Slaying the Dragon

Good evening, friends, welcome back to "an Amazing Adventure: a journey with Jesus." this is a live Bible series just for kids. And wherever you might be, across the country or around the world, we hope that you will take your seat and get your Bible in hand as we look at God's word and launch off on another very important adventure. I'd like to welcome all of our children here at our local site in the dallas area in texas. We believe in the power of prayer, don't we? Last night we announced the coming of a hurricane. For those of who are watching, hurricane ike was brewing in the gulf yesterday evening. Last night it came ashore and dallas was sort of in the path of this hurricane, but we've been praying that the Lord would bless and God has moved the hurricane over so that we're just getting a little bit of rain and not too much wind, so God answers prayer. He can still control the weather. Our topic this evening that we'll be studying together is "slaying the dragon." we do have our study guides that go along the topic for tonight, "slaying the dragon."

Those of you who are watching, you can get more information about these study guides by going to amazingfactskids.org. You can also find out more about the t-shirts that our children here at the local site are wearing. I know some of the down-link sites also have t-shirts available. We've also been using this beautiful Bible that is geared towards children. It's a New King James translation and our web site at amazingfactskids.org has more information about the Bibles as well printed by review and herald. Well, are you ready to sing our theme song once more for this evening? I'm gonna invite the Amazing Adventure singers to come forward. Thank you, graciella, and we're gonna stand together as we sing our song. Let's all stand together. [music]

Life is an adventure, it's following The King.

Every day with Jesus, makes us want to sing.

Walking in the Spirit, He will lead the way.

With His Word to guide us, flowing deep inside us.

Nothing can divide us, following The King.

Life is an adventure, following The King.

Every day with Jesus, makes us want to sing.

Conquering with kindness, everywhere we go.

Voices we are raising, Jesus we are praising.

Life is so amazing, following The King.

Life is so amazing, following The King.

Please remain standing for our Scripture reading. I'm gonna invite david to come and jillian to come forward for the prayer. And so if you have a Bible in front of you, you can open your Bible at this time to james 4:7-8. "therefore submit to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you." all right, thank you very much. Let's bow our heads and close our eyes as jillian brings us the prayer. Let us pray. Jesus, thank you for this wonderful and glorious day you've given us. Please help the hurricane to not hit us at all. Just help everyone and help the amazing facts to learn about us and everything. In Jesus' precious and holy name, amen. Amen, thank you very much. Pastor doug, we invite you to come forward again. We do have some Bible questions again tonight. Amen. Morning, everyone. Evening. I said morning. It's morning somewhere.

This is going all over the world, so I was talking to those in south africa right now. There you go. We have some video questions, and I think we can start with the video questions right now, so we'll roll that. How do we know that the Bible is true? How many of you read your Bibles today? Some of you just read it a few minutes ago. I mean before the Scripture reading? Good for you, bless your heart. We're gonna try to read the Bible every day because we found out that if you taste for yourself, you'll find out that God is good and the Bible is true. One of the great evidences of the truth of the Bible it changes lives. Not only that, the prophecies in the Bible that God has made come true. And so when God tells us the future and everything he foretells happens, then we realize that it's the truth, that God is real. And so there's so much evidence in the Bible scientifically, historically, prophetically and the greatest evidence is it works. How many of you, when you went to school, you used the multiplication table? You ever use the multiplication? Let me see your hands.

Why do you use the multiplication table? 'cause it works, right? And the reason we read the Bible is and believe it is 'cause it's true, it works. That's why it's been the best-selling book for well, since moses started writing 3,500 years ago. I think that's pretty good evidence. Well, pastor doug, here's proof that there really is a storm brewing right above us. I see some water drops landing on our mystery chest. Our mystery chest may go up in smoke if it shorts out, so we'll just keep prayin'. All right, we have another question somebody wrote it in. This is star. He's in the 5th grade and here's his question, "how old are you? My mom loves your speeches." well, now my name is pastor batchelor, but i'm a married bachelor. Just let mom know that. I'm sure she didn't mean anything by that but i'm-- I forget, i'm 51 years old and the older you get, the more you forget how old you are. All right, well, good, we have another video question at this time so we'll roll that. My name is david olazaron, and i'm 9 years old. My question is, did the Lord invent dinosaurs? Did the Lord invent dinosaurs? I think he's asking, of course, did the Lord create dinosaurs? Well, how many of you have seen pictures of dinosaur bones and you've maybe seen anything from "barney" cartoons to all kind of things about dinosaurs.

I grew up in new york city across the street from a very famous museum called the american museum of natural history. And ever since I can remember, I was your age, i'd go. Back then you could go for free, at least kids could. And i'd look at all these great, big dinosaur bones. The evidence for dinosaurs is all over the world, and I believe there were dinosaurs. I don't think the artists paint them very well. They make them all look like their skin was kind of gray elephant color that's 'cause from bones, we don't know what the color of their skin was. They may have been very beautiful patterns on their skin, but dinosaurs really lived. The problem is that you've often heard a fairy tale about the age of the dinosaurs. The dinosaurs, those are big reptiles, they lived before the time of the flood during the days of noah and adam. But God made all kinds of different creatures.

We got some little dinosaurs today, they're called komodo dragons. Matter of fact you'll hear about that in your lesson tonight when you get your lesson. All right, here's another question megan sent in. She's in 4th grade and her question is, what is your favorite story in the Bible? You know, I saw that question before the program and I was having problems thinking about it because I tell you one of my favorite stories is the story of joseph. Joseph who is mistreated by his brothers, sold like a slave by his own brothers, spent years as a slave and then he was falsely accused and in prison and he never stopped trusting God. And because he was faithful in his youth and he did what his father on earth and his father in heaven asked him and one day he went from the prison to the palace. Because he was faithful in little things, God knew he could trust joseph to be ruler over many things. And his brothers came to him one day and they were begging for bread. And the Lord used joseph to save his family. And you know the wonderful thing, he forgave them, everything they did to him.

It was a toss up between joseph and david. I'll tell you, david and goliath is a great story. That's a great story. All right, well pastor doug, I think we have one more video question for this evening, so we'll do that at this time. Hi, my name is gracie staley and my question is, why did the devil disguise as a snake and not any other animal? Oh, yeah. Now I don't know how well our friends that are watching at home can see this. Maybe a camera can zoom in, pardon me, pastor ross. See what we got up here on the stage? Some of you can see this... He won't hurt ya. This is a rubber snake. But when you think of snakes, how many--any of you girls out there afraid of snakes? Any of you boys admit to being afraid of snakes? Couple of boys. Do you know that pastor doug, when I lived up in the mountain in a cave, we had rattlesnakes up there. I've eaten snake before, and you know what? You don't want to do it. You know why? Well, a couple reasons, one is the Bible says you shouldn't. Another reason is it's a lot of work and you don't get anything out of it. They don't have much on them. It's not safe.

But snakes are something God made. They were beautiful creatures in the garden. Matter of fact it says the reason the devil used a snake is because it was so beautiful and so hypnotic and probably had wings back then, and that's why God cursed it and it had to go on the ground. That means before God cursed it, it didn't have to do that. And so we're gonna talk a little bit more about that in our study tonight. All right, well, thank you very much. If you have a Bible question, those of you who are watching, if you have a Bible question, you can go to the amazing facts kids website. You can type in your Bible question. We'll try and get your question in during our program here. Well, we're gonna invite our Amazing Adventure singers to come forward. The song they'll be singing this evening is "I will give them a new heart." [music]

And I will give them, a heart to know me

that I am the Lord, and they shall be my people

and I will be their God, for they shall return

unto me in their heart

I will give them, a heart to know Me

I will give them, a heart to know

I will give them, a heart to know

that I am the Lord

and I will give them, a heart to know Me

to know me, that I am the Lord

I am the Lord, and they shall be My people

and I will be their God, for they shall return

unto Me with their heart, with their heart

I will give them, a heart to know Me

I will give them, a heart to know

I will give them, a heart to know

that I am the Lord

I will give them, a heart to know Me

I will give them, a heart to know

I will give them, a heart to know

that I am the Lord

Amen. That was beautiful, amen? I sure appreciate that. Hey, thank you so much. That music's beautiful. Some of our Amazing Adventure singers have come from different parts of the country. And I want to thank ms. Gratziella and kelly mower who's done such a beautiful job on the piano. Again, welcome to our friends who are watching from all different parts of north america and around the world. We're very grateful that you are tuned into this program, and I hope you'll be praying because we're having the fringes of a hurricane that are going by right during this broadcast. The devil does not want you to hear tonight's study. I think it's interesting out of all the places that a leak could form in this church, the water's dripping right on the mystery chest. The devil doesn't want you to know what you're gonna learn out of that box tonight. And so you'll understand that better as we begin. Our lesson tonight, you'll be getting a copy of this lesson, is dealing with the subject of slaying a dragon, and we're gonna talk about dragon country. We're gonna talk about the most Amazing Adventure.

Life, there's good and evil, how many of you realize that? And there's an enemy out there and he does not want you to be saved. He is the opposite of everything that is good, and a lot of people don't understand that God is love and God is good because of the dragon. So we're gonna talk about how to slay the dragon. You know it's very interesting that all through history and different parts of the world, there are stories about flying dragons. How many of you have heard stories about flying dragons? Well, you know there are some reptiles today that actually fly. Matter of fact you can read a verse in the Bible in isaiah 14:29, and it says "its offspring will be a fiery, flying serpent." they got lizards that don't really flap, but they stretch out the rib cages and they glide. And they've got snakes in indonesia that when they jump from tree to tree, they spread out their ribs and they can glide, a gliding snake. But you know we found from the dinosaur bones that there were actually some very large flying reptiles. You would have called them flying dragons.

They have these giant pterosaurs and there are several different varieties of them but the biggest one over 40-foot wingspan. That's bigger than like a cessna airplane. Wouldn't you say that's a flying dragon? Matter of fact, some of them had big, flat bones on their head and the paleontologist wondered did they use that to help steer, turn their head like a rudder, sit backwards from an airplane? And some of them had hollow bones in their head with empty chambers and they're wondering what was that for? One scientist theorized, you ever heard of a bombardier beetle? A bombardier beetle is a beetle that fires a fiery liquid by mixing two chemicals that it has in chambers and they thought, what if some of those flying pterosaurs had chemicals in their chambers? You can't tell from the fossils. And they used to spit. You know, cobras spit.

Maybe flying dragons really did spit some kind of fiery chemical, we don't know, but all the different cultures in the world have stories about these fiery dragons, these flying dragons and there really were some reptiles that flied--that flew back before the time of the flood. You know the Bible tells us that the devil is compared to a dragon and it tells us that the dragon is gonna be slain by the Lord. You can read this in isaiah 27:1, "in that day the Lord with his sore and great strong sword shall punish that crooked serpent, and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea." the devil is called the serpent, the devil is called the dragon. And I know it may not be a very happy subject but tonight we're gonna talk about why is there evil in the world? Why are we tempted? Why do bad things happen to good people? And so we're gonna go to our study guide tonight and learn about that.

I just wanted to remember to tell you something. You'll be collecting all the study guides. You may want to do what pastor doug did. I just went and got one of these little notebooks, and I punched holes in my study guide and I keep them all together. So the things you learn from this study, friends, you can then take them to your friends and say, "wow, I want to tell you about the 'Amazing Adventure' series." and you can study with your friends the wonderful things you're gonna learn. So just a thought I wanted to share with you. Lesson number two on the slaying the dragon. Question number one, "who is this dragon and where did he come from?" now where are we gonna get our answers to these questions? Everything we're teaching you tonight is based on the Bible. We're getting our information from God's holy book that never fails. If you read in the Bible in luke 10:18 Jesus said this, "I saw satan fall like lightning from heaven." so where did the devil come from? The devil in heaven? Let's keep reading. Revelation 12:9, "so that great dragon--" there he is.

That's the nickname for the devil. "that great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old called the devil and satan, who deceives the whole world." the whole world had been deceived by the devil. He doesn't want them to know that he really exists. And it goes on to say, "he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him." we're gonna find out more about the devil's angels in just a minute. So something happened. You might be wondering did God make a devil in heaven? Question number two, "who made the devil and is he really a dragon?" and you might be thinking, why did God make a devil? Let's find out what the Bible says. Ezekiel 28 you'll learn a lot about where satan came from and the devil. And there the Lord says, "you were created. You were the anointed cherub who covers; and I established you." you see by the throne of God, you can read this in isaiah 6. There are two very mighty angels, and they hover by the throne of God. They are the top angels. Lucifer was the highest of the angels, right--they called him a covering cherub, right by the throne of God. He was the general of all the other angels. Now everything in the world was created except one thing, who knows what was not created? God. Who created God? God has always been there. So the most powerful of all of God's creations was this beautiful angel and his name-- well, i'm getting ahead of myself. I'm not gonna tell you his name yet. The Bible says in 1 john 3:8, "the devil sinneth from the beginning." so sin originated with who? The devil.

It began with satan. That old serpent called the devil and satan and he's got a lot of names. He's called the adversary. He's called the enemy. He's called the prince of darkness. He's called beelzebub and if you take the letter "d" off of devil, what does that spell? Evil. The girls got that one real quick. So if you want to know what the devil's like, just take "d" off his word, he's evil. And he does not want you to know what his tricks are. That's why this is important-- this program's so important. Then it goes on to say-- "what was satan's name before he sinned?" question number three, "and where was he living at that time?" it says in isaiah 14:12, "how you are fallen from heaven, o lucifer, son of the morning... For you ever said in your heart, I will... Exalt my throne above the stars of God... I will be like the most high." his name back then, matter of fact if you knew the devil back then, you would have liked him. He was a beautiful angel. Matter of fact, God made him good, but something went wrong and he began to be jealous about God's power.

Lucifer started thinking, "why can't I create like God can? Why don't I have all the power that God has? I wish I was God." and he began to want God's position. He was so beautiful all the other angels would turn and look when he walked by and light was just flowing out of him. The name lucifer means light bearer. He looks like a traveling beam of jewels, he was powerful, could sing probably a six-part harmony all by himself. Just all this power and all this glory, but he was still a creature. He was not the creator, he was the creation. He had been created. He didn't have the power of God, and he wanted all the power. He wanted to be the top. He was very proud, the opposite of God. See, God is love. The devil is the opposite of love. Who knows what the opposite of love is? Say it. Well, actually selfishness. I know you think you're right, hate too. Love is where you think about others. The opposite of love is where you only think about yourself. And so all lucifer really thought about was himself, and there's a battle in the world today between The King of love who's God and Jesus and The King of selfishness which is satan and lucifer, and they're battling for your heart. The devil wants you to be selfish and just think about yourself, and Jesus is trying to teach us to love and think about God and think about others. Who knows what the great commandment is? Love the Lord with all of your heart. Love your neighbor as yourself. But lucifer's all about me, me, my, my, my. He's all about himself.

Now the devil was a beautiful angel, but does he want you to know that? No, he wants you to think that he looks like a monster. Some people think satan's a joke. You've probably heard about people saying devil's food cake. They've also got angel's food cake, right? Now if I was to ask you, what does the devil look like? If you went to the halloween store to find out what are you gonna dress up like to look like the devil, what color would be your leotards? Red leotards. What would have on top of your head? Horns. What would you carry in your hands? A staff like a trident, a pitchfork, something like that that's because the devil pretends he's in charge of hell and he's supposed to make sure everyone's cooked evenly. That's what they say. Does he have wings? Bat wings, yeah. How many of you have seen pictures of the devils he's got like bat wings? Does he have a tail? Got like a point on the end of it? Some pictures he's got hooves like a goat. Does the devil have a beard? You know, pastor doug used to have a beard. I had a goatee. That's because they say goatee 'cause it comes from the word "goat." and people told me I should shave it because they said, "you look like the devil." they said I looked like a sinister minister when I had a goatee. And so I shaved it off because you know, if you're preaching about Jesus, you don't want people to tell you you look like the devil. But does the Bible say anywhere that satan's got red leotards and horns? He wants people to think that. That actually all comes from greek and roman mythology.

The devil was a glorious and beautiful angel. Question number three, "how did lucifer change?" answer, it says that he began to be jealous. You can read about this in ezekiel 28:15. Did God make a devil? It says no. "you were perfect in your ways from the day you were created until iniquity was found in you." he began to think about how beautiful he was. In verse 17 it says, "your heart was lifted up because of your beauty." I used to know a girl, she was very pretty, but she was very conceited. She always thought about how pretty she was. She was always in front of the mirror, primping herself and fixing herself up and whenever she walked by a store window she's always looking at herself and just preoccupied with how she looked. She fell in love with herself and that's what happened with the devil. He became preoccupied with himself. It goes on to say even though he was very smart because he was so in love with himself, he became dumb. "you've corrupted your wisdom by reason of your brightness." he was so bright and glorious, all he could think about was himself. "for you said in your heart, I will be like the most high." he wanted the position of God. Now did God make a devil? Now think about this, some people say they say no. Did God create everything? Is there evil in the world?

How many believe there's evil in the world today? And then if I were to ask you did God make everything, most of you would raise your hands and you'd say, "wait a second, does that mean God made evil?" no, that's a misconception. Think about this, is there such a thing as dark? But you know you don't make dark. Darkness is the absence of light. If you take away light, you have dark. You know there's really no such thing as cold. They've got something called absolute zero. You get cold when there's no heat. And God did not make evil. God is good, God is love, but if you reject the light of God, if you reject the warmth of God, if you reject the goodness of God, what's left? If you don't have goodness, what do you have? Badness and evil, right? And so God didn't make evil, God made everything good. The Bible says every good and perfect gift is from God. God made a good, perfect angel. Now you might be thinking well, God must have made a mistake 'cause when he made lucifer, since God knows everything, couldn't God had just made the little transistors in his brain so he would never be selfish and proud? Couldn't he have made him that way? Yeah, he could have, but God wants his creatures to love him. Now i'm gonna need somebody who will get in the mystery chest tonight. And you gotta make sure you don't electrocute yourself. All right, is your name talent? Yes. All right, come on up here. I want you to go in there. Let me take the little--don't worry, you guys will get another chance. Let me take this off here.

I want you to see if you can find a dog in there. How many of you like puppy dogs? You like puppy dogs? Well, we got a puppy dog. Here, talent. Isn't he cuddly? Yeah, i'm not sure who made this puppy dog, but there he is. How do you like that? Wouldn't you like a dog like that? Would he be warm and cuddly? He's supposed--there you go. Does he have a mind of his own? What's he saying? No. He doesn't have his own mind, does he? Isn't that cute? You think he's doing this 'cause he loves me? Or is he doing this 'cause someone in japan preprogrammed him and his transistors to do that? All right, I can't give him to you, sorry. But how much better would a real dog be? Let's see, do we have a real dog somewhere? Let's see if there's a difference here. Come on, bring him up here. You know, this? Hello, come here, puppy dog. How are you doing? What's your name? He's scared now 'cause he's got a mind of his own. Look at you guys, you're so much more interested in the real dog. What do you think of this? Here, let me turn him on, see what he does. He's not even noticing. You know why? Dogs can tell when something's real, this is not real. Of course, don't have to feed him as often but it does take batteries. Thank you very much, boys. I can just put the dog back down here. He's much better. Does he have a personality?

What do you like about him? You gotta talk into my microphone. He's active. He's active. Is he happy when you come home? Yeah. You like feeding him, taking care of him? Yeah. Sometimes, huh? But that's what happens, kids want puppies. Thank you very much. I just got dripped on. Now could the Lord have made the devil like a robot? Can a robot love? No, robots don't love. Now how many of you like love? Do you all like love? How many of you want to be loved? Pastor doug wants to be loved too, so I figured out a way to always get all the love that I need. I'll just be loved by this little tape player here, and i'll tell this tape player what I want to hear. Hi doug, have I told you lately how smart you are? And you're very handsome, too, and strong. Doug, I really love you. I love you, doug. Doug, I just can't even find words to express how much I love you. Okay? Hi doug, have I told you lately how smart you are? And you're very handsome, too, and strong. Doug, I love you, doug. Doug, I just can't even find words to express how much I love you. Oh, I feel loved now. Does this really love me?

Can a tape player love? I'm making it love me. You know somebody gave-- mrs. Batchelor will be joining us later this week. I'm so busy and I travel that they thought you know pastor doug's on the road so much that she's missing her husband, and so they felt sorry for her and they got her a gift, the perfect husband. I want to say hi to mrs. Batchelor right now. This is called mr. Wonderful. And he'll tell--you know every wife wants to hear this from her husband. Let's see does he work? I love you. He does better than that. Yes, dear. You've been on my mind all day that's why I brought you these flowers. You know, honey, why don't you just relax and let me make dinner tonight? These are all the things a husband really never says. Why don't we go to the mall? Didn't you want some new shoes? Mr. Wonderful, you know what? When my wife got this present, she played with it for a minute and thought it was funny and then put it away. Do you think that she puts this in bed when i'm gone to snuggle with? No, it's just a robot. It can't love. It stays in a box. So why did God make Lucifer?

Did God--he makes all of his creatures free. When your parents decided to have you, ostensibly assuming they did decide to have you, did they get any kind of written guarantee from the Lord that you were always gonna be a good little boy and girl and always obey or did they take a chance? Take a chance. Why? 'cause they wanted to love you and they want you to love them. Love must be free, and so the Lord made all of his creatures free even though God knew that lucifer might choose to love himself more. Now I got a lot left to tell you in the lesson tonight, so I better keep on moving here. How many angels joined lucifer when he rebelled against God? Well, the answer's here in the Bible. Revelation 12:3-4 it says, "another sign appeared in heaven: behold a great fiery, red dragon and his tail drew a third of the stars of heaven." these angels are fallen angels and sometimes we think about demons and ghosts and goblins. They're all these fallen angels that followed lucifer. They rebelled against God and that leads us to our next question, question number five, what was the result of lucifer's rebellion when he said, we don't need God to tell us what to do any anymore? He went around among the other angels in heaven and he said, "if I was in charge, we'd be happier." And he was able to convince one-third of the angels in heaven to follow him instead of following God, and there was a great rebellion. It tells us in revelation 12:7, "there was a war in heaven: and michael and his angels fought against the dragon and the dragon fought and his angels." And the Bible tells us that his tail drew a third part of the stars of heaven and did cast them to the earth. Now see, stars is a symbolic word for angels. When you're reading there in revelation, it tells us that the angels equals stars. And you'll have all of these Scriptures and these codes to unlock some of these prophecies in the Bible. They're in your lesson here. So after satan was cast out of heaven, where did he go?

It says that he was cast to the earth. That leads us to our next question, question number six. "how did satan trick humans to join in his rebellion?" answer, it says in genesis 2:17, he came and he met them in the garden of eden and he began to tempt them at this tree. God made everything perfect in the beginning. Remember, God makes everything good. When God made our world in the beginning, were there any devils back then? Did the animals eat each other? Everything was peaceful, everything was loving, but there was one tree God said to adam and eve, don't eat from this tree. He warned them. Genesis 2:17, "of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat for in the day that you eat thereof you will surely die." God said you know if you sin, the penalty for sin is death. Sin is like a terrible, deadly disease and God didn't want them to catch this disease. And he said, if you just obey in this one thing. Lucifer was going through the universe and he'd been telling everybody that they'd be happier if they followed him, and God gave even adam and eve freedom to choose if they would listen to lucifer or trust him. So the devil knew he would need to disguise himself. What do you think he disguised himself as? A serpent. And do you think it was an ugly snake or was it a beautiful? You know why one reason I think that snakes are picked, snakes are not very loving to their young, are they? Snakes they have their babies, they either hatch egg. You know rattlesnakes have live births then after they have them, they crawl away. Some snakes have even eaten their own babies. They are not very loving. Matter of fact, snakes are what you call cold blooded. If a snake gets too cold, it freezes. Some snakes they've got these water snakes that when they're frozen, they seem to be totally frozen, stiff as a stick and they thaw out and it looks like they come back to life. So the devil is like that. He's just a very sneaky creature and that's one reason that he's symbolized by the snake.

It says in genesis 3:1, "now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field that the Lord God had made." so the devil decided to use the serpent as a medium. He possessed the snake and he spoke through the snake. And when eve was out doing her pleasant work in the garden, she was lingering by that forbidden tree and she thought, "hmm, I wonder why God said we're not supposed to eat that?" and right then the serpent called to her from the tree, big beautiful serpent and he was moving. You know some snakes, they hypnotize their prey with their very smooth motions, and he was moving and maybe his iridescent wings were fluttering. Any of you seen the iridescent colors of like a humming bird? They shimmer. And he said, "oh, come here. Hi. Boy, you're sure beautiful, eve. Why did God say you can't eat from this tree?" "oh, God says we can't eat that forbidden fruit because if we do, we'll die." and the serpent was biting the fruit and he said, "oh, this is yummy. Matter of fact, before I ate this fruit, I couldn't even talk. Now look at me. God's keeping this from you 'cause there's special powers in this fruit." the devil is very sneaky. He's a deceiver. He tricks people with his clever words. If you know something's wrong, should eve had talked to the devil? She should have run the other way.

The Bible says we should flee temptation. Don't start getting into a debate with the devil. And the serpent said to the woman, "you won't surely die." in other words the devil is saying, "do not trust the words of God." now that's a decision that all of us need to make in our lives. There's the Bible and if this is your map to heaven, you'll make it through this adventure of life and you'll be safe from the dragon. If you follow all the other philosophies and all the other stories you're gonna hear in the world, then you're gonna be in trouble. How many of you believe that God has a plan for your life? How many of you believe the devil has a plan for your life? All of your hands should also go up. You don't want the devil's plan, but you know that he's got a plan for you, right? God's plan for you is life. You come to Jesus, the Bible says he that has the son has life. Moses, at the end of his life, he told the children of israel "i've set before you this day two choices, life and good and blessing if you believe God's word and obey him. Death and evil and cursing if you don't." Jesus' plan for you is good, very good, life. What's the devil's plan? Bad, suffering, miserable, life and then death. And God cannot force you to love him, can he? Anymore than I can force a human creature to love me.

They have a free choice, and the devil cannot force you to follow him. You get to choose who you want to love and serve. You can make that choice. And i'm hoping that everybody who's watching this program realizes this is the most important thing you can be doing because you can be making a choice during this series about living forever and God's plan for your life, his will for you or the devil's plan to destroy you. And it's very important that you make the right choice. Number seven, adam and eve disobey, right? And what happened as a result of their disobedience? Number seven, "why didn't adam and eve die as soon as they ate the forbidden fruit?" you know what the story is, eve finally reached up and she took the fruit. The devil said, "you know if you eat this you'll be like God." that's really what he wanted, isn't it? He wanted to be God and so he told eve the same thing that he really wanted. "oh, you'll be like God if you eat this fruit. You'll have extra powers. God's keeping good things from you. He's hiding fun from you. You know the devil still tells young people that today? "oh, you don't want to follow, don't listen to God. He's keeping you from all the fun things." like sometimes the devil says, "oh, drink beer and alcohol, it'll be fun." and he tries to make it look like it's fun and he doesn't really show you the people who are sick lying in the street who've lost all their money and they've lost their family and they've lost their job because of alcohol.

The devil shows the commercials on tv that make it look like it's fun. He's a deceiver, and he told eve "just a little bit, just take one bite. A little bit won't hurt." I remember one time the devil told me, "you can just take one cigarette, you can stop anytime you want." and I saw that some of my friends were smoking and I wanted to look like I was cool, so I took one cigarette. And I didn't fall over and die so I thought oh, maybe another one. And then I started taking one cigarette every day on my way to school and then pretty soon I got where I was stealing cigarettes from my mom and I couldn't stop smoking. And it's like the devil had me chained and I wanted to quit and kept trying to quit and it wasn't until years later after lots of money was wasted. You just burn up your money when you smoke, don't ya? Silly, you don't even get any nutritional value out of cigarettes, right? It doesn't make you any smarter. It doesn't do anything good for you. When a person's smoking all they're doing is sucking smoke from something that's burning up. And finally I had to ask the Lord, please save me, and Jesus set me free. The devil says, "just a little bit." so, eve took that one bite. And at first, she said, "wow, maybe that did feel pretty good." she ran to adam and said, "this is great. I was talking to the serpent and he said God's hiding great things from us. Take some of this, it's supposed to be really good." and adam was very sad, but he didn't want to lose eve and he saw that she hadn't fallen over and died so he took a bite. And then all of a sudden, they felt a chill. You see before adam and eve sinned, they had robes of light. They didn't wear any artificial clothing. And then after they sinned, their light started to go out. All of a sudden, things began to die. Now in our question it said, "why didn't adam and eve die right away?" you know why adam and eve didn't die right away when they ate the forbidden fruit?

You read about it in john 3:16. How many of you know this verse? Want to say this with me? "for God so loved the world he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." did the Lord know what adam and eve were gonna do before they did it? Yes. God knows everything. And the Lord had a plan that if man disobeyed, he loved man. See the angels when they rebelled, they kind of knew what they were doing. Man was deceived. And God said, "i'm gonna give you another chance. I love you so much, i'm gonna come to earth and i'm gonna die in your place to save you." and so adam and eve, they didn't die physically that very day but they sort of died spiritually. Things began to change and all the universe began to change and death started coming in. And now the devil, he's going around the Bible says in 1 peter 5:8, be sober, be vigilant because your adversary, the devil, he's going around like a roaring lion looking for whom he can devour. The devil is like a lion. You know a lion sneaks up on its prey and it surprises them. And again it says, "the Lord said to satan--" in the book of job when satan came to appear, God said to satan, "where did you come from?" now God knew but he said that so we'd get the answer. "and satan answered and he said to the Lord, 'i have come from going to and fro on the earth.' "and walking up and down in it. He's going all around the world and he's looking for people to recruit because he wants to destroy man. You know why the devil wants to hurt you? Why does the devil, this powerful angel, why does he mess with humans? I'll tell you why, because if you want to hurt somebody, you hurt who they love. The devil hates Jesus. He wanted Jesus' place and now he's been cast out of heaven. He hates Jesus, and he knows how much Jesus loves you. And so he wants to hurt Jesus by hurting you. And whenever we sin, it hurts Jesus. And whenever we obey God, it hurts the devil.

So every day you're hurting somebody and every day you're making somebody happy. How many of you want to hurt the devil and make Jesus happy? You want to do whatever makes the devil mad and you want to do whatever makes God glad. Isn't that right? You're on the right track if you do it that way. And so the devil hates the woman. God's church is symbolized in prophesy as a woman and it says the dragon, that's the devil. He was angry with the woman, that's the bride, that's God's people, his children. And he went to make war with the remnant of her seed, that means her children, her descendants that keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. They've got the law and the prophets. They've got the word of God. The devil is angry and he's making war. And so there's an adventure, there's a war in life and the only way you're gonna survive this war is if you are on the winning team. Are you aware that you and God are always a majority? If you're going into battle with God, it doesn't matter if you're fighting against goliath. If you go into battle trusting the Lord, God can help you have the victory over anything, isn't that right? It says in 1 john 4:4, "greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world." God is more powerful than the devil. Who's more power powerful?

The Creator or the creation? The creator. So the devil is going around, he's angry. The Bible says in revelation 12, he knows his time is short, and so he's furious and he wants to take as many people with him as he can. Our only safety's in trusting the Lord. Number eight, "what will be satan's final punishment?" I hope you're not feeling sorry for the devil. You know he's gonna be punished for his rebellion. It tells us in revelation 20:10, "the devil, who deceived them, was cast into the lake of fire." and you know those who follow the devil are gonna share in the devil's punishment. What happens to the devil and those who follow him? Matthew 25, these are the words of Jesus, Jesus said, "depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." that's the devil and his fallen angels are demons. They're gonna be cast into that lake of fire and everyone who follows them, and the Bible says they're gonna be burnt up. Ezekiel 28:18, "I will bring thee to ashes on the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee." now do any of you feel sorry for the devil? You shouldn't. I need a volunteer. Okay, we'll take a girl. Quickly, look in the box and I want you to look in the box and there's gonna be a snake in there, I want you to get it for me. She didn't even slow down when I told her there was a snake in the box. Okay, you can close the chest now. All right, you know what kind of snake that is? Shake it. Shake it fast. Must be a rattlesnake, it's rattling, right? I want you to take that snake and hug it, cuddle it. Okay, let me tell you a story. There was a farmer walking down the road and it was in fall and the frost had come. And he saw a snake frozen on the ground that got too cold before he got back to his den.

And the farmer felt sorry for him so he put the snake inside his shirt and he started to cuddle the snake to warm it up. It warmed up and what do you think it did? It bit him. And the farmer said, "that will teach me for showing mercy to a scoundrel." don't you feel sorry for the devil, right? Thank you very much for that, appreciate that. The devil is never gonna repent. He is pure evil. God gave him every chance in the world to change his ways and he won it. He is the epitome of evil. He's the arch villain, and so don't you feel sorry for him. Question number nine, "but until then how can I be protected against the devil's temptations?" what do we do to be safe in this world to make this adventure to The Kingdom of God? God tells us in ephesians 6:11, "put on the whole armor of God, that you might be able to stand against the wiles of the devil." how many of you have heard these stories about the knights in shining armor that go out to kill the dragon and deliver the fair maiden? You know that's what you're reading about in revelation 20. Michael, who's Jesus, he is the knight in shining armor who delivers his bride, his church, his people from satan, the dragon. That's where they get all those stories. But if you go into battle without the armor of God, what's the dragon gonna do to you?

Oh, you don't want to do that. If you go with your own armor, you might get in trouble. You want to make sure you got God's armor and that means you use the Bible. What did Jesus use whenever he was tempted? Every time the devil tempted him, he said, "it is written, it is written, it is written." you can read in ephesians 6:17, "the sword of the spirit that is the word of God." that is our only protection. And every time the devil tempts you, you do what Jesus did, you quote the Bible. But you've gotta read your Bibles first if you're gonna know how to quote the Bible when you're tempted, right? "thy word i've hidden in my heart that I might not sin." and back to our Scripture reading we started with, how can we be victorious against the devil? "submit yourself therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you." you know a number of years ago on a hot summer day in florida, there was about a 12-year-old boy and he just wanted to go for a swim and there was a little lake out behind their house. Said, "mom, i'm going swimming." so he ran out there and he didn't even wait till he got to the water. He threw off his shirt and he kicked off his shoes and he left a trail and he jumped off in the water and he started to swim around. And mom kept watching him out the window because she had heard every now and then that alligators got loose. And she's looking out the kitchen window in the lake and she saw an alligator swam off the shore into the lake and started going towards her son.

She dropped what she was doing. She ran outside screaming. She said, "quickly, quickly, come to shore. There's an alligator, an alligator!" and the boy looked and he started to paddle as quickly as he could back to shore. And the mother ran down to the beach to help him. Right about the time boy got to his mother, the alligator got to the boy and he opened his great big mouth and this 8-foot alligator, he clomped down on the boy's legs and he tried to pull him off in the water. But the mother got ahold of his hands and she pulled back the other way. And there was a terrible wrestling match and the alligator began to spin and it knocked mom down and started dragging both of them in the water. And she got back up and she pulled him back out again. And there was a farmer who heard all the screaming and the commotion and he grabbed the rifle out of his truck and he went over and poom! Killed the alligator. That boy was in the hospital, and he had scars on his leg and he started to heal up okay. And the reporters came from the newspaper and they said, "tell us about your adventure." and he told them. And they said, "can we see the scars on your legs from the alligator?" and he pulled back the bed sheets in the hospital and he showed the scars. But you know what he said? "that's nothing." he said, "I got scars on my hands too 'cause mom would not let go of me because she loved me so much." well, did you know there's someone else that has scars in his hands because he wouldn't let go of you because of his love for you?

There's a dragon that wants to destroy you but Jesus wants to save you. You need to make a decision and that's our last question. Question number 10, do you want to follow Jesus, put on his armor and be protected from the dragon? How many of you want to say yes to Jesus tonight and pray that God will help you to completely follow him? And our friends who are watching, can you raise your hands and say, "I want to follow Jesus. I know his hands are scarred because his love for me." please, put Jesus first in your life. Read your Bibles and you can trust him. He's got a special plan for you. There's a battle in life, but you can be safe if you put your life in Jesus' hands. If you're walking with him, you don't have to be afraid of the devil, amen? 'cause he's more powerful. Would you like to pray with me right now and ask the Lord to give you his spirit, to put on that armor and make a decision to belong totally to him. You want God's will for your life, amen? Let's pray together. Loving father in heaven, we're so thankful for the good news that Jesus loves us so much he gave his life to save us to defeat the dragon. And we know that the devil is going around like a roaring lion, but we're not afraid of him, Lord, because Jesus knows how to tame the lion.

I pray that we'll always stay close to His side, put on His armor, read His Word and be ready for His coming. Bless these children. Bless this program, Lord, with Your Spirit. We ask in Christ's name, amen.