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Satan: The Defeated Foe. Kenneth B. Alexander BSL, JD, Deacon
Читать онлайн.Название Satan: The Defeated Foe
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isbn 9781456612139
Автор произведения Kenneth B. Alexander BSL, JD, Deacon
Жанр Дом и Семья: прочее
Издательство Ingram
Responding to Cain's plea to God that he would be a wanderer and a vagrant on the earth, and be killed, God put a mark (sign) on Cain essentially saying: “Don't kill Cain”. These events clearly reveal the true state of Cain's heart-violent in nature, rebellious and a liar before God, all the qualities of Satan.
God banished Cain completely from his presence. No true family can be properly constructed with the presence of evil within it. This can be compared with Satan who was thrown out of heaven because his rebellious, evil, accusing presence was a distraction to God’s family and his plan for mankind.
Cain went out from the Lord to the Land of "Nod". The word Nod has been variously associated with: wanderer, vagrant (New American Standard Bible Version), nomad, aimless, unrest, commotion, a terror round about, a dreadful sound round about, and a land of exile (Matthew Henry's Commentary). So the land of Nod was spiritually separated from God and was a terrible land where there was "no rest for the wicked". Compare this with Job 1:7 where Satan tells God he had been "roaming about on the earth and walking around on it", an evil wanderer.
Nod is a sort of "Hell on Earth". The meanings and descriptions of hell in the Old Testament are Sheol, Hinnom, Gehenna (Hebrew); and Hades and Gehenna (Greek). In the Old Testament hell is described as insatiableness (Prov. 30:15, 16), a"grave" thirty-one times (Gen. 37:35; 42:38; 44:29, 31; 1 Sam. 2:6, etc.), a place of the damned, (Hebrew Sheol), and the abode of the wicked (Num. 16:33; Job 24:19; Ps. 9:17; 31:17, etc.). In the New Testament Hades and Gehenna are said to be a place of consciousness (Luke 16:23, 24), a place of torment (Luke 16:23, 24, 28), a place of darkness (Matthew 8:12), eternal separation from God and loved ones (Luke 13:28), no hope of release (Matthew 25:46, Hebrews 6:2) and torment of memory of things done on the earth.(Luke 16:27, 28) (from Eastman's Bible Dictionary and Dictionary of Biblical Languages With Semantic Domains, Greek). Hell encompasses all other expressions of the same place, derived from the Saxon “helan”, to cover; hence the covered or the invisible place.
Cain settled in the land of Nod and built the earth's first city (Gen 4:17). As Adam was banished from Paradise onto the cursed earth, so Cain was banished from God's presence on earth. Whereafter he immediately went east of Eden and settled in the land of Nod, the place of the wanderer, the exiled and the wicked.
However in this land Cain became the builder of the first large city on the earth. He set the stage for the later evil that would eventually cause God to send the flood destroying all humanity. Even after the flood, cities became centers of evil. The land of Canaan. which became Israel, was comprised of various city states. Throughout history cities and countries became breeding grounds for abject evil (Sodom, Gomorrah, Babylon, Ur, Nineveh, the Canaanite states, Greece, Rome and other warring and conquering tribes of evil). This simple act of Cain’s disobedience and others made the warring civilizations possible, civilizations that harassed Israel throughout its history. Also since God had rejected Cain these civilizations did not worship the one true God but became pagan and worshipped other gods.
This one incident then made possible the corruption of the whole earth. “Now it came about, when men began to multiply on the face of the land, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God [evil angels] saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose”. Although designated “Sons of God” (Enoch calls them “Watchers”) they were fallen, disobedient angelic creatures. Remember when Satan fell he took 1/3 of the wicked angels with him to earth. Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.” The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown” (Gen 6:1-4). These men of renown are the men of myth which had super human powers (the KJV calls them giants). Nephilim means “fallen ones.” So we have to understand that there is something of the downward pressure in a Nephilim. The Nephilim of the Old Testament were the Sons of Satan created to do his will. In the form of powers and principalities they continue spiritual warfare against the Saints today (Ephesians 6:12).
In Genesis 6:4, we read that the “sons of God” came down and had intercourse with the daughters of men, and the result was giants and men of renown. Almost every nation has some kind of mythology about a Hercules or an Atlas who was able to perform great feats—a being who was sort of half god. For instance The Nordic had legends of supermen. The Indians from India (see the Bhagavad-Gita), East Asia (China), and others all had these same “myths”. The Hawaiian people have legends about one called Maui, who did such things as lassoing the sun and holding it. The Greeks were great for stories about beings who were half god and half human. Rome had its gods who were often half human and half beast. It is likely that these were not myths but distant memories of the “men of renown” who walked the earth before the flood. But you say, “Well, that’s all mythology. We don’t want any part of that.” However, it is surprising that there is a counterpart in the Scriptures. You know that all of it is not true, but something must have happened to give rise to the legends during this period before the flood where Nephilim (giants), super humans, were in the earth.
The Flood
At the end of chapter 4 at verse 25 it is recorded that: “Adam had relations with his wife again; and she gave birth to a son, and named him Seth, for, she said, “God has appointed me another offspring in place of Abel; for Cain killed him.” And to Seth, to him also a son was born; and he called his name Enosh. Then men began to call upon the name of the Lord”. In strong contrast with the existing godless societies, descendents of Seth were the righteous. In the line from Seth there was faith. Seth himself was a provision from God, according to Eve’s statement of faith and was appointed to replace Abel, whom Cain slew (above). By all accounts Seth was a righteous man. He was also an ancestor of Jesus (Luke 3:38). Seth’s personal name meaning “He set or appointed” or “replacement”.
In the days of Enosh, Seth’s son, men began to call on (better, “proclaim”) the name of the Lord (Yahweh). Another rendering says “men begin to call themselves by the name of the Lord”. “Jared, [an ancestor to Seth], lived one hundred and sixty-two years, and became the father of Enoch…. And Enoch lived three hundred sixty-five years, and became the father of Methuselah. Then Enoch walked with God three hundred years after he became the father of Methuselah, and he had other sons and daughters. So all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years. And Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him” (Gen 5:1-24). This is one of the two references in the Bible where God took a man without natural death (the other being Elijah).
“Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. [there was this mixture of the Nephilim and other Satanic beings on the earth. “The Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. The Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, from man to animals to creeping things and to birds of the sky; for I am sorry that I have made them” (Gen 6:5-7). It was the Nephilim, the unholy sons of Satan, who made earth so uninhabitable that God had no choice but to destroy it. “But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord” (Gen 6:8) as perhaps the only righteous man on the earth.
“Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his time; Noah walked with God. And Noah became the father of three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Now the earth was corrupt in the sight of God, and the earth was filled with violence. And God looked on the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth. Then God said to Noah, “The end of all flesh has come before Me; for the earth is filled