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Enemies
Christians and not only them have a very active and insidious enemy who's job it is to bring chaos, destruction and death to men. We call him Satan or the devil.
Satan is a spirit like God is, and it is childish to to make a picture of him with horns and a tail. Satan is no human being and no animal. Satan still has access to heaven.
The biggest triumph Satan has, when he makes us believe that he doesn't exist. The Bible gives detailed information who Satan is and how we can defeat him.
Jesus says about Satan in John 10:10: (KJV)
The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy
We have to realize that Satan is a person, that he is really involved in our lives, that he is really involved in the church and he is really involved in the world in a personal aggressive way, that as the Spirit of God is endeavoring to enable you as a Christian to live for Jesus Christ, so the devil Satan is endeavoring to destroy your testimony, to sidetrack you, to derail you from serving Christ in any capacity that is in any way
effective.
We're first introduced to Satan time wise in the book of Job. Job is the oldest book in the Bible,
chronologically speaking, though it does not come at the beginning of the Bible. Job was a man who
lived during the patriarchal period, during the time when the men who were the patriarchs in the book
of Genesis.
And the first book chronologically speaking, Job, is a book about the conflict between a righteous man and Satan. And there's no bones about it and God doesn't waste any time at the very beginning of man's history, he begins a conflict with the devil and it never ends until Christ finally ends it in His Kingdom when He binds Satan and then looses him for a little while, then casts him into the pit. The history of man is the history of a conflict between God and Satan and the battleground is really the life of a man. That's where the battle is really fought.
The Bible says in Job 1, 6 - 12:
6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them.
7 And the Lord said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.
8 And the Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?
9 Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, Doth Job fear God for nought?
10 Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land.
11 But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face.
12 And the Lord said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord.
This begins the conflict between God and Satan in the life of Job…a conflict that has been the history of every man from the beginning, a conflict that was actually set up in the Garden of Eden when Eve was tempted by Satan to disobey God. And this conflict has never stopped and even Christ came for the purpose of putting it to an end because the Bible says that Christ came to destroy the works of the devil.
Satan is the ultimate enemy from which we must reckon. And the Bible never underestimates his power and the Bible never mistakes his intentions. It's kind of an interesting thing about Satan, that he very seldom paints it like it is.
And anybody who plays into his hands is playing into a situation where Satan is going to do nothing but kill and steal and destroy.
He didn't stop even with Christ. Immediately after Christ's baptism which was the high point of the beginning of His ministry, the Spirit of God led Him into the wilderness to be confronted with Satan. After the highest point of Christ's first thirty years, His baptism where the voice from heaven said, "Thou art My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased," the Spirit of God settled upon Him like a dove and He was commissioned to communicate the message of God, right after that point He went into immediate conflict with Satan. And you remember in His temptation Satan tried to derail Him from the cross.
Satan figured that he wanted the kingdoms of the world, so if You'll just bow down to me I'll give them to You, You won't have to die. He tried to distract Christ at the very beginning.
He is hostile to God. He was hostile to Christ clear through His life. On one occasion he even spoke through the mouth of Peter himself. Satan is a malignant reality. He is always hostile to God and God's children. He is always promoting filth and vice and sin.
He's nothing to joke about. He's no impersonal influence. He's no mask. He is a living, active, violent, antiGod personal being. And he's running this world, in case you didn't know it. He is the prince of this world, he is the god of this world, he is the ruler of this present world. The whole world lies in the hands of the evil one, like a sleeping baby. And just as God is a personal God and Jesus Christ is a personal Christ and the Holy Spirit is a personal Spirit, so Satan is a personal reality. And as God is for you, Satan is against you. That's his job.
There are only two chapters really at the commencement of the Bible, right at the beginning, Genesis 1 and 2, and two chapters at the end of the Bible, Revelation 20 and 21, and only those four chapters don't have anything to do with Satan. They're before him and after him.
And there's only four chapters in the Bible that have Satan either absent or banished and in both cases, it's paradise. And every other chapter in the Bible is a constant never-ending struggle, conflict between God and Satan and man is the battleground. Through the rest of the history of man, he is recognized and referred to as an actual person, the embodiment of evil. Satan is just one of the numerous names given to him and Satan means adversary, that's what it means, and that's exactly what he is.
There are many indications in the Bible that he is a person. First of all, he tempted Eve in Genesis 3 personally. Secondly, he personally tempted Christ in Matthew 4. He perverted the Word of God in Matthew 4. He opposed God's work in Zechariah 3. He personally hindered God's servants in 1 Thessalonians chapter 2. He
hinders the gospel in Matthew 13 and 2 Corinthians 4, and many places in the Bible. He ensnares the wicked, 1 Timothy 3 and 2 Timothy 2. He really destroys nations, he ensnares them.
First Kings 22 tells us about this and also in Revelation 16 and Revelation 20. He ensnares the wicked as well, 1 Timothy 3. He is an angel of light, says Paul to the Corinthians. He personally contended with Michael in Jude verse 6.
He accomplished the entrance of sin into the world on a personal basis, Genesis 3. He personally appeared before God in Job chapter 1. He personally walks about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour, 1 Peter chapter 5.
In Revelation chapter 12 he appears in heaven personally to accuse the believers. Hebrews chapter 2 says he is the personal power of death.
And it's all climaxed in 1 John 5 when John says, "The whole world lies in the arms of that wicked one. He is a personal reality. The person and personality of Satan is revealed in Scripture as distinctly as the person and
personality of Jesus Christ and to deny one is to deny the other.
Scripture tells us that he is not selfexistent. The Bible teaches that only God is self-existent, therefore Satan had to be created. God created him. When Satan was first created he wasn't evil. Everything that God creates is good.
And 1 John 1 says everything that was made was made by Him, by the Word. God created everything and God created everything good so Satan must have been good and then he became bad. That's true, that's exactly what happened. If he's evil today it's because he fell from his natural form which was good in the creation of God. And that's exactly what happened.
Satan, the prince of the host of wickedness, the Lord of the whole empire of sin is not enthroned today, he's dethroned, he is fallen. He is fallen from heaven with his angels. And that fall is described for us by Peter and by Jude in some detail, that is the fall with the angels. The Scripture indicates that there was a fall.
In fact, Jesus Himself says in Luke 10:18, He says, "I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven."
Originally he had a state with God and Christ Himself said that He beheld him falling as lightning.
Satan was casted out of heaven because of his pride, he wanted to be like God. (Isaiah 14 verse 12)
He is not only not self-existent, but he is not sovereign. Satan has not cast off the government of God. He is still subject to it. Satan still is running around in a little sphere that God has permitted him to run in and he can't run out of it. He is still in rebellion, open rebellion against the sovereignty of God but he is still held by it. He has a sphere of operation which God has permitted him to have in this world, but he is still subject to God's sovereignty and if you don't believe it, read the book of Revelation and find out what's going to happen to him.
Satan is not like God. He is not omniscient. He can't see and know everything. Satan doesn't know everything. He can't see everything. He's not omniscient. He can't see the end from the beginning. He is not omnipotent. He is still subject to God's power. And he is not omnipresent. He walks to and fro throughout the earth. He
goes everywhere and he's fast, he's really fast, he's not omnipresent. That is a resign for God and
God alone. No angel is omnipresent, a holy angel or a fallen angel.
Satan can tempt you sometimes as demons can tempt you sometimes, and sometimes you don't need anybody, you've just got a depraved sin nature that will do the job. But Satan is not omniscient, he's not omnipotent and he's not omnipresent. Those are the attributes of God, and Satan is not sovereign.
Then not only is he not self-existent and not sovereign, but he is powerful and subtle. He is really subtle. He is not blatant, as I said earlier, he is extremely subtle. He sneaks around. He doesn't come walking up, "I'm the devil, I'd like to ruin your life, do this…" Never…never.
He always paints the picture so lovely that we get sucked in on it and then we find out it spells ruin. And the devil runs the world's system. He's powerful…he is powerful.
He has captured the medias of the world…all of them belong to him…the movies, to newspapers, for the most part, the schools, the education system, the books, every…every systematized thing in the world is really in the hands of Satan, except those things that are dedicated to Jesus Christ.
There's no neutral ground. You can't go and indulge in a neutral activity basically speaking. Now, of course, there are some things that are for the health and the body and the enjoyment of the soul that have no moral significance and God's given us those for our enjoyment. But anything that draws a moral conclusion is either for God or against God.
Paul says, "We wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers, against the world rulers of this darkness, the spiritual host of wickedness in heavenly places."
How is he related to the church? Well it's obvious from what we said that he is anti-Christ, he is anti-God, he is anti-Christianity, but he is pro-church and he is proreligion. If he can hang on to the church and make it become something God never intended it to be and still exists, he has accomplished his purpose. He is right in the midst of the church trying todestroy the work of Jesus Christ, trying to destroy the truth of the Word of God and he's done a pretty good job in some areas. See, he already has the world, he doesn't have to spend a lot of time there.
So he spends his time trying to ruin the testimony of Jesus Christ. And he's been successful. Many churches today are run by Satan, for all intents and purposes. They deny Jesus Christ, His reality, the Word of God, the existence of God, even, God's dead, yet they call themselves churches.
Those are liberal, you say, and those are modern. That's true but, you know, Satan's at work in evangelical churches, too. He really is. He loves nothing better than to split the church and to bring up sin among the members that divisive and that stains the entire congregation.
He loves nothing better than to take someone in the church who is in a key position and bring them to a serious ruin because of sin and then destroy the fellowship of the church and make its name black. He loves to do that. He loves to create fights and any kind of sin that's blatant, open sin that will destroy the church. And that's why we pray constantly, incessantly every day that goes by that God will rebuke Satan in the church and keep it pure. Whatever Christ is trying to do in the church, Satan is actively trying to do the opposite. Don't ever forget it. And don't you ever forget that Satan is fighting for his neck. He can read the Bible, too. He knows how it's going to come out but he's not about to sit around and wait for it.
If God loves men, then Satan hates them. If God loves Christ to be in men, then Satan hates Christ to be in men and will prevent the Christlike life any way he can. If the Holy Spirit tries to lead with the things of righteousness, then Satan tries to lead men to the things of unrighteousness. And that's why Christ's mission was to destroy the works of the devil because he's in direct opposition to everything Christ stands for.
The minute you determine to live your life completely committed to Jesus Christ, Satan begins the fight. And if you're sitting around saying, "Boy, everything is going great for me," that's because you're not doing anything. Somebody said to me one time, "You know, I've just learned how to witness and the more I witness the easier it gets." Really! The more I witness, the harder it gets. Why? Because the better you get at it and the more committed you are to it, the harder Satan's going to work. And the closer we get to the coming of Jesus Christ, the more hard men's hearts are going to be. It doesn't get easier.
In the life of a believer, what does Satan do?
In Acts chapter 5 it tells us he tempts us to sin.
In 2 Corinthians 2 it tells us he hinders us.
In Revelation 12, he accuses us before God.
In Ephesians 6, he deploys his demons to defeat us.
He's busy in the life of a committed believer. The same thing is true of the church. When the church begins to move for Jesus Christ, when a church takes its stand on the Word of God and the person of Christ and begins to move out, you can be sure Satan's going to get in there and try to sow as much discord and to bring up as much black blatant sin as he can to destroy the testimony of that church.
The moment you take a stand for Jesus Christ, Satan declares war on you. That's why when Paul got to the end of his life, he sort of took a great big gasp and said, "I have fought the good fight." He didn't waltz through his experience, he fought all the time…all the time. That's one thing the Christian can look forward to that the unbeliever doesn't have to worry about, he doesn't fight, he just does evil all the time. There's no battle at all. It's when you become a believer that the fight begins.
His relation to the church...lastly and quickly, his relation to the world. What's Satan doing in this world today? Well the world itself is the media through which Satan acts. Satan comes to us through the world to the flesh...the world, the flesh, the devil.
Satan begins coming through the media of the world to our flesh to tempt us to sin. He's hiding in the world today and he's not really very well hidden, he's fairly obvious. He's hiding in our half-theology. He's hiding in our philosophy and our education system. In all the media of the world, that's where Satan is.
In fact, in Ephesians 2 it says that the unsaved man does the things of the world, verse 2, because he's guided by the prince of the power of the air who is Satan. Satan's running the world. And every unsaved man in this world is run by Satan. You say, "Well that's a little hard to swallow." Well I hope so. I hope so.
You see, Paul says in Ephesians 2 that the unsaved man buys the world's bag. Whatever the world is selling, he buys.
And he says that's because that's the only store he has to shop in. And the proprietor of the world's
store is Satan himself. He's running this world...he's running this world.
The pigpen morality of our world is the propaganda of Satan, the tolerance of gross immorality
and sin that is painted before us constantly on television, in movies, in books, is Satan's propaganda to break down our resistance, and he's doing a very good job of it. Most of us are infinitely tolerant of
the gross things that the Word of God condemns.
In fact, we often sit and entertain ourselves with them. No wonder we live defeated lives and we sit around allowing Satan to shovel garbage into our brains. The world does his bidding.
Remember Jesus said to the leaders in John 8:44, He said, "You are of your father...whom?...the devil."
In Acts 13:10, "Thou art the child of the devil."
In 1 John chapter 3, just to suggest to you what is John's message there, he says this, "He that committeth sin
is of the devil," no question about it.
The devil is involved in this world intrinsically in everything that is going on. He says in verse 10, "In this the children of God are manifest and the children of the devil. Whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother."
The one who doesn't do righteousness is of the devil, he's a child of the devil. Just that simple. And Jesus
said, He put it this way, "He that is not with Me is...what?...is against Me."
There's no neutral ground. You can't stand in the middle and say, "Well, I haven't made up my mind."
If you're not with Christ, you're against Him. If you're not a part of Christ's Kingdom, you're a part of the devil's darkness.
How is it going to end with Satan?
Finally Satan comes to full power in the Tribulation and then the great battle of Armageddon when he decides he's going to defeat Christ and he's conquered and he's bound for a thousand years, at the end of those thousand years he's loosed for a little time of temptation in the world. And then finally he's cast into a pit for eternity.
Yes, finally Jesus Christ will destroy the empire of Satan and he will destroy Satan once and for all and the conflict will end.
It began and it will end.