The Present Work of Satan (2)

We've been looking at the work of Satan. Last week talked about the work of Satan presently as far as his relationship to God is concerned and just a brief quick reminder He is the opponent of God's person whatever God is Satan is the exact opposite so he opposes God's person and That then leads him to be an opponent of God's program So he opposes who God is and what God does God's work So the way we saw last week that he opposes God's program is he counterfeits God's system of truth both on a very general level substituting error for truth as far as a World view is concerned a way of looking at life and living life But then also he promotes false religion and that's his specialty that's Specifically what Satan loves to do because that's the closest imitation of what God does that Satan can get to is religion and so he promotes false religion and then we saw that not only does he counterfeit God's system of truth, but he also counteracts God's Sobber and rule and we kind of traced that briefly through the scriptures house Satan has always been at work since day one of human existence With Adam and Eve trying to to counter God's work in this world and particularly when it comes to God's people opposed and and trying to defeat God's people constantly so that that's so what Satan is doing as far as His relationship to God is concerned where we pick up tonight is in relation to the nations in relation to the nations Satan is at work in several ways First of all, he is deceiving the nations and I think we have this verse on the screen for you Revelation chapter 20 and verse 3 He Good angel through him Satan into the abyss and locked and sealed it over him To keep him from deceiving the nations anymore until the thousand years were ended after that He must be set free for a short time and what that verse tells us Let's first of all place in his context It is it is in that passage in Revelation 20 that talks about Christ's Second coming to the earth that was described in chapter 19 of Revelation coming on a white horse Slaying the armies of the antichrist at the Battle of Armageddon and then in chapter 20 He sets up his kingdom his thousand year rule on this earth and as a part of that Satan is going to be locked up Restrained in an abyss in a pit and The reason for that is as you see very clearly in that verse is to keep him from deceiving the nations anymore Now what that tells us is if he has to be taken off of the world scene and a locked up in order to keep him from deceiving the nations What that tells us is that obviously it's a major part of what he's doing right now He is deceiving the nations and it has been ever since the beginning of human history Satan seeks to lead the world Nations astray from the truth of God as it is in Christ and During the millennium he will not be free to do that Won't that be a glorious time in so many ways Christ's kingdom on this earth will be the best This world has ever seen and a great reason for that is Satan is not free to deceive the nations anymore now that verse said that he's going to be set free and What does he do immediately when he is set free at the end of the millennium? He goes around deceiving people again, doesn't he deceives people who have grown up under the rule of Christ? but who have evidently not placed their allegiance to Christ outwardly they have submitted to his rule and governmental authority but in their hearts have not yielded their allegiance to him and Satan is able to deceive many of them and lead one last rebellion against Christ and his rule which is quickly and immediately Squashed by Christ himself and that's when Satan is thrown into the lake of fire So he deceives nations in any question comment about that Yes, Libby Well, it says just Satan but but I Would assume that the demons are included as well Certainly Much of what Satan does in this world is done through his demons because he can only be in one place at one time so his efforts would not be That seriously hampered if all of his demons were still running loose so logically it makes sense. They would be they would be cast into the pit with him Yes There will be rebellion even during the millennium it will not be as prevalent Isaiah chapter 65 I believe in verse 20 says that Child will die at a hundred So People will still die in the millennium people who've gone in in their natural bodies. They will die and there will be sin there will be Things that will be dealt with by the righteous government of Christ. So there will be rebellion and sin It will not be as prevalent in widespread obviously, but there and and remember Satan is not our only foe right We have a foe inside is called the simple nature and so even if Satan is off the scene we still have a simple nature that can pull us into rebellion So good point that is very true Okay, anything else Okay, so he deceives the nations, but a second way that he is working among the nations is influencing the governments of nations So is deceiving nations as a whole But more specifically Satan influences the governments of nations He does have the power to do that It's interesting that Something that comes up in the temptation of Christ kind of gives us a clue as to this It's not real direct, but indirectly it shows Satan's power over the nations Matthew chapter four verses eight through ten again. This is on the screen Save us a little bit of time to have to keep turning and waiting for you to get to different passages Again the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor So all the nations their kingdoms and this is what the devil offers all this I will give you he said If you will buy down a worship made Jesus said to him away from me Satan Ford has written Worship the Lord your God and serve him only now Notice that Jesus did not dispute Satan's power to give him the kingdoms of the world Satan does have some power in that realm He does have the that influence and power over the governments of nations and Because Jesus does not just laugh at him and say you can't do that you don't have the power to do that because he did not say that that implies that Satan could follow through on that promise if Jesus would have fallen down and worshiped him of course that's the hook and Jesus understood that clearly and went straight for that That he would not worship anyone but but God Satan again uses his demons to influence nations especially as it relates to Israel and the church or God's people demons are constantly seeking to encourage nations to oppose Israel and to oppose God's work in the world believers It's one of the ways that that what I said earlier is true all you have to do pick up the news look at the news And you see abundant evidence of Satan's work in this way The nations against Israel and the nations who persecute Christians We don't hear as much about that as we should But there is abundant persecution of believers in many nations across the world and that if it goes all the way back to its source Is linked to Satan through his demons influencing the thinking the policy making and so forth of nation leaders to oppose Israel and to oppose Christians Remember we saw in Daniel 10 this is sometime back when we were looking at the good angels Remember there was an angel sent to Answer Daniel's prayer in Daniel 10 as Daniel was praying about the future of his people Israel And what was going to happen to them and the angel that is sent to answer that prayer another words to give Daniel the message that will be recorded in scripture About the future of Israel that angel is intercepted by a demon and for three weeks they battle And so that's a very clear Instance of demons trying to oppose what God seeks to do with with Israel a good example of of demons influencing Political in the political realm to oppose the church is found in 1st Thessalonians chapter 2 and verse 18 Where Paul says we wanted to come to you certainly I Paul did again and again But Satan blocked our way Now again place it in the context of the history here you go back and if you read the book of Acts chapter 17 You remember the history of how the church in Thessalonica started It started by the apostle Paul going to that city and preaching the gospel, but he was only there He says three Sabbaths So a total of four weeks at the most including three Sabbath days Before he was run out of town almost killed and and he went From there to the next town But this verse tells us that he tried to get back to Thessalonica I mean he was concerned about the church hadn't had much time to really ground them in the truth And so he tried to get back again and again, but Satan blocked our way and probably what he's talking about there's the persecution The persecution by the political leaders of Thessalonica who would not who drove him out of town and then would not let him back in So Paul sees that directly attributed to Satan's work So Satan is is working to influence the governments of nations and lots of examples of that in the Bible right Heyman in the book of Esther who almost Successfully carried out a plot to exterminate the whole Jewish nation across the Persian Empire I mean you talk about Satan really trying to oppose God's people history That was a major instance of that and of course herod in his Monaco plot to try to kill the The son of God and thus In trying to make sure he killed Jesus kills all the baby boys Two years old and under in Bethlehem and throughout history the Hitler's the Stalin's the others who have sought to exterminate the Jews are directly influenced by Satan and his demons to do so and I mean Probably the clearest example of that is is the Nazi regime In Germany you do much study on that and you can see a lot of the occult influence In Nazism some of the major leaders Himmler and others in in the Nazi regime were deeply involved in the occult. I mean directly tied to Satan Satanic and demonic rituals and so Very very powerful thing and that we don't we don't think enough about There are demons that are very active in influencing the nations of this world Now God has his own program for this world and he will win in the end But Satan's going to create as much havoc as he can Until human history is finished So Satan deceives nations he influences the government of nations questions or comments about that Okay He's in the way That's a good question gene Certainly if Satan can influence the mind hearts wills actions of unbelievers To accomplish his purpose Then one of the ways that God may want to Accomplish his purpose is not just through his angels But through influencing the mind's hearts actions Wills of his people to be involved and do what's right to live for him to exercise our rights as Believers in in our nation so forth. Yes So for us to take a stand for righteousness is one of the ways that God may use to accomplish his purpose Certainly you know there's as in most everything We talk about in the Christian life. There is a great balance here We have to be careful not to come fatalistic and think what God's going to win in the end his program is going to win So I don't need to do anything. I don't need to vote. I don't need to exercise my rights to to seek to bring moral change No God may want to use us To be his instruments of change And so we need to to be responsible In the opportunities that we have it's a very good point And You know all we can do all I can do is what I can do as a believer and and what we can do as believers and then ultimately leave The issues up to God and then as we watch history unfold trust that God has a purpose in everything that is actually happening And he will bring it to his his designed end his conclusion Okay, so he deceives nations the influence of the governments of nations third thing he doesn't relationship to the nations Is actually and this is more future uh Although it may happen now he actually directs the governments of nations not just influencing but actually running The government of nations now. I can't point to specific examples where I can say with absolute assurance Where that's happening in the world today we would all have our own guesses as to where that might be But I can't say with absolute certainty I don't know the mind of God nor the mind of Satan on those kinds of things But I do know with absolute certainty there will be a point in human history in the future where Satan will actually Run a one-world government through the Antichrist The book of Daniel prophesied it In Daniel chapter two you remember the the vision that never could never had the dream that he had that Daniel interpreted for him the image head of gold Chest and arms of silver the midsection of bronze the legs of iron and then all of those were were world powers Leading up to Rome the legs of iron and then then there the their feet with iron mixed with clay And that seems to be a final form of government that the kingdom of Christ actually smashes The stone cut out of the mountain and Daniel's vision comes and strikes the feet of that image and crushes the whole thing and does away with all government human government On this planet and so that Iron mixed with clay seems to represent the government that will be in existence when Christ returns into second coming The government run by the Antichrist For that reason many through Church history have understood that final form of world government in the tribulation time to be a a some sort of revived Roman Empire since it comes From the iron of the legs of Rome and is mixed with clay, which means it's not as stable not as powerful That could be although there's a growing in popularity now A view that takes the Antichrist world government to actually be is an Islamic state That is quickly gaining traction among Bible believing prophecy scholars But we know that whatever form that government takes The Antichrist will be running it and Satan will be running him The verse on the screen for you revelation chapter 17 verse 12 The Ten horns you saw are ten kings who have not yet received the kingdom but who for one hour Just for a period of time will receive authority as kings Along with the beast now if you through our study have been following the terminology in the book of Revelation The beast is the Antichrist the false prophet is the one who kind of props him up and supports him and is his Adman you know the publicity guy So this authority given to these kings Will be to merge their governments with the government of the Antichrist to have a one-world government and that government is actually engineered and Inspired by Satan himself Look at Revelation 13 if you will open your Bible to Revelation 13 Didn't put these verses on the screen Where we find that Satan is directly stated to be behind this coalition of nations That that gives their authority to the Antichrist in the tribulation time He is also the one who motivates the Antichrist to do what he does to run this government Revelation 13 look at verse 2 Well, let's go back to verse 1 to pick up the train of thought here and the dragon stood on the shore of the sea Who is the dragon? He's he's described in chapter 12. Remember we've seen that passage several times the dragon verse nine is The ancient serpent called the devil or Satan so that's the dragon in this this story Dragon stood on the shore of the sea and I saw a beast coming out of the sea He had ten horns and seven heads with ten crowns on his horns and on each head a blasphemous name Of this beast who has this coalition of other kings that give their authority to him that we saw in chapter 17 mention several times in the book of Revelation This is the Antichrist who pulls together other world leaders into a consolidated world government verse two Says the beast I saw resemble to leopard but had feet like those of a bear in a mouth like that of a lion The dragon gave the beast his power and his throne and great authority So clearly the dragon is Satan beast is the Antichrist Where does he get his power? Where does he get his throne? Where does he get his authority directly from Satan Verse three one of the heads of the beast seemed to have a fatal wound But the fatal wound had been healed the whole world was astonished and followed the beast Men worshipped the dragon That's Satan because he had given authority to the beast and they also worship the beast and asked who is like the beast Who can make war against him now skip down to verse seven He was given power to make war against the saints and to conquer them and he was given authority over every tribe people Language and nation all inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast That is all whose names have not been written in the book of life belonging to the lamb that was slain from the creation of the world So you see the scope of his power Satan Motivates inspires actually works through the Antichrist to be a one one world Government ruler over the entire world during the tribulation time And we'll give him the ability to do miracles so that everybody is astonished at his power and they worship him Who can make war against him? Nobody can fight against him and and when that's the that's the attitude of The the overwhelming majority of people on earth during the tribulation time The only ones that will see through it That the minority of people as is true today will be believers Believers in Christ they'll see through it. They'll recognize what it is Okay, so he will um in the the tribulation time I Actually direct a one-world government With his puppet king the Antichrist ruling it Okay, so that's that Satan's work among the nations any comment or question there You I think if if we were to elicit those guesses I was talking about probably most of us in this room would guess Iran yes um Bent bent on destroying Israel Yes, yes And there are other nations in that region that probably feel the same way maybe Maybe as strongly as Iran does and so I think we would we would have to say all of those nations that are That opposed to Israel and want to see Israel exterminated are following right in the spirit of Stalin Hitler all the way back to Herod Heyman all of those who've been used by Satan to oppose God's people Yeah Okay, interesting times in which we live interesting times All right, any other questions about his relation to nations before we talk about his relation to the unsaved All right, let's move on then his relation to the answer. What is Satan doing? What is his work present work in relation to the unsaid? Well several things will break it down into two categories the first is He is preventing the acceptance of truth In other words, he he seeks to block people from understanding and seeing and accepting the truth of God's word This is a major effort of Satan So Jesus describes it this way in Luke chapter 8 and verse 12 one of the things he does to prevent people accepting the truth Those along the path are the ones who hear and then the devil comes and Takes away the word from their hearts So that they may not believe and be saved you remember the parable of the sower and the soils the seed Sower goes forth the so he sows the seed it falls on different kinds of soil And the different kinds of soil represent the the different hearts of people the the state in which people's hearts The preparedness of people's hearts To receive the word of God and the very first one is the hard ground or the beaten path And that's what he's interpreting here the interpretation those along the path the hard ground Where in the parable the birds come and pick up the seed while there's his laying on top of the ground Well Jesus explains this is those who hear they hear the word the word is presented to them see to sound But the devil comes that's the birds in the story the devil comes and snatches it away From their hearts In other words before it has a chance to penetrate and do its work Satan snatches it away Why so that they won't believe and be saved so that's part of how Satan prevents the acceptance of truth he's constantly working to keep people from getting the word Or if they hear it from it doing any penetrating So he keeps hearts hard and then he snatches away the word in whatever way he can before it has chance to penetrate that hard soil That's one of the ways that he's preventing the acceptance of truth But there's another way that he does it that Paul talks about in 2 Corinthians 4 4 The God of this age that's remember a name for Satan has blinded the minds of unbelievers so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ who is the image of God so one of the ways he keeps Truth from unsafe people is to harden their hearts so that the word can't penetrate the seed can't germinate But the second way does it as he blinds their minds so that they can't see in other words, he can't understand so What what seems Very plain to us What seems so clear to us when we read and understand and hear the word of God talk and preach what seems clear to us The unsafe persons like What They don't get it. They don't see it and a lot of the reason for that is The God of this age has blinded their minds So that they don't see it and He's got a lot of tools that is disposal to blind people's minds, doesn't he? Lots of things to blind people's minds or all those things we talked about last week about how he counterfeits truth with all the error in the world You know evolution pluralism and materialism and all the isms um All of that just blinds people's minds and so they adopt a way of looking at the world a way of thinking about what's right and wrong That blinds them to the truth of the gospel So that they end up believing the gospel is foolish That's crazy stuff and in the minds of a person Whose mind is blinded. That's what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1 Uh, in verse 18 for the message of the cross Is foolishness to those who are perishing but to us who are being saved is the power of God We revel in the gospel we glory in the gospel. We've seen the work it does and power that it has even in our own lives for the world When they look at it on a philosophical basis When they look at it on a just a rational basis just with their human mind it doesn't make any sense That makes sense the gospel doesn't to a world who's just thinking um with the rational mind that's been blinded by Satan So the gospel seems foolish and irrelevant To people whose minds have been blinded Now Didn't I say when we first started tonight that Her multitudes of examples of what we're talking about tonight in everything you see on the news I mean you can just you just see it all over the place people who Who argue crazy stuff um I saw an interesting article the day I get family research counsel bulletins Online and I saw one today and caught my attention. So I stopped to take a look at it um There's another another one of these ordinances being attempted in Charlotte North Carolina To open up all the restrooms for however you feel like you are at the time if you feel like you're a boy or a girl or whatever and Thank the Lord the governor of North Carolina is called a special session of the state legislature to to put an into it So I thank God for governor governor McCory but um The point of this article was that the American Academy of pediatricians I think I have the name right it's the American group of pediatricians Has actually come out with a paper that says to believe that children Can have an identity crisis as far as their gender is concerned And that be a normal thing is not scientifically viable at all And I'm thinking yay yay American Academy of pediatricians they came right out I wish I had the article with me that I could read it because they just They actually said to to allow children to believe that I mean many children they say go through phases where they question things But with the proper guidance that can be dealt with appropriately But to allow children to believe that they can make up their minds as to what gender they want to be they actually labeled it child abuse And I'm thinking wow somebody in the head of that organization must be a believer Because you don't hear much of that kind of thinking from secularists today You just don't hear that kind of thinking because people's minds are blinded Blinded to the truth and what seems so obvious to us um Is just being shot down all over our nation, isn't it? And you kind of look and shake your head and say how can this be happening so fast This is the reason This is the reason right here The work of Satan blinding people's minds To think thoughts that are not gods thoughts at all that's how it happens But particularly we're talking here about preventing the acceptance of God's truth the gospel Okay, and then let me mention this one so that we can stop at a good place tonight and that is not only does you prevent the acceptance of truth He promotes attraction to falsehood So that's the opposite He's trying to block the truth from getting into the minds and hearts of unsafe people But on the flip side to further strengthen his work. He's also pulling them toward falsehood So blocking the truth and pulling them toward falsehood at the same time. That's pretty powerful stuff And here's the way he does it He indoctrinated people into a false religion we've Seen that earlier, but remember the verses we read earlier in 1 Timothy 4 For For Timothy that comes for second Timothy doesn't yeah here it is Forcibly 4 verse 1 says the spirit clearly says that in later times Some will abandon the faith and now listen to the way Paul states it and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons That's very clear very direct demonic teachings that are involved in false religion Such teachings come through hypocritical liars whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron They forbid people to marry order them to abstain from certain foods But was they built up this religion with all of its stipulations of booze and don'ts But nothing of the gospel Nothing of the gospel just man-made religion and Paul says that comes straight from deceiving spirits and demons The Paul doesn't mix words here. He just says this is the source of it So one of the ways Satan attracts people to falsehood Is by indoctrinating them with false religion and it may be any religion that teaches salvation by works Again, we need to understand this a Lot of religions and a lot of people who even say their Christian churches, you know churches that would follow Christ I'm not speaking of any Denomination Name the Christian church, but just churches that call themselves of the Christian faith There are a lot of churches even that claim to be in the Christian faith who teach that the way you get to heavens by being a good person By your own works by your own efforts That is doctrines taught by demons That comes from demons who can influence the education of people what they believe and don't believe and then how they present it And so there are a lot of people even in churches that are in the the general realm of Christianity Who are influenced by demons This is dangerous stuff. This is really bad stuff So we have to understand Satan's pervasive influence Of indoctrinating people in false religion Or it could be just a religion that teaches human goodness and progress and the way that you Reach enlightenment is to help your fellow man, you know that kind of stuff Sounds great reads well on the evening news But it can be just a satanic as Isis It really can Because it it leads people to the same ultimate destination hell Just clothed in nice religious garb So Satan indoctrinated sin false religion But he also promotes attraction to falsehood on a more general level not just through religion But also through ingraining a false lifestyle or An unbiblical worldly lifestyle in people Quickly Paul addresses this in in Ephesians 2 As for you you were dead in your transgressions and sins in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world And of the ruler of the kingdom of the air Okay, again here's direct Satan satanic influence The spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient In other words those who live a lifestyle of disobedience to God's truth Our under the spirit of disobedience which comes straight Paul says from the ruler of the kingdom of the air one of the titles for Satan Okay He says all of us also lived among them at one time all of us believers before we were saved Live them among them at one time gratifying the cravings of our simple nature following its desires and thoughts like the rest we were by nature objects of wrath So Satan promotes this lifestyle a philosophy of this age of this world that is creature centered It's fleshly centered. It revolves around sinful pleasure material possessions and position Position popularity theme. Whatever you want to call it. That's the lust of the flesh lust of the eyes proud of life All that is in the world John says so that way of thinking and living keeps people at a distance from God It it keeps people from accepting the truth because there is a great attraction to this kind of lifestyle great attraction and pull to that that kind of lifestyle so Satan loves to promote anti-biblical values and and worldview and ways of living Okay That's how he's working in relationship to the unsafe on the one hand preventing the acceptance of truth blinding the minds hardening the hearts so that people don't receive the truth But at the same time as he's keeping them from from the truth He's pulling them toward sin pulling them toward false religion and an unbiblical lifestyle And so that's how Satan is at work Among unsafe people in our world today. He's at work among the nations and he's at work among the unsafe people now next week It really gets personal because we're going to talk about his work among believers and and we've got a bunch There eight major ways some of them with four or five sub thoughts That he's working among believers today, so it's going to get real personal Okay Let's pray Father we know that that Paul said To the Corinthians that he was not unaware of Satan's schemes and even Satan's attempt to disrupt your work in the church So Lord I pray that we would not be unaware of his schemes help us to have a biblical mindset That is informed shaped guided and controlled by your word So that we understand what's going on around us Help us to understand where all of this stuff we hear and the the seemingly radical and rapid changes in our culture help us to understand where all that's coming from That even when it is promoted by seemingly nice people um Ultimately it is coming from blinded hearts hardened hearts and blinded minds Who are being kept from the truth by Satan himself So help us not to be mistaken about who our enemy is Help us not to be mistaken about his powers craftiness his schemes And may we dress ourselves in your armor to protect ourselves against him In Jesus name we pray amen you