Watchman on the Wall

Southwest Radio Ministries: Welcome to Watchman on the Wall, a daily outreach of Southwest Radio Ministries and swrc.com. Today, we go back almost 40 years to learn about Satan’s 12 apostates from longtime host and author, Dr. David Weber. It’s anniversary week at Watchman on the Wall and Southwest Radio Ministries. 93 years ago, can you believe it? 93 years ago, Dr. E. F. Weber hosted the very first broadcast of this program and said the words that have been repeated for almost a century: God is still on the throne and prayer changes things.

Friends, will you help us celebrate our 93 years of ministry with a special anniversary gift of $93? Your birthday present of $93 this week will help Watchman on the Wall and its message of hope continue to go out around the world. Please give your gift commemorating our 93rd anniversary by calling 1-800-652-1144 or visit swrc.com. Time to go all the way back to 1987 and listen to longtime host David Weber share an excellent presentation entitled Satan’s 12 Apostates.

David Weber: Radio friends, God is still on the throne and prayer changes things. I'm glad to greet you with that familiar word. We begin on a new subject and a new book: Satan's 12 Apostates. These careful Bible studies were prepared by our good friend and trustee, Dr. Lubert Hargrove. I believe you will find them of great interest. Shall we join together in prayer?

Our heavenly Father, as we plead the precious blood of Jesus as a covering for all our sin, as the only full and sufficient sacrifice for sins born of Adam, we know that God has set forth a new and living way by which man may approach directly to the throne of God and come boldly before His presence, but by no other way. Help us then to proclaim the shedding of blood for the remission of sins as God's acceptable way to atone for sin.

God was showing to us this trail of the bloodline thousands of years before the coming of the anointed redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ. Help many people to understand and to believe the gospel, to invite Jesus to come in their hearts and wash away their sins in His own precious blood shed on the cursed tree for Jesus' sake. Amen.

The first apostate we will deal with today is, of course, the first murderer, Cain, the apostate of a bloodless religion. We know according to the Bible that Satan is the source of all evil present in our world today. Although there is a malevolent spirit within the land, God sent His only Son into the world 2,000 years ago to die upon a cruel Roman cross to save all men from their sins. He was victorious in this effort over Satan in that He arose from the grave. With a nucleus of only 12 men who He called apostles, He proceeded to turn the world upside down for God with this gospel.

Since Satan is a great imitator of God, then it should follow that there have been 12 special men throughout history who he called away from the truth and have been used to adversely affect our world for evil. Who were these 12 apostates? Before we can begin to identify these 12 malevolent men, we should first remind ourselves of Satan's objectives. We know according to Genesis 3:15 that God cursed the serpent for his part in the Edenic tragedy when Adam and Eve ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

The creator informed the adversary that enmity would exist between him and a mysterious figure called the woman. The prophecy of Genesis 3:15 stated that someday in the future, someone would come into the world called the seed of the woman and he would crush Satan's head, although the heel of the redeemer would be bruised in the process. We have seen that most Christian Bible scholars believe that this is a reference to Jesus Christ's atoning death on Calvary's cross.

Logically, therefore, one of Satan's first objectives would be to destroy this woman, whoever she might be, and prevent the coming of her seed. If he could succeed in destroying the whole of mankind so that they would have to die and spend eternity in hell in the bargain, so much the better. Thus the destruction of the woman, her seed, and mankind are some of Satan's major objectives.

We know how Adam and Eve broke God's commandment, God's law. The Lord told His human creation that if they ate the forbidden fruit, they would surely die and be separated from Him. Because of his rebellious act, man became lost and separate from God. He came under divine condemnation of death and his final abode was to be in a dreadful place called hell. See Romans 3:23 and Revelation 20, verses 11 to 15.

The Bible tells us that God is a just God. His sense of justice demanded that the moral debt of Adam and Eve had to be paid. According to God's own rules, the only way they could satisfy the obligation was for them to die and go to hell. By breaking God's law, they deserved no better. But we have seen that God loved Adam and Eve and He had other plans for them and their children. He would bring His will to pass upon the earth in spite of Satan's evil machinations.

We have also learned that God manifested His grace upon man, something He had not done in the case of the mutinous angels. God allowed an innocent to shed his pure blood as a substitute for the guilty blood of the transgressors. God took animals who had not sinned and slew them. The innocent shed their blood symbolically, paying the penalty for Adam and Eve's sin.

Apparently it was impressed upon Adam that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin. Hebrews 9:22. With the greatest broken hearts in history, our parents were driven from Eden and took up residence in a cursed environment. Down through the years, Adam must have pondered the consequences of his sin. Without doubt, he longed to return to the coolness and plenty of the Garden of Eden, and he dreaded what the future held.

It is my understanding that the knowledge of good and evil that he now possessed included further revelation from God about what His righteous law demanded. One axiom about God's law that Adam must have learned was that the life of the flesh is the blood thereof, and I have given it unto you upon the altar for an atonement of your sin. Leviticus 17, verses 11 and 14.

God's word says that because of men's sin, there must be shedding of innocent blood to have one's own sins blotted out. Just like those animals who lost their lives the day of the first sin, even so must Adam's children continue to shed blood in order to have their sins covered, for they have all inherited his evil nature. Romans 5:14; 1 Corinthians 15, verses 22 and 45. Only in that way could an atonement be made and they escape immediate death and eternal hell. Hebrews 9:22.

Satan, the god of this world, led the people to develop their own false religions, further alienating them from God. They glorified God not as God, nor were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools and changed the glory of God into an image made like to corruptible man and birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things.

They worshipped and served the creature more than the creator. And for this cause, God gave them up. Romans 1, verses 21 to 26. In this way did the Gentile or heathen nations come into being. Immediately prior to their entrance into Canaan, God prophetically promised that if the people would follow His law and worship Him, then He would make them the head nation of the world.

See Deuteronomy 28, the first 14 verses; Deuteronomy 29, verses 9 to 15; and Deuteronomy 30, the first 20 verses. If they refused, however, then He would make them the tail and not the head, and they would be a reproach and a byword among the heathen. Deuteronomy 28, verses 15 to 68; Deuteronomy 29, verses 16 to 29. They had varying degrees of successes in their faithfulness to God. After centuries of their spiritual trifling, the bottom line was that they had failed miserably and the people had to be judged.

After it became evident that Israel had failed to meet the conditions of Mosaic covenant and Palestinian covenant with God, then the creator allowed Satan to really go to war with the woman. In so doing, the devil used the concepts and ideals previously put forward by Nimrod to accomplish his purpose. Nimrod was the father of the one-world dictatorial government and despotic power.

After Israel's failure to meet God's challenge and not before, great world powers began to arise in the ancient Middle East that were based upon greed, avarice, slavery, and raw military power. The imperialistic policies of these sinful states allowed them to swallow up other nations to appease their king's lust for land and tribute. Although there had been other limited Gentile empires in the post-Babylonian world history, the Assyrian Empire was the first successful one of these great kingdoms.

Because of Israel's sins, 1 Kings 11, verses 1 to 8 and verses 9 to 13, the nation had been partitioned into two states: Israel, the northern kingdom, and Judah, the two kingdoms to the south. The northern kingdom, Israel, joined her heathen neighbors in polytheism, paganism, and idolatry. Because of this sin, God allowed Israel to fall under the army of Assyria and be deported from her land. 2 Kings 17, verses 3 to 41.

With this logic in mind, which apparently came from God, the ritual of blood sacrifice came into existence. It was a dirty, unpleasant thing from the beginning and no one liked it. The point is, however, that sin is a dirty, vile thing that always ultimately leads to death. Certainly in performing this ritual, the repentant one should keep that fact in mind. The sinner needs to remain aware of what his transgression was ultimately leading to.

Sitting back behind the scene and observing all this, of course, was old Satan the devil. He had two major goals. One, prevent the coming of the seed of woman who would bruise his head. Number two, destroy the woman as well as mankind. One way that he could effectively destroy mankind was to simply allow God's justice to run its course. If it was necessary to have blood sacrifice to atone for man's sins, then Satan could just intercede in the affairs of man and simply stop the atoning blood from flowing.

If men would not make the proper blood sacrifice, then they would, according to God's own law, die in their sins and spend eternity in hell. The scriptures say that two sons were born to Adam and Eve. Their names were Cain and Abel. Genesis 4, the first two verses. They were the first two men, other than their parents, whose names were recorded in the Bible. Abel was a shepherd, but Cain was a tiller of the soil which had been cursed.

Like we moderns today, they inherited their father Adam's human nature and were also subject to sin. Romans 3:23. When Adam saw the sins in his sons' lives, it must have broken the old patriarch's heart, realizing that he was in a measure responsible. When he saw them sin, he realized that they too must die to satisfy the statute of God's ordinances. "For the wages of sin is death," Romans 6:23, "the soul that sinneth, it shall die," Ezekiel chapter 18.

The Bible, as well as human tradition, suggests that Adam must have spoken with his sons about the day he had sinned in Eden and God had slaughtered the animals, shedding their blood to atone for him and their mother's sin. He must have told them that the life of the flesh is the blood thereof, and I, God, have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your sins. Leviticus 17, verses 11 and 14.

The reason for making this assumption is that the account in Genesis 4 reveals that both Cain and Abel became convinced that they, like their parents before them, needed to make an atonement for their sins and did ultimately make a sacrifice. How else would they have known to make the sacrifice unless Adam, the first old sinner, had witnessed to them? Apparently he was also the first evangelist by so instructing his sons in the proper way to find forgiveness for their transgressions.

The scripture says that Abel took of the best of his flock and made an altar and shed the animal's blood for his sin. Genesis 4, verse 4. Obviously he was aware that God demanded that innocent blood be shed to substitute for his own guilty blood. He further knew that sin would ultimately lead to death. So it was necessary for him to have a contrite and repentant heart. As a shepherd, Abel knew every lamb in his flock and must have had love for each one of them, perhaps not unlike the way we love our family pets today.

But for his spiritual survival, Abel had to look that innocent friend in the eye as he plunged his knife into its heart. He had to listen to its helpless bleating and feel the hot liquid warmth as its blood fell upon the ground and upon his person. No doubt he hated it as his little friend thrashed about, the stench and its death filling his nostrils. There must have been a great guilt in Abel's heart as he realized that his error produced this awful scene.

God wanted to rub man's nose in his sin to remind him that it always brings forth death. But God also wanted to show Abel that he could live, but another would have to pay the debt. Laying out there covered with blood, the animal still twitching in its death throes, Abel had faith that God would excuse his sin. And praise God, He did. Hebrews 11:4. Apparently, Cain observed all this bloodletting from the sidelines.

The scriptures indicated that he thought the whole scene was repulsive. We can infer that Satan, now the god of this world according to 2 Corinthians 4:4 and the prince of the powers of this world, Ephesians 2:2, by Adam's default, had returned to earth again in the heart of Cain and pursued his policy of lying to mankind. "You don't need to shed that blood. The smell is terrible. It's going to get all over you. It is not really necessary to shed blood to remove sin. It's a sacrificial thought that counts anyway."

So Cain turned his back upon the prescribed way and brought some of his crops to the altar. Genesis 4:3. It is so like human nature for us to think we can work our way to heaven. We believe that in this life there is no free meal. Abel's dead lamb couldn't agree more. Cain the farmer said in his sacrifice, "I'm going to work my way to heaven. Shed blood isn't necessary and I refuse to have anything to do with a bloody religion. I don't believe it."

But the scriptures are very definite. Cain's sacrifice was not acceptable unto God. Genesis 4:5. "Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin." Hebrews 9:22. Cain did not smell death as Abel had done when he laid those groceries upon the altar. What he smelled was his self-righteousness and his own satisfaction over his efforts. However, the sacrifice was not pleasing unto God, and it is apparent that the deity made this fact known to Cain.

A great principle of God's love is revealed in what happened next. God merely told Cain, "That's all right. Just go back and shed blood and your sacrifice will be acceptable." Genesis 4, verses 6 and 7. Then began the real spiritual battle within the heart of Cain. Will you accept God's way and salvation? Today each one of us fight this battle and we are no different from Cain. The Bible account reveals that Cain steadfastly refused to make the sacrifice, and resentment and hostility obviously began to build up.

Satan, observing the drama unfolding before him, used this to his own ends. Remember, by now the old dragon is really worrying about the coming of the seed of woman who will crush his head. Obviously, he didn't know when, who, or how, but he wanted to hedge all his bets. It was obvious to him that Abel was a righteous man and shepherd because he did what God commanded.

Perhaps the adversary thought, "Abel may be the seed of woman." Using Cain's bitterness, Satan inspired his first apostate to rise up in wrath and kill his brother in the first recorded act of human violence and murder. Genesis 4:8. Even after God pointed out to Cain that He knew about the whole dirty business and offered him a chance for repentance and forgiveness, Cain rejected God and His salvation and went his own way out into the world. Genesis 4, verses 8 to 16.

Cain did establish a great civilization. The hallmark of that society was that to a man they rejected God and His plan for redemption. Genesis 4, verses 17 to 24. There are several reasons why Cain has earned himself a high place on the list of Satan's 12 apostates. First of all, with his violent act against his brother, he opened the book on man's violence against his own brother.

Every murder, every rape, every violent act throughout human history can be traced back to Cain's rejection of God's requirement for blood sacrifice. When Cain slew Abel, he may have used his bare hands. As time passed, however, the technology to bring murder and mayhem to this planet expanded. Cain's descendants learned to work with metal, thereby bringing scientific advances to mankind.

They learned that the avenues of violent acts against other men are virtually endless. In a sense, all acts of violence against other persons can be traced back to this original perpetrator. Yesterday it was Cain's bare hands. Today it is the terrorist bomb and the Saturday night special. Another reason that Cain deserves high marks from Satan is that ultimately the sins of his people resulted in the great deluge wiping out the entire civilization.

Except for Sodom and Gomorrah, no other people have been so judged. Because Cain did not instruct his family in God's requirements, the entire race perished, and their blood in addition to Abel's is upon his hands. Finally, I believe that one of the worst disservices that Cain did for mankind was his rejection of the ritual of blood sacrifice. He showed us how to turn our backs upon God and so great salvation.

He was a prototype of every man who has defiantly snapped his fingers in God's face, claiming that blood is not necessary for an atonement. Throughout the long centuries, many men have steadfastly refused to follow God's guidelines along the narrow way to salvation. Today modern man thinks such a proposition as a necessity of blood sacrifice repulsive.

In our enlightened position in the closing decades of the 20th century, rebellious men declare that the blood atonement is nothing but a myth. Even large segments of the modern Christian church have become anemic in their worship. They say that salvation is a free gift which God has provided as if God is obligated to save us from our sins. You know, dear friends, Abel's blood still cries out to us from the ground.

His witness to us, in spite of the devil's lie, is to by faith offer unto God a more excellent sacrifice. That more excellent sacrifice, as we know today, is Jesus Christ of Nazareth and Him crucified. Please, dear ones, appropriate Him today for yourself by faith and obtain His righteousness that God may receive you. Believe the gospel and live, and inherit eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Southwest Radio Ministries: Today we’ve been listening to a portion of David Weber’s series, Satan’s 12 Apostates, based on Lubert Hargrove’s book of the same name. Today you can have David Weber’s complete eight-part teaching on four CDs and the book, Satan’s 12 Apostates, for a gift of $40 or more. Order this outstanding set today when you call 1-800-652-1144. That’s 1-800-652-1144, or order online: swrc.com.

David Weber’s complete eight-part teaching and the book, Satan’s 12 Apostates, all for a gift of $40 or more. 1-800-652-1144. Tomorrow we wrap up anniversary week with a classic teaching from our founder, Pastor E. F. Weber. Be sure to tune in by downloading our free SWRC mobile app, or by simply subscribing to our daily Watchman on the Wall podcast. Watchman on the Wall is a production of Southwest Radio Ministries and has been supported for 93 years by faithful friends like you. To learn more, simply visit swrc.com.