, and half immortal (fallen angels, their fathers, retained their immortality). The Nephilim dominated, and completely corrupted the people of Noah’s day, both morally and physically (by deviant DNA mixing). Anyway, Satan figured, if he could corrupt the earth like this, then no one would be righteous or physically pure to bear a pure Seed. But he was defeated because Noah and his immediate family kept clean,
and he made an ark as God had directed, and everyone else was
destroyed, leaving Noah, his wife, and immediate family to start all
over. Satan failed on Attempt #2.
Attempt #3: God picked the Hebrew people to be His people, beginning with Abraham. Their job was to carry His Scripture, and to worship Him as the only God—in the midst of a totally corrupt world that didn’t know Him. (The Jews didn’t do a bang-up job on God’s
instructions, in the long run). To avert death by a record 7-year
famine, the Hebrews moved to Egypt to farm the best land there. They were allowed to do this because Abraham’s great-grandson Joseph was in good with the Pharaoh (by revealing to him a vision about the upcoming famine so he could prepare for it). So God made sure that His Jewish family was accepted in Egypt, which had saved grain, so they didn’t starve in the great famine. So Satan’s attempt at starving them out failed in Attempt #3.
Attempt #4: Later Pharaohs made the Jews slaves for 400 years. One
evil Pharaoh got up one morning and thought, “These Jewish slaves are becoming more populous than we Egyptians, and that’s a danger; let’s kill every baby boy at birth and stop their population growth.” He
gave the order—unfortunately, he stupidly did it to the
midwives–which were mostly Hebrews! (I presume he assumed that their fear of him would even make them commit infanticide). However, even at risk of their own lives, they refused to kill the newborn Hebrew boys. That not only saved the Hebrew population, but it saved little Moses, who later became a great deliverer himself. Attempt #4 failed. You would think that Satan would have gotten the message by now. When God decides to do something, it gets done—even through sinful men. You gotta give credit to the Hebrew midwives. We need some of them today, in our abortion clinics.
Attempt #5: Moses, through God, performed miracles of destruction on the country of Egypt. But Pharaoh was so stubborn that he held on through each disaster; it finally took the death of his firstborn to
release the Jews. Early in their exodus, the Pharaoh and his army
went after them again, only to be wiped out by the closing Red
Sea—another miracle by God. So the Jews were not only saved from
destruction by Pharaoh’s army, but they were Free. Attempt #5 failed.
Attempt #6: Let’s back up in time a bit. Please note two verses God
had told Abraham. First, Genesis 12:1-3: Now the Lord had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, from your family and from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you. 2 I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.
Secondly, God told Abraham, in Genesis 15:13-14: Then He said to Abram: “Know certainly that your descendants will be
strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they
will afflict them four hundred years. 14 And also the nation whom they serve I will judge; afterward they shall come out with great
possessions.
Satan, we can assume, listened in to these conversations—and thus
knew, upon watching Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob’s travels, that God had chosen the land of Canaan as His land for His people. (Important side note: Satan does not have God’s powers. He can only be in one place at a time, and cannot read minds. But he has lots of demon-followers in lots of places who help him that way, and he can guess thoughts by our facial emotions, and what we say. And, I would imagine, he has various ways of putting sinful thoughts in our head—like he did with Pharaoh on infanticide). Putting these two verses together, Satan figured that the Hebrews won’t be in Canaan, God’s choice for their living space, for at least 400 years; they would be elsewhere (in Egypt) instead. He also hoped that Israel (since they were a nation now) would have to conquer the various tribes of Canaan to secure the land. Thus, Satan comes up with Attempt #6: stop the Israelis from entering God’s chosen land, Canaan. If he could do that, they would have to wander to different places and their nation would be assimilated and fizzle out. So he concocted up another sexual use for his fallen angels. You, the reader, may roll your eyes and say, “come on, how do I keep coming up with these wild stories?” Well, again, read my blogs. And, again, I have Biblical proof. Let’s read Genesis 6:4, this time in the NIV version: The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when
the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by
them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.
As we saw before, the Nephilim were the deviant DNA children of the
fallen angel fathers, who were immortal, and the mortal earth mothers during Noah’s time. But note the underlined phrase “and also afterward.” Every phrase in Scripture has a reason to exist in God’s Word, and this one says that we would get more Nephilim even after they were drowned in the Flood in Noah’s day. In other words, the fallen angels came down again, proved sexually attractive to the
females again, and we got more Nephilim. But this time, men did not
live 800 or 900 years like in Noah’s day. Their lives were short,
like ours. So the deviant DNA can’t be spread as fast. So Satan
concentrated his efforts on spawning to a limited area—namely, of
course, Canaan. These giants hopefully would scare the Israelis away,
and they couldn’t stay in “God’s chosen land.” So he picked several
tribes in Canaan, sent his fallen angels there, and they became
populated by the evil Nephilim. Scripture backs this idea up; it
indicates giants existed in: the Philistines, the Anakim, the
Rephaim, the Zamzumim, the Emim, and the Amorites. All in Canaan, of course. (Check them out in Numbers 13:32; Deut 2:10,11,20,21; Deut
3:11,13). Deuteronomy provides more detail on Og, king of Bashon,
whose bed was 15 feet long and 6-1/2 feet wide. And of course we
have Goliath, killed by David, several hundred years later, who
probably was at least 9 feet tall.
Satan almost got what he wanted; the nation of Israel, freed from
Pharaoh after 400 years, went north, and approached the land of
Canaan. Moses sent out spies to see the lay of the land. They
brought back wonderful food, but their knees were shaking. As they
reported in Numbers 13:32-33:
The land through which we have gone, in spying it out, is a land that
devours its inhabitants; and all the people whom we saw in it are men
of great size. There also we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak are
part of the Nephilim); and we became like grasshoppers in our own
sight, and so we were in their sight.
A bit of hyperbole, there, about the size comparison—but you get the
picture; these were giants—again. So the Israelis voted to NOT go in.
God was so disappointed in how they wouldn’t depend on Him for
deliverance that He made them wander through the desert area for
another 38 years, until everyone who voted dropped dead. Now all that were left were the kids in the earlier days, now grown up. But these “kids” were not dummies; they realized that they had miracles (their shoes never wore out, they always found water, they had free food dropped on them 6 days a week), and they realized that their
non-believing parents paid the ultimate price for disobedience; and
finally, walking the desert every day made them hardened, so they
could be soldiers with endurance. Plus, I would imagine, they would do anything to stop wandering drudgedly through the desert. So, with Joshua in command (Moses died), this time they voted to go in and fight. A brave decision. God built up Joshua’s courage by appearing to him as well. This time they cleared out most of these corrupt and sometimes giant people (details on the Canaanite idolatries are too disgusting to explain here). The key is the phrase “most of.” Goliath is an example of how there were some still around years later that Joshua couldn’t get to. In any event, Satan’s effort to stop Israel from moving to the land of God’s calling failed. Attempt #6: FAIL. Satan is now 0-6.
Attempt #7: This attempt was Satan’s efforts to kill David and his
descendants. This was because Satan figured out that the Messiah
would be in David’s line. How did he deduce that? First, he narrowed
his search to the tribe of Judah, based on Genesis 49:10: The scepter shall not depart from Judah, Nor a lawgiver from between his feet, Until Shiloh comes;
Satan also saw how King Saul disappointed God by not following His
instructions. And then, there was the bravery of David, from the
tribe of Judah, and how he boasted about God’s power when he defeated Goliath. So Satan figured that David was next on the throne, and thus he wanted to kill David. Then Samuel anointed David as future king. So Satan fills Saul’s mind with envy and hatred of David to an obsessive decree. Saul personally went hunting to kill David day and night. And there are many verses that proves that Saul was moved by demonic forces. Earlier, while David tried to play music to soothe Saul’s violent temper tantrums, Saul with no reason threw a spear at David. Twice. Another example of demonic oppression was, Saul sought out a medium, expressly forbidden by God. But David continued to prove his faith in God. He was egged on by his
military to kill Saul when he had many lucky opportunities, but he
remained righteous. If he had murdered Saul, he would have possibly
been an unfit candidate for the Messiah’s line, which would have
served Satan well. (Of course, after he became king, he was a
conspirator to murder, but sincerely repented—which is tenderly
recorded in Psalm 51. God’s wonderful grace then forgave him.)
When David died, Satan also did everything he could to tempt David’s
descendants into evil, hoping to break the lineage to the Messiah that
way. Solomon was David’s son. Solomon’s many wives seduced him into idolatry. Solomon spent government money lavishly to build palaces and a glorious temple, burnished with alarming amounts of gold and precious stones. Thus he taxed his people heavily. When Solomon died, his own son was callous about the request of the common people to reduce the tax, and the kingdom was split! There was the north, still called Israel, and south, called Judah. This was a real threat to their continued existence, since a divided nation is weaker and will be attacked by enemies. The following generations proved to be a continuing downdraft of morals and corruptions, of idolatry and religious sexual fornication. They abandoned God and followed the pagan religions around them.
Attempt #8: Ahaziah. His events happened around 885 BC. They are
well after Solomon’s sons had a rift and split the nation into two
parts. We keep our focus on kings of Judah, not the 10 tribes of
Israel in the north, because of Hebrews 7:14 and Revelation 5:5. But
it’s best described in Genesis 49:10, as above.
Despite the same-name confusion from II Kings and II Chronicles,
Ahaziah’s story begins in II Chronicles 22:1: Then the inhabitants of Jerusalem made Ahaziah his youngest son king in his place, for the raiders who came with the Arabians into the camp had killed all the older sons. So Ahaziah the son of Jehoram, king of Judah, reigned.
See also II Kings 8:25. As the above verses say, due to war, his
brothers all died. He was alone among heirs. God’s lineage plan was
hanging by a single thread. Not a problem for Him. So He kept
Ahaziah from being killed, and he began reigning when he was 22, or,
ah, 42. II Kings 8:26 says 22, but II Chronicles 22:2 says 42. A
copyist’s error. Remember, Holy Scripture is perfect in the original.
But an error like this doesn’t mean we throw away inspiration. More
than likely, he was 22.
Attempt #9: Joash. Not long after the last one, we had another
one-man crisis. Seems that Jehu was ordained by a prophet to kingship over Israel (I Kings 19:16). So he did a coup d’etat, and killed the king of Israel, Joram. And, for good measure, ordered the
assassination of Ahaziah, king of Judah (II Kings 9:27). Then he
finished the job in Israel, killing Jezebel and all 70 of Ahab’s sons.
(II Kings 9:33 and 10:7). Then he took the kingship in Israel. When
Ahaziah’s mother, Athaliah, heard of her son’s death, she took
immediate advantage: she killed all Ahaziah’s sons, intending to
reign herself (II Kings 11:1-3). God’s lineage was under threat. But
as II Kings 11:2 records, God saw that she missed one:
But Jehosheba (or Jehoshabeath)….sister of Ahaziah, took Joash the son of Ahaziah, and stole him away from among the king’s sons who were being murdered; and they hid him and his nurse in the bedroom, from Athaliah, so that he was not killed. So the lineage of Christ was again preserved; one man survived.
The story of Joash (also called Jehoash has a semi-happy ending, as
you read II Kings 11:21-12:1: In the seventh year of Jehu, Jehoash became king, and he reigned forty years in Jerusalem. The reason I call it “semi” happy is because while he was a good king,
and reigned for a long time, II Kings 12:3 says he didn’t take the
“high places” away. These were places for worship of a false god.
Attempt #10: Perhaps the most entertaining event in the Bible is the
book of Esther. It is short, and it is wonderful reading. It’s around
500 BC. Romance (well, as far as they knew, romance) wins, pride
loses. I only have enough space to give you an incomplete Cliff
notes. After Persia defeated Babylonia, King Ahasuerus had a beauty
contest and picked a new wife, Esther. Unbeknownst to him, she was
Jewish. But one of the king’s servants, Haman, hated her cousin
Mordecai because Mordecai refused to bow to acknowledge his greatness in possessing his high office. Haman was infuriated at this slight; he resolved to not only kill Mordecai, but all Jews in Persia, which was most of the known world at the time. This would again be another attempt to snuff out the Messianic lineage. Satan may have given him the idea that it wasn’t enough just to kill Mordecai, but all Jews. (It would not be unusual, since he was from the Amalekite race,
enemies of Jews). Through false witness to his king, he got the king’s
signet ring to carry out his genocide. He picked a day—soon. He was
willing to pay a lot of money to those who would do the killing—of
every Jewish man, woman, and every child. A grisly business. An
additional motivation toward getting the help of the Persians in the
killing was the fact that whoever killed a Jew would get his land.
Haman was efficient in giving notice to every province in the vast
kingdom. But Esther heard of the plot through her maids, and Mordecai notified her that she would have to act fast to somehow persuade the king to change his mind. They all knew that Haman was behind it. There was one unfortunate detail of Persian law—once the king makes a law, it cannot be revoked. Satan had made a cunning move, and it looked like the Jewish people would all be dead soon.
But God knew this ahead of time, and made His own chess moves. God is always one step ahead. Why not? He is the master of the dimension of time. He knows the entire history of everyone on earth ahead of time. I can imagine all the future videoclips He could see at the same time.
Esther, I suspect with God’s help, made a brilliant plan. And in the
end, she, with great tears explained it all to Ahasuerus and appealed
to the king’s mercy (we all know how women are). Haman made some wrong moves and was hung, Mordecai got the king’s signet ring, and while the king couldn’t change the law, he provided another law that allowed Jews to kill their enemies first! The Jews were not only honored, but many people changed their religion to worshiping Jehovah. This happened in the Persian kingdom, which is Iran today. Can you imagine today’s Iranians giving Jews the right to kill their enemies in Iran and its allies? For sure, this whole thing was a rarity for the Jews. God wins, Satan loses.
Attempt #11: and following show Satan’s all-out attempt to kill Jesus,
whom he knew was the Messiah from prophecies about His birthplace (Micah 5:2), and by a visit by wise men underneath a supernatural star.
We won’t count as an Attempt how Joseph, when he heard of Mary’s
pregnancy, was on the verge of divorcing her as betrothed. Without
such an important element in culture of a man standing up to be a
father, the scandal of irresponsible fornication and baby-production
would have been much greater. That would have meant that Jesus would probably have been banned from speaking at any synagogue in the land. His message would never have gone out. In any event, an angel told Joseph in a dream that Mary was still a virgin, and bore a child through the Holy Spirit. Joseph evidently believed it—so he was
definitely the right man for the job of stepfather.
Neither are we going to start with Caesar, who had the brilliant idea
that everyone had to be registered in their original home province.
So Joseph and a very pregnant Mary had to travel over bumpy roads on horseback. This endangered her; a too-early, or even, stillbirth
could have resulted.
No, let’s start Attempt #9 with Herod, who was in a lather about the
wise men appearing out of the East and asking for the location of the
newborn King of the Jews. Two more dreams were necessary from God, but the wise men never told Herod they had found the Messiah, and Joseph was warned to escape. So Herod’s cruel effort to kill every child age 2 and under in the Bethlehem area did not produce the desired effect. Satan’s Attempt #9: FAIL.
Attempt #12: was at the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry. John the
Baptist had given Jesus approval, there was a miracle of wine at Cana,
and Jesus was brilliant in initial appearances speaking at synagogues.
But that was it to that point, so He had barely got going. But Jesus
made the “mistake” of informing the synagogue public that ancient
prophets spent some time being kinder to Gentiles rather than Jews
(Luke 4). The xenophobic Jews got a demonic gang urge, and almost
threw Him off a cliff. God suddenly engineered a miracle, because it
simply says, without explanation, that “passing through the midst of
them, He went His way.” It was also a fact that Scripture records
other instances of men’s desire to kill Him before the mock trial that
finally did it. But Jesus was smart enough to have lots of loving
followers around Him during the day, and slip away into remote
locations at night. The only way they got to Him was the betrayal of
Judas.
Attempt #13: This was Satan’s attempt to drown the Messiah in a huge sea storm on the sea of Galilee, which was notorious for that kind of activity. But this storm was unusually dangerous and could have been lethal. Why do I think that Satan was behind this? Because in Luke 8:24, and Mark 4:39, Jesus “rebuked” the wind and raging water. A curious word, right? But the word “rebuke” is used in Scripture for deliverance from demons (Matthew 17:18, for instance). Yes, Satan can figure out how to have his demons make a storm. But, Jesus can figure out the source, and deliver us from the weather.
Attempt #14: Satan figured he had Jesus’ number at the Crucifixion.
Even though the witnesses against Him were false, even though Pilate
and his wife did everything they could to release Jesus, the Jewish
crowd were in a demonic paroxysm to see Jesus dead. They even
preferred to see a murderer released instead of Jesus. They even
cursed themselves, saying (Matthew 27:25) “his blood be on us, and on
our children.” God, in total disgust, rejected these Jews, formerly
the “apple of His eye.” Jesus warned them several times about this.
God’s judgment came down on the Jews 40 years later. Under a vicious general Titus, over a million of the Jews were slaughtered in a raid on Jerusalem. The temple was completely torn down, as Jesus had prophesied. But Satan was looking only at Jesus; he actually figured that the Crucifixion would do the job; Jesus would stay dead. But in the greatest triumph of history, Jesus was resurrected. Now His Gospel of freedom from sin and resurrection for His followers still
abides in a minority everywhere in the world.
Attempt #15: is probably future. God prophesied, through an allegory in Revelation 12, Satan’s attempt to devour Christ (the Child in Revelation 12; Satan is the dragon). In Revelation 12:13, Satan is
attacking “the woman,” probably Israel. In other Scripture we find
that he is attempting a giant war against Christ and His followers at
Har Megiddo, also called Armageddon (Revelation 16:13-16). But no one can be certain about the future, so I am deliberately sketchy about details. All I know is that Satan is given one last chance, in some probable future date, as implied in Revelation 12:12, to do his
destructive work. It may come during our lifetimes, it may not. But
it will be a rousing success of deception, since the earth comes under
one world ruler and one religion, and most people will actually
worship an antichrist under Satan’s control! Many nominal Christians
will be fooled, as Matthew 24:24 says about that future day: ….false Christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and
wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. Jesus even began His Olivet Discourse on future events by warning His followers about deception (Matthew 24:4). He also warned His followers to stay alert and looking for Him, not to be caught up in the ways of the world, which could destroy us. Yes, it is true that Satan looks like a Cleveland Brown, going 0-12, as we showed above, but he is wily and is successful on getting the majority of people to be captured and hell-bound. Jesus confirms that in Matthew 7:13-14: “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. 14 Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to
life, and there are few who find it.
My final word of warning is from II Corinthians 11:13-15: For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming
themselves into apostles of Christ. 14 And no wonder! For Satan
himself transforms himself into an angel of light. 15 Therefore it is
no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into
ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their
works.
Christians, beware! Do not fall for this upcoming great deception.
Acknowledgement: Chuck Missler, a great man of God, who is sorely
missed by his passing.
Even Steven 