Satan Restrained, Fear Removed

Well, we've already covered some of the things that I think all of us are aware of, or at least as we learn, as we go along and learn about what today of atonement pictures. We've covered some of those things, certainly in the sermonette. We went through a lot of the information that normally we know. And yet I want to cover something a little bit differently today, at least I hope it's a little differently.

And I hope it will help us in understanding exactly what God is ultimately going to do. All of us, as we celebrate this unique Holy Day, we're all directly involved. We're all directly involved because we're all fasting. It tells us to afflict our souls, to deny yourself. It says to humble yourself with fasting. And so all of us are involved. We all have some skin in the game. We're all celebrating the Holy Day, the Day of Atonement.

And of course, in Leviticus, you read about this being a day that is one of those that are the appointed festivals of the Lord. It's important for us to be continually mindful. It mentions the Sabbath in Leviticus 23, and then it goes through all of the Holy Days, and points out that those are annual Sabbath. They're annual Sabbaths on specific parts of Days of Unleavened Bread and the Feast of Tabernacles in the Last Great Day. Those are days that God designates that he wants to have a relationship with us.

And it would seem that maybe the Day of Atonement, being a day when we're fasting, when we're trying to draw close to God. Now, I know sometimes we're not thinking about drawing close to God all day long. We need to, but that's not reality. We think about we are getting hungry or we're getting thirsty. And it's good to keep your mind occupied, I'll tell you.

It's good to keep your mind occupied on things that God wants us to think about. In Leviticus 16, you have an entire chapter that goes through the ceremony that the Israelites were told to observe when the Day of Atonement came around every year. And actually, that ceremony was involving, as with all of us, it involved the whole community because they were supposed to fast. It most directly involved Aaron as the high priest, at least initially, then those who were high priests following him. This particular activity was done only once a year and in a very special place, and the high priest was the one involved.

He was the one who was to go in. He was the one who was to take the bullet for himself. He was the one who was to offer the atoning goats, the one that designated and was designated for the Lord, the one whose blood would be shed for forgiveness of sin, and the other goat, the bad goat. The goat, you could call the goat, I know we use different names or have, and different biblical translations use the Azazial goat, or some translate that scapegoat, which I think is not really a good understanding. Some call it the goat of departure.

That's actually pretty good. That's a pretty good description of what that goat resembles. Let's take a look at this. Of course, this is a reminder from God. He gives us an understanding of how God, the Creator and Ruler of everything, deals with sin. Not just how I might think, or you or anybody might think. Not what man comes up with. It's how the great God chooses to deal with sin. First of all, the goat that represented the Lord, or Jesus Christ, involves the blood that is required to cover our sin. Now, that's very clear. Not something I think any of us would have a dispute with.

That's exactly what we understand and what we need. Then the second goat of these two symbolizes the cause of sin from the very beginning, and how he is going to bear his guilt. That's what we read here in Leviticus 16. Let's go back and you can rehearse with me these words, because they really are, I think, very significant.

In Leviticus 16, verse 5, Aaron was to take from the congregation of the people of Israel two male goats for a sin offering. These goats were going to have a great part in the ceremony that would be conducted each year, and there would be relief from that. In verse 7, it says, he was to take the two goats and set them before the Lord at the entrance of the tent of meeting. In verse 8, he was to cast lots of two goats, and the Lord, in guiding those lots, would identify who the true goat is, who the true Lamb of God is.

And of course, the other one was the lot for Azaziel, as I've already mentioned. It could be turned the goat for departure, or the goat of departure. And of course, in verse 9, it says, Aaron was to present the goat in which the lot fell for the Lord, and offer it as a sin offering. And so that is something that all of us clearly identify with when we celebrate the Passover. It was clearly something we understood, or it was highly important on our mind when we were being baptized, because when we were baptized, the blood of Jesus was going to cover our sins and forgive us of all of our sins of the past, and even make available as we continue to repent forgiveness for sins that we commit as we go forth.

And yet in verse 9, verse 10, the goat in which the lot fell for Azaziel shall be presented alive before the Lord to make atonement over it, that it may be sent away into the wilderness to Azaziel. See, that representation, of course, ties together with what we read in Revelation 20, which I'm going to go to here in a little bit. Let's move on over to verse 6 to 20. It says, When he had finished atoning for the holy place and the tent of meeting and the altar, see, that was what he did with, he was using the blood of the goat.

He was using the blood that would cover the sins, not only of the altar, but of Aaron himself, of the people, everything around. God was asking him to do that, at least in representing the blood covering and atoning for those sins. But in verse 21, Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the iniquity of the people of Israel. Now, were the people of Israel at fault? Well, yeah, they were at fault. They didn't obey God. They refused to obey God. They luckily got rescued. If they'd only followed, they could have been a little easier on them. But as we know, reading the story, they were not interested, really, in drawing very close to God.

They really were kind of scared of God. They didn't really like even the fact that God presented himself like he does. Because sometimes there's thunder and lightning. I know some of you mentioned that earlier.

You must have had some really bad storms through here. I love that. I love that. I was at such... I don't know which day it was this past week. It was stormy up in Kansas City. It looked like it should be raining, but it wasn't. And there was just a tremendous electrical storm just south of the house. And I don't know how far it was away because I couldn't even see the lightning strike.

But you could see the whole sky light up. Just white! Not a strike, but white. And then the rumble of thunder. And that went on for a long time. I sat out in front of my garage to just watch that for about 45 minutes. Absolute peace. Just to watch what God is able to do. How much power. This is a very tiny resemblance of it. How much power is there?

How exciting it is that we serve the great God who's able to do that. How exciting it is for us to be able to share it knowing that He's able to do whatever He wishes. In this case, this goat, the live goat, over which Aram was to confess the iniquity of the people and all their transgressions, all their sins, putting them on the head of the goat, and then sending that goat away into the wilderness. Verse 22, The goat shall bear on itself those iniquities to a barren region.

The goat should be set free in the wilderness. You know, that was something they did every year. I don't know where those goats eventually got. They went out in the wilderness. And again, it was reenact a year after year after year. And yet, it was to point to something we're looking forward to even yet in the future. You know, we know Revelation 20, and we should continually be reminded of this because it's such a tremendously wonderful outline that God gives.

Chapter 19, Jesus intervenes. Chapter 20, you see a description of the Millennium and the White Throne Judgment. Chapter 20 is a very important chapter in the Bible. It's one that the New Testament Church, before 100 AD, they didn't even have this information like this in this form.

John was writing this about 70 years after Jesus died, 60 or 70 years. So they didn't have that initially, but they didn't need it. They were told about the coming kingdom. They were told about the King of the kingdom. And yet, we are told something even more, giving us more understanding. Here in chapter 20, starting in verse 1, I saw an angel coming down from heaven holding in his head the key to the bottomless pit in a great chain. And he sees the dragon, the ancient serpent who is the devil, and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and threw him into the bottomless pit and locked and sealed it over him so that he could deceive the nations no more.

Until the thousand years were ended, and after that he must be let out for a little while. So here you see a description of a spiritual restriction, a restraining of the deceiver. And of course, this is referring to the second goat there in Leviticus 16, and it refers to Satan very clearly here. And it says, if we drop down to verse 7, when those thousand years were ended, Satan is going to be released from his prison. He's going to come out to deceive the nations at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, in order to gather them for battle. And they're numerous as the sand of the sea, and they marched up over the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints, in a blooded city. But fire came down, and consumed them, and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever. See, that's a pretty conclusive statement about what God is going to ultimately do with Satan. How? In order to be at one. In order to be in complete unison with God, we have to be, first of all, forgiven by the blood of the Lamb, and then we have to be freed. Freed from the deceptive spirit that today rules the world and is all around us. And yet, brethren, thankfully, the day is coming. The day is coming when people are going to be shell-shocked. They are going to be recovering from the enormous catastrophes that are going to come on this globe. And Jesus is going to intervene. He's going to actually have to kill many people. But there are going to be many who live. I don't know how many people are going to live in the Millennium, but those people are going to live into an entirely new age.

And yet an age that is depicted and described here as one where Satan has been restrained. Ultimately, it shows his restraint, then they let him out a little bit, and then he's removed. Finally, ultimately, completely removed from any effect on human beings.

Now, this is a pretty incredible process that the Father is going to do. See, the world is going to become free from the influence of the devil.

We don't have really a great, I think, ability to even know how much better is that going to be than what we have today and what we've experienced over the last 6,000 years. What's it going to mean for the people who are living then? And really, what does it mean to us today? Because we can envision that time. But I think it's important for us to be reminded of a number of things. We all have grown up in this world. So we've grown up in Satan's world. We've had it mentioned. He's listed as the God of this world. It tells us in 1 Corinthians 2, verse 11, that we shouldn't be ignorant of his devices. We have to come to understand how much Satan has deceived the world. The world is a whole. And each and every one of us, personally and individually, no matter what. Whether we grew up in the church, whether we were introduced to it when we were 16 or 18 or 20, as I was. Whether we have come into the church later, all of us have to understand we have been deceived. And of course, you see some of the devices that Satan uses. He uses cunning. He uses subtly. He's a clear deceiver because he mixes truth with error. And of course, kind of like mixing poison with water. Then you've got to hold whole glass. The whole thing is poison. Now that's what you end up with, and that's the way he works. Of course, Jesus called him a liar, clearly. The first thing he said out of his mouth to eat was, you know, going to be saved a lie. Try to confuse these little people that God has placed here on the earth, that God has placed here for a reason. See, Jesus also called him a murderer. See, what he was doing was he was leading them in a path that would lead to death. And so we don't want to be ignorant of his devices.

But here in Ephesians chapter 2, and I want to go to this. I had wanted to read more of chapter 1, but I think I will just mention that chapter 1, verse 15 down to verse 23 is remarkable. Absolutely remarkable what Paul has to say about who Jesus is and what he offers to us, and how he offers such great power, and how he has been given to be the authority in verse 21, who is far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the age to come.

And God the Father has put all things under Christ's feet, and has made him head over all things for the church, which is his body. We have a loving, merciful ruler and leader in the church, and that's Jesus Christ.

And yet Paul follows that statement up. This is rather an introductory section here in Ephesians 1, but he mentions in chapter 2 the facts. The facts are, as he says in verse 1, you, all of you brethren, were dead.

You were dead because of what happened to Adam and Eve. You were dead because of the dominance that Satan's influence is in this world. He said you were dead for your trespasses and sins in which you once lived. He was telling them, well, I hope you've come out of some of that, or hope you've come out of part of that, or most of that, or much. And we probably have more to learn as to what to come out of. But he says, in which you once lived, following what? Following the course of this world. Following the prince of the power of the air, the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among the children of disobedience. You can say, oh, well, that's everybody else. No, that's everybody. That's all of us. And that's what Paul was telling them, that you have been duped. You have been deceived. You have been corrupted. You have been perverted by Satan's spirit. That's what he did. That's what he did in the Garden of Eden. That's what he did whenever we were born. And he says in verse 3, all of us, until Paul not only said you, but he said me. All of us!

We once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of our flesh and our senses, and we were by nature. See, in a sense, maybe even the thought of human nature is a little misleading, even though it does apply to human beings. It's really Satan's nature. It's Satan's nature that man acquired, because Satan's nature is one of hostility and anger, one of rebellion, one of resistance, one of disobedience. That's exactly how you would describe human nature. It's clearly hostile to God. And so these few verses here in the first part of Ephesians 2 are very, very important for all of us to understand. If we want to understand what we're overcoming, what we're going to get rid of, it's a nature that Satan has projected onto the earth. It says, we were by nature the children of wrath like everyone else. But very thankfully here in verse 4, God, who is rich in mercy out of the great love which he had loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, He made us alive together with Jesus Christ, and by His grace extended to us. We are saved. And raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Jesus Christ, so that in the ages to come, He might show the immerseable riches of His grace and kindness to toward us in Jesus. He's the one who's brought us out of. He causes us to understand Satan's deceptions in this world, and then He causes us to resist, to resist the nature, to resist the nature that we have acquired for the entirety of our lives. Now, understanding that point, understanding that intrinsically is very important, because that gives us an understanding of what we're overcoming, and how it is God is transforming us from something... God is kind of in the... He's in the savage business. He's salvaging us. He's bringing us out of the dumpster. We were talking about dumpsters earlier. Bringing us out of the dumpster, out of the pollution that we've been in, in this world, and He is going to completely redeem us.

And yet, I want us to think about this in light of what we read there in Revelation 20. In Revelation 20, a time will come when this satanic spirit, the influence, which is seemingly just through the air, the influence that Satan is able to have is set aside. It's no longer here. Brethren, we do not know what that's like. We live in it. We wallow in it. Not that we are wallowing in it ourselves, but we can't get away from it. It is all around us. And you can read every imaginable description of corruption and deception and lie. Most people think, oh, that's kind of normal. You know, that's just human.

Oh, I'm just a person. Yeah, that's a problem. You reflect the wrong spirit. But see, a time is coming when, in this day of atonement, will continue to unfold when a thousand years will occur, and the spirit of Satan will not be affecting people. That is incredible. That would be absolutely incredible because that will create an environment for peace. Do we have an environment for peace today? Absolutely not. There is no way for this world to get along with itself.

There is no way for nations not to rise up against nation. There is no way for people to be able to be cooperative and to not have conflict and strife and anger and hatred and wrath. You can't do that in this world. Now, on an individual basis, I'm going to get to that. We have our job. But see, what I want us to think about is that time is coming when that spirit is going to be removed.

Actually, I'm sorry, I didn't say that correctly. It's going to be restrained, and then it will ultimately be removed, as we read there in Revelation 20. But whenever God restrains the spirit that rules this world, then you can have peace. Then you can have safety. See, then you can have security. Then you can have tranquility.

Then you can have serenity. Those are things people seek. Those are things people want. They're not exactly sure, I think, for the most part, why they don't have that. But see, why they don't have that is what happened in Genesis chapter 3. Let's go back to Genesis 3, because I want to be able to mention that. Here in Genesis 3, Adam and Eve had just experienced being born on day 6. Now, I'm going to assume they were probably 20 years old. I don't know that anybody knows how old they were, but you would think probably an adult person, man, and woman.

They had been created on the stick today. They were the pinnacle of God's human creation. He said upon their creation, this is very good. This is very good. And these are my children.

And they spent a Sabbath that was unlike any other Sabbath since then. See, they spent a Sabbath talking to God. They spent a Sabbath communing with the Creator. There was no strife. There was no conflict. There was complete security. They were talking to the Father. They were able to maybe ask anything they wanted. You find as well, when you read it in chapter 2, that the animals even didn't have the hostility toward man, or the viciousness, or the carnivorousness that we see animals today live in. They were living with. So Adam brought them up, sent them past, and named them all.

There was a peaceful setting there with Adam and Eve, and with that first Sabbath, that would have to have been a remarkable Sabbath. Because God was resting. He was showing by example what you need to do as my people. I think it's interesting that we should think about it, because I think that that first Sabbath was a type of what the millennium will be.

Whenever you remove Satan's spirit, whenever you remove his effect on human beings, a great change is going to come over the earth. Now, here in Genesis 3, I'm sorry I'm a little scrambled here, going different places, but I will try to point out what I want you to see. We're all familiar with the first part of Genesis 3 because it describes Satan deceiving Eve and Adam into breaking the law.

I'm really not even wanting to go through that. I want to go through the part that begins down in verse 7 after they had sinned.

See, now they were not the first sinners because Satan had sinned long before that. Satan and his rebellious angels following him in defiance of God had sinned. They had clearly sinned. And of course, Lucifer, who became the devil, he was the leader. And so he is the original sinner and he is the one who needs to be taken out of the way.

But after they had sinned in verse 7, it says, the eyes of them were open, they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves. You know, whenever they sinned, something bad happened. Something bad happened, and I wanted to point out what that was. There's one item here that I'm going to focus on today. There maybe are many answers, and I'm certainly not saying that I'm all inclusive or all understanding of the whole facets of how much Satan ruins the world. But it's very clear that their eyes were opened, and their view of themselves and of each other was now different.

Their minds had started to be corrupted. They had started to take on the nature of the prince of the power of the air. In verse 8, they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

That was quite a different engagement than what they'd had on the Sabbath. Perhaps the day before, I don't know that we know the sequence of days, but this would appear to be just the next day.

And yet, it says at that point, being infected by Satan's nature, his spirit, they were now wanting to hide.

What was going wrong? What was going haywire?

In verse 9, the Lord God called to the man, and he said, Where are you? As if he didn't know. Clearly, he did know. But he asked a question, and you see a response, a bad, poor response. I heard the sound, Adam says. I heard the sound of you in the garden.

And I was afraid. I was afraid of God.

I was afraid of my Creator. I realize that something has really badly affected me, because yesterday I was enjoying talking with you and walking with you and walking with Eve, and an excitedness that you probably have no way of ever describing. And today, I'm afraid of God.

I heard you walking in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked. See, he had started to have a misperception even of God's creation of His body and of Eve's body, and they realized, well, we're not the same. And so he goes on to say, I hid myself.

See, the point that I want to make about this was that when sin entered into man's nature, when sin entered into his mind, he wasn't peaceful. He was no longer joyous and feeling that I have an abundant life with my Creator. I am now enslaved. To guilt, to shame, to embarrassment. And the one that I want to point out is that he was now afraid. What was he afraid of? Well, he's afraid he's going to die. That's what he's afraid of. And he's afraid of a lot of other things that I want us to think about as we continue to go forward. See, the environment that God is going to create by removing Satan's spirit from the world, the environment that he's going to create, is just absolutely, incredibly different than what we suffer with today. And what we see...see, he was afraid. He had...that's where fear comes from.

And actually, maybe we should look to Hebrews chapter 2 because it talks about Jesus and how that he came. Hebrews chapter 2. Hebrews chapter 2 verse 14.

Since the children share flesh and blood, he himself, Jesus, the captain of our salvation, he shared the same things so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death. And it's the devil. And that he would free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death.

See, that's a tremendous power that God is able to extend to us. That he is able to override fear. He is able to override shame and guilt and particularly fear because often...see, I think of peace. I think of peace as kind of absence of war. And yet peace really is far more than just the absence of war. Peace is a serenity. It is a tranquility. It is a peace of mind. It is a settling that every human being needs. And because of living in this world, we cannot find. We cannot find that in this world. I think it's remarkable when you look at the verses that describe the world tomorrow.

You see, of course, the law of God is going to become common education instead of overlooked and forgotten. You see, they're going to beat swords into plowshares, spears into pruning hooks. They're going to make those kind of transitions. And yet, it also mentions something that sometimes we might overlook. Because when you read all of the millennial pictures, it says that there is going to be no more fear. It says there's going to be security and stability. See, even in Zechariah 14, which is not really elaborating except in a very broad way on the millennium, in verse 11 it says, Jerusalem shall abide in security. People will no longer have a need to be afraid. They will no longer be fearful for their lives or for their possessions. We all lock everything every time we get out of the car. We might not think, well, I fear somebody will take my stuff. Well, if they take my Bible, that'll be bad, but at least they'll have something that might be of help to them. I can probably get another one. But see, fear is what Satan injected into man. Fear in many different types so that we're afraid. That's why we read later in John, perfect love casts out fear. If I had that, I wouldn't have any more fears. I'm still struggling with that, by the way, and I believe that that's God's intent, that we struggle with that until he changes it, because he's going to change it. He's going to change it for us when Jesus returns. He's going to change it for the world by taking away the spirit of fear that Satan has injected this world with. And of course, that's all tied together with sin. It's all tied together with understanding sin and overcoming sin, and being atoned for by the blood of the Lamb, because that's the only way we can be accepted.

But it is remarkable. In Hosea 2, verse 18, it says, I'm going to make you to lie down in safety. In Micah 4, verse 4, it says, No one shall make them afraid. These are all millennial scriptures. No one shall make them afraid.

In Isaiah 32, verse 18, I'll give you peaceful habitations. I will give you secure dwellings and quiet resting places. That seems like what the first Sabbath was for Adam and Eve. They had peace, but it got ruined by Satan pushing them into sin.

Now, again, we realize God knew. God knew that that would probably happen. I'm pretty sure that God knew that would happen. And he had already planned for the redemption, so I'm pretty sure he realized that humans don't have the ability to resist. They don't have the ability to overpower Satan. His influence is going to be affecting them.

And yet, here in Isaiah 41, you see another verse. This is not directly about the Millennium, but it does talk about the great power of God and the assurance that people can have whenever God's help is available to you. And maybe that's what I want to point out to us today. This great day is coming when Satan is going to be restrained. His spirit will be removed from affecting men in an exaggerated way. I'm sure you can't just completely change people's minds immediately. It's going to take some time as we see with some of the verses about the Millennium. Let's see here in Isaiah 41, starting in verse 8, he says, Israel, my servant, Jacob, I've chosen, the offspring of Abraham, my friend. You whom I look from the ends of the earth and call from the farthest corner, saying to you, you are my servant. I have chosen you and I have not cast you away. He says, don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. Do not fear, for I am with you. Do not be afraid, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you by my victorious right hand. He says in verse 13, I, the Lord your God, I am holding your hand, and it is I who say to you, do not fear. I will help you. See, that's not only something that people will come to understand in the Millennium, that's something for all of us today. Because he's working with us. We envision what it will be like without Satan. And what it's going to be like is the removal of that spirit that has corrupted the world. And then people will no longer have to be afraid. Because if we think about it, and you can think about it a lot more in many, many ways, you were affected by our fears. Fears about having a job, fears about having any money, fears about this, that, all kinds of fears about I'm sick, am I going to be better? We have a lot of apprehension, a lot of fear, and maybe some of us have more of that than others. And yet to be able to see those fears removed, to see them subside, that's what God wants us as we read Isaiah 41. He can apply that to you. He says, don't be afraid. Verse 10, I'm with you. See, that's what he says about having the Holy Spirit. That's what Psalm 23 points out. No matter how bad things get, I'm with you. Don't be afraid. I'm your God. I'm going to strengthen you. I'm going to help you. I'm going to uphold you by my victorious right hand. The last verse I want to go to today is in James 4 because I think it gives the information that all of us need for right now. We are not taken out of the world. We're not taken out of the spirit that corrupts the world. But we've been given the Spirit of God, and we've been told what to do. See, I can't restrain Satan. I can't remove him. That's God's job. What can I do? I can resist. That's what we're told in verse 9. James 4. I think it's verse 7, I guess. James 4. We're told that we've been given the Spirit of God.

And it says in verse 6 that God opposes the proud, and he gives grace to us, the humble.

And so he says because he does that, he's actually in chapter 4 here in these verses before this, he says he's described how it is that you're corrupted because of your own lusts, your own nature that has been affected by Satan's world. But he says, I can bring you out of that. And he says, I resist the proud, I give grace to the humble. And so therefore, you need to submit yourself to God. That's an ongoing job.

Every day we have to submit ourselves to God. And of course it says in the last part of verse 7, resist the devil, and he will flee from you. That should be a part of our prayer. Maybe a more important part than we've ever imagined. We know that Jesus said deliver us from the evil. That's part of the model of prayer.

We know that we're told to not give place to the devil. And here, quite clearly, we're told to resist. Understand what's making me crazy. Understand what's making me afraid. Understand what's making me suffer from guilt and shame. And of course it is from sin. But see, many things might just simply be fear. Because if we have perfect love, then we would not be afraid. And that's the world, the perfect world we're going to have. That's God is going to develop into the thousand years when Christ is ruling on the earth.

And Satan has been removed. The spirit of fear will no longer be affecting people. And so for us today, we want to submit ourselves to God, resist the devil, and he will flee. He has to flee. If we're doing what we see, God tells us to do, and he will give us security and peace and relief in this age. Of course, he says in verse 8, draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.

And so, this is fascinating to me to think about how it is that God is going to create a world, the kingdom of God, the beginning of the kingdom of God, when Christ intervenes, he's going to start working with people in a completely different dimension.

And of course, they're going to be told there's going to come a time when the deceiver is going to kind of, is going to try to deceive you once again. That's at the end of the thousand years. Exactly why God's going to allow that? I don't know, except to be told, and to be told, and to be told, and to be told, and to be told, and to be told, and to say, watch out, and I want to warn you, and I don't want you to fall for this sucker move that's going to happen.

Those are things that perhaps will be taught during the millennium, but see the spirit of fear, at least of being afraid, will not be the dominant spirit. It's going to be removed or restrained, at least. So I think that's exciting.

I think it's encouraging what we see in James chapter 4, how that we can, as we look to Jesus Christ for His help, we can resist the devil and His effects on our world and on our life as we learn to yield to Him. I guess James 4 verse 7 and 8 would be the answer to what can we do today, and yet that's what I think God expects of us, to be growing in spiritual understanding and to be growing in a perception of how His great plan is going to serve people as they grow to be a part of His divine family.

So that'll be the conclusion here to the sermon. I want to just wish all of you a very joyous Feast of Tabernacles. That's something we all look forward to, and I hope that it can be an extremely blessed feast that you can go to wherever you're going. I guess most of you are going to Branson, so that's where you can be. Certainly we want to pray for each other. I ask that you drive safely, and I ask that you draw close to God.

It's always fun to go somewhere, do something different, but draw close to God, and God will draw close to you, and we can have and truly enjoy a very blessed Feast of Tabernacles.