All Bible verses are taken from
the New King James Version, if not otherwise mentioned
Introduction
War never ends with war
It is a continuous process
All wars continue until the enemy is totally
destroyed to the point that he will never come back.
A War ends only by the total destruction of the
enemy
This is an eternal and universal truth.
Nothing has changed this principle so far.
So our ancients also knew this principle about
war
In the Middle East, in ancient times, nations
attempt not only to defeat the enemy but also to annihilate the enemy.
To achieve this end, they adopted many ways
·
The population
in the nation is destroyed totally
They murder all male citizens in the
defeated nation and women are caught as slaves
All water sources like rivers, ponds
etc. are destroyed by filling them with stones
·
They destroy
all agriculture by burning
the fields and kill all cattle
Water resources are destroyed
Economy and food is destroyed.
·
All warriors
are killed or taken as captives
No one fight and protect the country
·
The king
and ministers are killed
Wise and able men are taken away in
exile to the winning nation
No more political leadership and no
governance
·
All priests
are killed, the temple is ransacked
and the idols of gods destroyed
Proves that the god of the defeated nation is
powerless before the god of the victorious nation.
All or many of these steps are always taken by
the winner.
Jesus destroyed the kingdom of satan
Jesus came with a single mission
All other details of His mission points to this
single mission
Jesus came to restore the Kingdom of God
Jesus started His ministry by announcing the
Kingdom of God.
Matthew 4:12, 17
12 Now
when Jesus heard that John had been put in prison, He departed to Galilee.
17 From
that time Jesus began to preach and to say, "Repent, for the kingdom of
heaven is at hand."
The restoration of the
Kingdom includes:
Repent
Born
Again
Baptism
in water
Baptism
in the Holy Spirit
Holy
Life
In brief, the Kingdom Living is living as a
disciple of Jesus.
What did Jesus do on earth ? :
Colossians 2:15 Having disarmed principalities and powers,
He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.
·
But still there is satan and his
works on this earth
Satan
attacks the born again believers and try to steal their blessings
·
Because the war is not ended, the war
goes on
Satan
and his Kingdom are not totally annihilated.
So our present spiritual condition is:
1.
We are delivered from the
kingdom of satan
We
are born again into a spiritual Kingdom of God
But
still we live in this physical World
2.
Satan and his kingdom are
defeated and made powerless
But
they still exist
The
war goes on…
When is the final
destruction of the kingdom of satan happen?
Revelation 20: 9, 10
9 They went up on the breadth of the earth
and surrounded the camp of the saints and the beloved city. And fire came down
from God out of heaven and devoured them.
10 The
devil, who deceived them, was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone
where the beast and the false prophet are. And they will be tormented day and
night forever and ever.
(NKJV)
Revelation 20:14, 15
14 Then Death
and Hades were cast into the lake of
fire. This is the second death.
15 And
anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.
After this incident, the Kingdom of God is
established for ever
Revelation 21: 1 Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for
the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more
sea.
What is happening now?
We are in an interim time between the declaration
and the first defeat of satan and his kingdom and the final destruction of the
satan and kingdom and the everlasting establishment of the Kingdom of God.
We find a historical example for annihilating a
nation in the Old Testament.
The book of Exodus
records this magnificent story.
The story narrated in the book of Exodus is the
story of the final deliverance of God’s people from exile and slavery in a
foreign land.
Events as recorded in
Exodus
1.
God declares
freedom
He
met Moses and declared His final and unchanging decision to deliver His people
from Egypt.
Exodus
3: 8
"So I have come down to deliver
them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a
good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the
Canaanites and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Hivites
and the Jebusites.
Exodus 5: 1 Afterward Moses and Aaron went in and told
Pharaoh, "Thus says the LORD God of Israel: 'Let
My people go, that they may hold a feast to Me in the
wilderness.'"
God’s plan was not a continuous war between Israelites
and Egyptians, but the victory of His people and the final destruction of His
enemy.
Plagues sent by God upon the Egyptians had more
than one purposes
One among them was to prove that
Egyptian gods were powerless and unreal before Yahwah, the Lord.
The first plague – turning water in the Nile into
blood was also to make the population difficult.
It had an aim to destroy their agriculture and
economy.
Life became almost impossible after it
The last was indeed a heavy blow – the death of
the first born
The first born of every family, among man and
cattle were dead
The strongest men in the family and society is
dead
The chosen men for religious rites were dead
The heir to the kingdom of Egypt is dead
The last scene at the shore of Red Sea was the
final blow
All mighty warriors, weapons and horses were
drowned
The military strength was destroyed
The nation got the fatal blow
The story of the fall
of Egypt spread wide
This fall so great that it spread far and wide,
from generation to generation
While Egypt was prosperous the fame of the
country spread to the whole world
When the great famine came, Egypt had nothing to
worry.
Under the wisdom of Joseph, the Egyptians were
prepared to face the famine.
The news that Egypt stood unaffected by the
famine, spread wide so that it reached the ears of Jacob and his sons who lived
in Canaan.
That’s how they came to Egypt for food.
The fall of Egypt also spread far and wide
It was such a huge shock that it passed from
generation to generation
See what Rahab says:
Joshua 2:10 "For we have heard how the LORD dried up
the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did
to the two kings of the Amorites who were on the other side of the Jordan,
Sihon and Og, whom you utterly destroyed.
What she refers to an incident that happened more
than 40 years ago.
The news has spread wide even to the other side
of the River Jordan.
Rahab might not have been 40 years old by that
time.
That means she has heard the story of success by
the Israelites from her ancestors.
The defeat of Egypt was such a failure that the
story went beyond the Red Sea, the desert and even the River of Jordan
The story is transmitted from generation to
generation
The story gives a shiver to the enemies of Israel
Where do we stand now ?
We are in between two wars.
The first war is over and Jesus disarmed and
defeated Satan
The last war has not yet happened
Satan, death and Hades will be thrown into the
lake of fire and brimstone
This is the second and final death of satan and
the final destruction of his kingdom
What are we doing now ?
We are declaring the Kingdom and establishing the
Kingdom
1.
We celebrate the victory of the
Kingdom of God
If
the enemy king and the military generals are not killed during the war, they
are caught alive.
The
winners do not kill them instantly.
They
will be taken alive, bound by chains to the victorious nation.
In
the successful nation, there will be a celebration of victory that may last
from one day to more than a week
A
part of the wealth (gold and silver) taken away from the defeated nation and
their temple will be distributed to all citizens
All
citizens in the country will part take in the celebration of victory.
During
the celebration, the defeated captives will be in prison and chained.
They
wait in despair and shame for their fate
They
will be killed by the end of the celebration
Paul is talking about this victory celebration:
2 Corinthians 2: 14 Now
thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us
diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place.
In Luke, we read about the defeat of the enemy
and the distribution of the wealth taken away from the enemy.
Luke
11:21, 22
21 "When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his
goods are in peace.
22 "But when a stronger than he comes upon him and overcomes him,
he takes from him all his armor in which he trusted, and divides his spoils.
2.
We declare the power and
authority of the Kingdom of God
Matthew
11: 2 - 5
2 And when John had heard in prison about the works of Christ, he
sent two of his disciples
3 and said to Him, "Are You the Coming One, or do we look for
another?"
4 Jesus answered and said to them, "Go and tell John the things
which you hear and see:
5 "The blind see and the lame walk; the
lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear; the dead are raised up and the poor have
the gospel preached to them.
·
Blind see
·
Lame walk
·
Lepers cleansed
·
Deaf hear
·
Dead raised
·
Gospel of the Kingdom preached
Luke
11: 20 - 22
20 "But if I cast out demons with the finger of God, surely the
kingdom of God has come upon you.
21 "When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his
goods are in peace.
22 "But when a stronger than he comes upon him and overcomes him,
he takes from him all his armor in which he trusted, and divides his spoils.
When you the division of blessings by God on His
faithful, be sure that the kingdom of satan is defeated.
3.
We are giving freedom in Jesus’
name to all slaves of satan
1 Peter 2: 9 But you are a chosen generation, a royal
priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the
praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;
Luke
10:1 & 9
1 After these things the Lord appointed seventy others also, and
sent them two by two before His face into every city and place where He Himself
was about to go.
9 "And heal the sick there, and say to them, 'The kingdom of
God has come near to you.'
Freedom
from the slavery is offered
This
is a legal offer
Everybody
who hears has freedom to accept or reject
4.
We bring down the Kingdom as it
is in heaven
Matthew 6:10 Your kingdom come. Your will be done On
earth as it is in heaven.
___________________
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