A Frightening Phrase

The title of my sermon is, A Frightening Phrase. A frightening phrase. Have you ever had one? Heard one? Read one? Okay. I read one one time, got in the mail. I said, an IRS audit. That was a frightening phrase. Thankfully, it worked out well. Or maybe... I'm not going to have you raise your hand for obvious reasons, but have you ever heard the frightening phrase, You are under arrest? No, no one even put their head down. Thought I might be a sign that might be there.

Yes, sooner or later, it had to hit the bratnik somewhere. And of course, there is a more serious one when a doctor tells you, you have cancer. That's a scary, frightening phrase, the C word. But I think many of us, we were asked to give a scriptural phrase that is frightening to most of us.

It would be, I never knew you. I never knew you. Many of you would say that. Well, I want to look at another phrase. The tale of another scary phrase used throughout the entirety of the Bible. It's frightening to humans and demons alike. The first time that this phrase was actually used, or some of the same words were used, in the Hebrew. And this is the first time it's used in the Bible, which goes under the rule of first mention, which sets the tone for the other times in which it is used. But I'd like you to go with me to Genesis 21. Genesis 21, if you will.

It's 21 in verse 10. I'll be reading from the New King James version. As you know, this was the time where Sarah wanted the Hagar out of her life, out of her son's life and out of her husband's life after she had her plans fulfilled. And in verse 10, she said, therefore she said to Abraham, cast out this bond woman and her son. For the son of this bond woman should not be heir with my with my son, namely with Isaac. So the word is cast out. It was used. And the Hebrew word is gurash. As I said, it was used over a hundred times in Scripture.

But that's a Hebrew word, meaning to cast out, to get rid of. And this phrase makes us all think because we knew Sarah did not like Hagar. And she just cast her out and had him take her out to the desert and abandon her, really. But we know Abraham took her some water and we knew that God said this is part of my plan. And so he reassured Abraham. But this gurash means to drive away, expel, to thrust out, not just like move along.

No, it means get out. And so I want to look at that because the same phrase is actually used in a different way in Genesis 3 and verse 24. You remember what happened there? Cast out of the garden. Yes, Diane. That was correct. It said he drove out the man. He didn't say, Oh, here's the gate. Leave. He said, Get out. And he drove him out. A frightening phrase that is throughout the Bible. So I want to look at this phrase because it means so much more than what you might read on the surface and even has been translated because cast out was even a light term for what is meant.

Hate to. Well, I know we have a nurse or so here. You might know what the word retching means. They mean people know what retching means. If you've ever had dry heaves, you know what retching means. You just everything empties out. You're trying to get everything out. Maybe you've had food poisoning. Many of you had food poisoning. You know what it means to get out. As a matter of fact, I was talking to somebody.

My mother's up in Tennessee, and she actually said when she was a doctor or something, she came out of anesthesia and just came out. She was thought she was fine. And all of a sudden, she just threw up. Couldn't control it. And this is the term in which this garage is named. As a matter of fact, it even makes you think in Revelation where he said, I will vomit you out of my mouth. It's just, it's repulsive. You got to go. And that's what this word. So I want to go into that today because in a time measured in eons, and if I can plagiarize a movie in a galaxy far, far away, this casting out happened eons ago.

You don't even know how long ago it was. I'd like you to go with me as this casting out took place. If you will join me in Ezekiel. I will find my way there. Ezekiel 28. I think many of you might know what I'm talking about. It was when Satan was ordered or commanded to leave the presence of God. And so in verse 16, as I'll read from the New King James Version, said, By the abundance of your trading you became filled with violence within and you sinned. As we know, God describes earlier that he was perfect. Originally he was made perfect, but then iniquity was found in him.

Have you ever thought by the abundance of his trading? What did Lucifer have to trade? Yes.

Ideas. Yes, he would have had those. Untruth. Heresy could have been. Yes. Yes, Bill. Accusations. Accusations. By the abundance of your trading, is it possible because we understand that he wanted to not only get rid of God, but take the place of God? So I will be like the Most High. Well, we know if you study the Bible that God has positions, even ranks of angels. Is it possible Lucifer was saying, When I become the head of Hancho, that I can give you positions? Since he especially wanted position that we read, let's go on. Therefore, I cast you as a profane thing out of the mountain of God, which is the highest place universe. He cast him out. Didn't want him apart because he was trying to tear the kingdom as God knew it at that time apart.

And he said, I destroyed you, O covering carob, from the midst of the fiery stones. Verse 17, Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty. He was perfect in every way. He said, You corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor, and I cast you to the ground.

Shalak is the word there. It's the Hebrew word, shalak. I think of when I had to shalak a piece of wood, but this is not like that because it actually means to throw away, to hurl.

Also, means to repel. So he wanted, God wanted Lucifer, covering one of the covering carobs, out of his sight, out of his way. So we cast him to the earth, as it says. And we also see that in Isaiah 14 verse 19, where he refers to him being cast out.

Why is it a frightening phrase? Because I don't think any of us want to be cast out from the presence of God. Yeah. Christ made it possible so that the, because he became our high priest, that that veil was torn down at his time, which also makes it possible for us to go straight to God the Father. So we have access to God the Father anytime, anywhere, anyplace, and I'm sure if you've lived a life similar to mine, you needed every place and every time. Because you need some help, and that's why we can call on our Father. When I was growing up and I was this little kid, whenever I got in trouble, I called on Dad. He'd take care of me. Well, to God the Father, we're still little children. I thought it was so nice when we were in Tennessee, Alabama, and especially Tennessee, I had all these great nephews that came over and nieces. They were little bitty tikes, and it was so good to see them. But you realize how fragile they really are. Brethren, we are just as fragile in this hard world because of what was cast out of heaven. Lucifer the devil, he was, he said, down here as a place of restraint. The word tells us Tartarus. But we have power, and I'll go through that here. That gives us safety. That helps us because of what Jesus Christ did. I'd like you to go with me to Revelation 12. Revelation 12, verse 9. Hmm.

And it says, so the great dragon was cast out.

That serpent of old called the devil and Satan. It's amazing all these words and names are given. They want to make it crystal clear that he is the devil, that he is Satan the adversary, and he's considered a dragon and a serpent. Nothing good in that description. As said, who deceives the whole world, he was cast to the earth and his angels were cast out with him.

I find it interesting that in the New Testament, the Greek word for cast out or the phrase, meaning cast, is ekbalo. Ekbalo. You can see it's a combination of two words. You can actually see balo, but ekbalo. And it actually means to drive out, to expel, to thrust out vehemently. That's why the word carries so much weight. We can look, well, I cast this out. No, you cast it out. You want it out. I was amazed because I saw the other day on a YouTube clip that somewhere up north, this woman was, this young girl, was coming into her house, and this raccoon came after her. And she was trying to get to the door. And this raccoon just went and grabbed hold of her leg and was just biting it. And she was screaming. It's on YouTube somewhere. And she was screaming, and her mother came out. And just like a mother bear, this, this, the girl was screaming. The mother just grabbed the raccoon, which was a good size raccoon, grabbed it by the back of its neck and slung the thing halfway across the yard. And it started to come back. And she just went after it. She's just making sure she got rid of it. And I thought about now she was casting that because that was bothering her, her daughter, even though her daughter was mostly grown still. That's something to, something to think about. So, Eqbalo. This Eqbalo in the New Testament was used at least 12 times as Christ cast out demons. And it described he would cast them out. He just didn't say, Oh, come on, come out. He said, Get out, come out. But it's interesting in my studies. You can correct me if I'm wrong. I did a study on the plane, so I have an excuse if I'm wrong. But I cannot. I can find where Jesus Christ cast out demons 12 times over 12 times. In Matthew, Mark and Luke. But I didn't find any in John. Found that to be interesting. Somebody had asked me. I probably would have gotten that one wrong if I had been on Jeopardy. But maybe John didn't have to, being he wrote it 30 years after some of the other gospels were already written. We didn't have to. Kind of understood. But I will give you, in case you want to have a future Bible study on something that I did find, that at least five times when he cast out these demons or a demon, he spoke to the demons five times. Now, other times he did. But I found it interesting as I looked up part of the times of what he said, how he said it. And it helped fill the story in about just how important it was to cast out cast out these demons.

So I want to go now to a story that we should be able to relate to. Now, Jesus Christ told, and it is a frightening verse to all those who believe that one day there will be a wedding supper. One day the bride will marry Christ.

And there are so many parables about it, stories that it's hard to discount any way, shape, or form that is going to happen. So I want to go to that now if you will join me in Matthew 22.

Matthew 22.

If I can get my place there. You can see from the first of 22 how this incredible feast similar to what we had in Alabama. As you joined Mary and my new nephew and niece as they got married. And we had this wonderful wedding. And then we had a dinner afterwards, a marriage supper, I'd say, because they were already married when we had that. But here, Christ is telling a story of the kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who gave a wedding feast, obviously for his son as a parallel are tied with us. And it's so interesting because some of them didn't want to go. Some of the guests who he had planned on, they didn't want to go. They didn't show up. They had something better to do. Like it wasn't that important. Parallels you can relate to yourself or to other people. But I'd like to go to verse 11 as this is as now he said, well, okay, if they don't come, go on the highways byways, pull these people in it. And we're going to have we're going to have a wedding feast. The food is already prepared. Means this thing is going to take place one way or the other. This wedding feast is going to take place whether you're there or you're not. Whether I'm there or not, it's going to take place. So let's read verse 11. But when the king came in to see the guests, he saw a man there who did not have on a wedding garment as typically then they would make the wedding garments. They would make stuff for you to wear nowadays. A lot of times, although not always, but it used to be that you would receive a little piece of cloth when you got the invite to the wedding. Anybody remember that? You still get those? It looked like no, I never got any of those. Well, it must be a southern thing then. Because we would just get this little white thing. It wasn't part of the wedding garment, but it was part of that. Back then, that was kind of your invite is either close or you had something that you would wear. They showed you were because when they had a wedding back at that time, it went for minimum of a week and sometimes two weeks. And God knows how much we can eat. So this is something that he had. And so here, everybody would have had that. He saw a man who did not have on a wedding garment, which means what? He wasn't invited. So he said to him, friend, it's a nice way to put it. Friend, how did you come in here without a wedding garment? And he was speechless.

Then the king said to the servants, bind him hand and foot, take him away, and cast him into outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing teeth, which means not really good. Whenever you hear that weeping is not good, especially if you're gnashing your teeth. It's going to be something bad.

So. Do we. Have a wedding garment. Do we have it hanging up?

Because in the Bible, it describes. The righteous acts of the saints is what you are clothed with. How your acts going. Righteous acts of the saints. We are clothed. Are to be clothed that way. It describes. But then. We see how important and how we do not want to be cast out. But I think there is one that is the most hated. By the devil and his minions. And I look at this and it just. It makes me think. Wow. That's ties back to me. So if you will. Go with me to Luke. Go with me to. Luke 10. Luke 10. This is a story of. Christ earlier in his ministry. And he. Chose 70 men. Not 12, but 70. Of men who were following him. And he chose them, put them in teams of two and sent them across the land. Bless them and gave them power.

What happened? To the majority of them? I don't know. It does say that when he said certain words. Many fell away from him. But here we have the 70. And it says in verse 17. Then the 70 returned after he sent them out. He said go preach the gospel. Do good. Heal. Do all these things. They were actually given power. To do it by Jesus Christ. 70 returned saying, Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name.

You get that yet? You realize the power that Christ is giving? And he said to them, I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. And he said, Behold, I give you authority to trample on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy. Man! Think about that. Can you imagine how Satan and the demons must have screamed? That God is going to give his power to dirt. To dirt to these inferior beings God made in his image and made from dirt. They had to be thinking, How? They're going to have power over us? Absolutely. But it's because of his name. His power. Not ours. His. But when he says this, when he says this, what were the disciples, because they were still disciples at that time, what were they thinking? They were frankly amazed that they even, even the demons are subject to us, which makes it appear that Saint, they cast out demons. They told him to come out, they had to come out. Cast them out. How those words must ring in Satan's ears now. Must ring in Satan's ears now.

How they must shudder. Because in a court of law, in the legal profession, it's known as having standing. You have standing, which means you are justified to bring this case on. But if you have no standing, you get thrown out of the court.

With Christ, and you and your life, and the issues you confront, the issues that are brought before you, you have standing. And the devil and his demons cannot stay.

I remember calling Fred Keller's, my mentors, one first time or two that I had to cast out demons. And I've maybe five or six over my time, 13 years. That's not too bad. But I didn't have enough experience that I called Fred, who had had decades of it in certain churches. And he had to tell me about standing. If you say they go, they go. He said, you don't ask. You cast them out. You don't negotiate. And it was so funny as I was talking to someone I won't mention because that's been told in confidence of a friend. People ask him to cast out a demon from a young boy, young man. And he, they had tried to do it, these other people had, and he said they were just arguing with it. Arguing with this young man who had the demon, and he was just negotiating and negotiating and and he said they didn't know. They didn't know they had the power. You're the power. If something is frightening to you, you're the power because of Christ, and in Christ's name they leave. You have that power. This is obvious here. A lot of people do not realize it. But you have people who might confront you as I have in prison that had demons.

Walking in a prison to see someone and someone else calls your name and knows exactly who you are.

Never met the person that I met the prisoner, and I said, do you know this guy? He said, no, but he's strange. Yeah, yeah, he's strange. That's why it's scary to go to prison. All it is is a holding place for a whole lot of demons because it's survival. But I digress. Let's go. And over all the power of the enemy and nothing shall by any means hurt you because you're just so tough. No. It's God that is the protector. Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this that the spirits are subject to you. See, he just said it again. The spirits are subject to us. In his name, if we are his, we have standing. We're not his. You better be, you better be scared.

But rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven. The Book of Life. That's where it's from.

I find it amazing that Christ gave his power over Satan to men and women who are his disciples.

And now some of these things where you see movies and everything else and they're trying to cast out these. It's not like that. I can tell you.

Let's go. Let's go to see an example of that. Acts 19. I can't say that I'm realizing the gravity of it.

It shouldn't be funny to me, but it is. Join me in Acts 19, I guess, because I've been pretty close to the situation. Acts 19. Let's go to verse 13. Well, let's go to verse 11. It said, Now God worked unusual miracles by the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs, or aprons, were brought to his body to the sick and the diseases left him, and evil spirits went out from them. Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists. I guess that means they must have had a card that says, I'm in exorcism. Took it upon themselves who called the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, We exercise you by the Jesus whom Paul preaches. Also, there were seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest who did so. So he was a chief priest, so he was exercising or trying to exercise in demons. And he came across one in verse 15, and the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus, I know. Paul, I know. But who are you?

Then the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, overpowered them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of the house, naked and wounded. This became known to all the Jews, and the Greeks dwelled in Ephesus, and fear fell upon them, and the name of Jesus was magnified.

You don't play with demons.

You command demons, and you may even feel it in your life sometimes, and you may have to tell them to get out.

I was in Tennessee. How much time do I have? Okay. I have eight minutes, so I better hurry up.

I was into a... I went into a house when I was in construction to bid a job I still remember the house today. It was an older house. It had been there for 150 years, and people were making it a wedding venue, and all this kind of stuff, and you could have parties there. So I went to the lady to ask what you want. She goes, well, we bought this house from the family who had handed it down through four generations, and they told us that the house was haunted. I said, is it? And she goes, yes. She said, would you like to see? I said, of course.

So I went upstairs with her because she said, this is his room. They had a room set aside for the spirit. And she said, I didn't believe it till I fixed the room, and then I moved something, and it moved it back. He, she always called it he, he moved it back. And he said, that's that's his rocking chair. And said, at night, he only rocks at night. He said, she said, it became disturbing when we first moved in because it rocker would rock sometimes all night. Said, you'd open the door and there's nothing there. Just the rocker going back and forth.

She said, but you know, you got used to him. I said, really? She said, yeah, he never comes out of this room. He stays in the room. I said, you can't see him, but he never comes out of the room. I don't understand that. And she said, well, he just enjoys it in the room. I saw the chair. It wasn't rocking. Looked around the room. There's nothing in it, but there was a bed. So I said, do you have this? Does he sleep on the bed?

And she says, I don't know.

And so I said, well, maybe you need somebody to cast this spirit out of the house. She goes, no, we feel like he's a part of the family now.

I didn't do the job. And I didn't go back to the house because they welcomed that.

That is a scary thought. I even thought about going back sometimes just to look at the house, see if it's still there. But then I heard it burn up in a fire. So I guess whoever it was, whoever he was, is out looking for a new place. Stays in Tennessee and leaves Florida alone, I hope.

So let's join me as I begin to wrap this up. John 12. John 12. And I want you to think about this because to me, this is a very interesting scripture that may give us a hint of this timing because we know eons ago, Satan was cast out. Right? Scripture tells us. But we also know that during a time later, at the time of Job, that Satan had a chance to go up and talk when the other angels were coming around to report. So he obviously has had access to go up. But when did it end? Let's look and see if we maybe get a hint. Do I know? I don't want to make this doctrine? Absolutely not. But let's go. John 12.

Verse 31. Now is the judgment of the world. What is he doing here? You get the context of this? He's predicting his crucifixion of when he will be killed. And it's only days away. Because you know chapter 13 starts the Passover. So this is it. And it says, Now is the judgment of the world. Now is the judgment of the world. Now the ruler of the world will be cast out. Do we see any proof that he's ever gone back up after the sacrifice of Jesus Christ? I can't find it. We do see a time of revelation where he attempts to. We know what happens there, right towards the end time, according to Scripture.

And it says, I, and I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all the people to myself. Very interesting. Because Christ gave this world a way out of the power of Satan and his devil, demons, didn't he? His death gave us power. And he even told his disciples just the next day, if that's over, that I'm going to give you power. Power that had never been given before. Except in small measures, certain times. But no, he was going to give them a power that made it so very interesting. The phrase cast out does not just come out.

It's to expel. Drive out. And it's a phrase hated by Satan. Because that's what he was.

And as is true here, twice.

So, I want to turn to Acts 16. I was there this morning. Acts 16, we'll do that very quickly. Acts 16. Because I want to give you a very good example. And know your name's not Paul. But the power that was in Paul is power also in you. Power to Christ's disciples. That you have that through Jesus Christ. You don't have any of yourself. Acts 16 and verse 16. Now, it happened as he went to prayer that a certain slave girl possessed with a spirit of divination, a demon, met us, who brought her master's much profit by fortune telling. This girl followed Paul and us and cried out saying, these men are the servants of the most high God who proclaim to us the way of salvation and this she did for many days. But Paul greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, see the spirit had taken control of the girl. Have gone into any fortune tellers? I hope not. He said, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And he came out that very hour. So it is something that we need to know. It is a frightening phrase, but it shouldn't be to us. It shouldn't be to us.

Because if we're preparing for the wedding, we're not going to be cast out. If we're not preparing for the wedding, I'll leave that up to you. One last scripture is in Revelation 20 and verse 10. It's his final cast out, and he knows this is in his future. The devil knows it's in his future. He's going to be bound, as the scripture says, for a thousand years. And he's going to be let loose for a little while. And then he will be cast into the lake of fire. Cast out from this world and be burnt up. It will no longer exist. I'll explain that other verse in another Bible study where, because you have to go to the Greek to really understand that tormented day and night forever and ever. Does that match God's M.O. for even sons of God as they were actually called before? No. But I can actually break that down and go into the Greek and means he's gone forever. Not that he will burn forever and ever. So we know that isn't. So today, I brought you a phrase. Hopefully it's not a frightening phrase to you. And it's about cast out. You need to be afraid. If you told Christ you made a covenant with him, and then you say, I don't need you anymore. Be afraid. Be very afraid. But if you walk with God, he gave us a phrase many times, I will never leave you nor forsake you.

And he gives us the power to cast out, to cast away evil that comes before us. Yes, day or night, you have the power to cast away and to cast out because of what Jesus Christ did for you.