The Present Work of Satan (3)

And we've been in a study of angels, for those of you who have not been with us, I think this is our 24th study. So we've been in it for a while, but this study basically is started talking about good angels, and then we transitioned to Satan, the leader of the evil angels, and we will probably finish up what we're going to do, but we have talking about him tonight, and then start into a section of speaking about and talking about demons. It's been interesting to follow. I appreciate the way Jim chooses music to coordinate with what we're studying on Wednesday nights. You know, for the first part of our study, he did hymns that had angels in them, and we were singing about angels every Wednesday night. And then we turned the corner and started talking about Satan, and he's been finding the devil in the hymn book for a long time now, just all kinds of songs about the devil. They at least have references to Satan. What was the theme tonight? Did you pick out what Jim was doing tonight with the two songs? Go ahead. We'll have the victory over Satan. Both songs had to do with spiritual warfare, didn't they? Onward Christian soldiers, faith is the victory, spiritual warfare, and that's exactly what we'll be getting into tonight talking about the battle that we face personally with Satan. We've been talking about Satan's work in the world, what he does in this world, first of all, in relation to God. He opposes God's person. He's the opposite of everything that God is, lists God's characteristics and Satan is the exact opposite. And then he is the opponent of God's program as well. We talked about how he counterfeits God's system of truth and he counteracts God's sovereign rule. Then we talked about Satan's work in relation to the nations, deceiving the nations, influencing the governments of nations, and even in the tribulation time directing a world government of a combination of national entities. And then we talked last time about his relationship to the unsaved, his work in this world, in relationship to the unsaved, preventing the acceptance of truth, remember he snatches away the seed of the word before it can take fruit. He blinds the minds of unsaved people. He causes them to think the gospel is foolish and irrelevant. And then he promotes on the opposite side of that he prevents truth, but he promotes acceptance of falsehood by promoting false views about life and religion. So that's where we ended up last week. Tonight we're going to talk about Satan's work in relationship to believers. That's us. And so what is Satan doing in relationship to believers in general, let me say this in general, then we'll get to about eight specific things that the Bible says Satan does in his work in this world that relates to us in fighting us. But in general, let me say that it's clear that Satan seeks to defeat us and interfere with whatever God is doing both individually and corporately, as individual believers, but also as churches. So he attacks us individually, but he also attacks God's work, corporately. And so whatever God is doing through his church, Satan is seeking to counter. And so it's important for us to be aware of his strategies. Paul said this to the Corinthian church in 2 Corinthians 2 11 verses on the screen for you in order that Satan might not out with us, or we are not unaware of his schemes. Now we'll come back to that passage a little bit later when we talk about one of the ways Satan attacks the church. But just that statement at the end, Paul said we are not unaware of his schemes. Paul was aware of some of the ways that Satan seeks to attack the church. And we're going to talk about some of those ways tonight, some of the ways he attacks individual believers and us as the body of Christ. Okay, you're ready? Number one, Satan attacks us through waging warfare against us. And that's what Jim was leading the music about a little bit earlier. Let's open our Bibles, please, to Ephesians chapter 6. Ephesians chapter 6. Satan wages warfare against us as believers, which means he fights. He fights battles against us constantly seeking to defeat us, to interfere with our spiritual progress. And so Ephesians 6, Paul talks about the kind of armor that we need to put on to be able to withstand his attacks. And what we're going to do for just a few minutes is we're going to look at the different pieces of armor because if you understand the kind of armor that Paul said we need to withstand his attacks, then that also gives us a clue as to what kind of a tax we're going to face. If he says, okay, this is the armor you're used, then you kind of know where the attacks coming from. So let's look at the pieces of armor and we'll see some of the schemes of Satan, some of the strategies he uses. Verse 10, Paul introduces this whole section by saying, finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. So these particular pieces of armor are designed to protect us against the various strategies and schemes of Satan. Verse 12, for our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil and the heavenly realms. Therefore, put on the full armor of God so that when the day of evil comes you may be able to stand your ground and after you've done everything to stand. Notice the armor is primarily defensive. There's one offensive weapon, but primarily defensive. It's designed to help us withstand attacks because Satan is always attacking. He's always on the offensive. And so we are to be standing. You see, it's not our main purpose in life to go looking for Satan so we can fight him everywhere. Our main purpose is to spread the gospel and to win people to Christ and build up believers. But all the time we're doing that, Satan's going to be attacking us. So we have this armor to protect us from that attack. Now what Paul does is really ingenious. He takes pieces of armor that everyone in Ephesus would have been familiar with when they saw Roman soldiers. Because these are the kinds of armor that Roman soldiers wore. And so he takes that armor and uses it to identify areas of attack. Areas where we get attacked. So each piece of armor is not designed. We're not supposed to go by armor, literal armor or make armor. Each piece of armor is a kind of a picture of the way Satan attacks us and the way we are to defend ourselves. Let's look at them quickly. Verse 14, stand firm then with the belt of truth buckled around your waist. Okay, the belt of truth. That was a belt that Roman soldiers would wear basically to do what? You remember from your studies what that belt would accomplish. Pardon me? Anchors the other armor together. Okay, can I help tie all the armor together and maybe even hold some things? Yes, what else what else would the belt do for Roman soldier? Okay. Do you remember the biblical expression? Girding up the loins of your mind that Peter uses. Okay, that's another figure of speech that comes from Roman armor actually. And not just armor but actually the way that men dressed in that day to be able to have flexibility of movement and freedom of movement, they needed to be able to pull up the long flowing garments they used, the robes, these and tuck them into a belt. Gird up the loins of your mind basically was to pull together the loose ends of your mind and get them under control. Okay, for both the soldier and for men who were working in that day, they wore long robe type of garments or tunics. And so in order to have freedom of movement, they needed to be able to tuck that into a belt. And so that would enable them to be able to move freely without any hindrance. Okay, so the belt that we have is the belt of truth or truthfulness, honesty, integrity. Okay, do you get the word picture now then? If we live with truthfulness, honesty and integrity, what that does is it keeps all the loose ends of our lives kind of tucked in so that we're free to move so that we're not getting tangled up. If you are a dishonest person or a person who lacks integrity, then you're going to be tripping all the time. You're not going to be able to have freedom of movement to be able to withstand the attacks of the enemy. Freedom of movement in the Christian life, the ability to walk this Christian life without getting all tangled up and fall and tripping is by honesty and integrity and truthfulness. So the belt represents honesty and integrity, truthfulness, the belt of truth. And that's a great protection against Satan. He's not going to be able to trip you up as much if you're walking in honesty and integrity and your personal character. Okay, look at the next one. The belt of truth. And then he says, with the breastplate of righteousness in place. Now what did a breastplate do? Can you imagine what that would do for a Roman soldier? Protect your vital organs, right? Yeah, the heart, the lungs, whatever other organs are under there. I don't know where all those organs are, but there's some under there like the heart and the lungs. I know those are pretty important. And so you protect those. But that's the idea of protecting vital organs, particularly the heart from attack. So the breastplate of righteousness, our breastplate, the protection of our hearts is righteousness, godly living. And so basically what he's saying is from the inside out, from the heart, live a righteous lifestyle and that will protect your heart. Okay, guard your heart. The book of Proverbs says, Proverbs 4, 23, guard your heart because it is the wellspring of life out of it or all the issues of life. Everything flows from that. So we've got to guard our hearts. The way we guard our hearts to keep them from being attracted to the things of this world is through a mindset of a lifestyle, a heart pursuit of righteousness. Okay, hunger and thirst for righteousness, Jesus said. That's the appetite that we're to have. Okay, so there's the breastplate of righteousness. And then he says verse 15, with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. Now Roman soldiers had boots or or cleated sandals that they would wear. If they were boots or sandals, they always had kind of cleats on them. Now what do you think that would do to help a soldier in battle? Keeping from slipping, wouldn't it? It would provide some stability and traction and ability to kind of dig in and hold your ground. Okay, what's the what's the tie to the gospel of peace? What does that do for us? Help us stand against Satan? Okay. How does the gospel of peace help us stand against Satan? What's the connection here? We're not as easily knocked down by his lies. Okay. Yes. We know the ending. Okay. Yes. We certainly do. And all of that is tied into the gospel. When when you hear the gospel and accept the gospel and believe the gospel, which is the death, burial, resurrection of Christ, what does that do to you? That saves you, right? You get saved. You're right with God. Okay. It gives you peace. The gospel of peace, I think I think part of what Paul's getting at here with the idea of the stability and the firmness is that the gospel of peace gives us a firm foundation. That firm foundation is the assurance of our salvation. The gospel that brings us peace, that puts our hearts at rest. You see, that gospel is that that gives us the sure footing, the firm foundation of the assurance that we are truly saved, that we have received the gospel and thus we have peace with God. I think that's part of it. I also think there's a little bit to be said here for taking the gospel with us wherever we go. Being sensitive to as we walk through this life, taking the gospel with us is a very important part of when we're alert to spiritual opportunities, that's another way to do battle against Satan, isn't it? So the gospel, she's the gospel of peace, the boots are she's the gospel of peace. We need to move on. Verse 16. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Now this is pretty vivid, isn't it? You can see the picture here, get the idea, what would a shield do for Roman soldier? Okay. Exactly. Protect from any of the offensive weapons of the enemy, particularly here he mentions the darts or arrows depending on your translation. And the idea probably is the flaming arrows. Most Roman shields were covered with a wet animal hide or something like that, which would then blunt the impact even of five or six arrows. That even of a fiery dart that would have been dipped in picture tar and set on fire. So the wood would absorb the arrow and the fire would be put out by the wet animal skin. So it was a kind of a two-prong defensive weapon. But any kind of offensive thrust could be blunted by the shield and our shield is faith. It's the shield of faith. So what's the connection here? How does faith help us against the devil? Exactly. One of his most familiar and common attacks is the attack of doubt. And so we respond to that by faith. We trust God. We trust His word. We trust His way. We trust His will. All of that we trust Him. And when we trust Him, that blunts those attacks by Satan. What are some other darts? He fires at us. Guilt. Yes. Guilt. What else? Temptation. Yeah. We're going to see in a little bit. I don't know if we're going to get this far tonight. We're going to see several ways that Satan tempts us. At least seven or eight different ways that he tempts us. So those are flaming arrows for sure. And they can do a lot of damage. But when we trust that God's way is best, that God's word knows. He knows from His word. We're told He knows exactly the way we should go and obedience to His word is always the best way. When we trust that, see we're responding in faith and we're resisting temptation. Okay. So I think we have the idea there. Look at the next one. Take the helmet of salvation. Now what would a helmet do for Roman soldier? Protect the head. Yeah. That's pretty obvious. Isn't it? Okay. So what's the connection here? What are we? What are we trying to protect with a helmet? And how does a helmet protect that thoughts? Okay. What else? Our minds in general, right? So whether it's thoughts or motives or imaginations or longings desires, all of those things that come from our thoughts. We're protecting our thoughts. We're bringing as Paul said in second Corinthians 10, we're bringing every thought into captivity to Christ. Okay. So the helmet of salvation. What do you think? Okay. The helmet protects our thoughts. What is it about salvation that protects our thought life? Renewing of the mind. Yeah. And I think I heard the word over here, which those two are wedded together. The our mind is renewed through the word to renew the mind means that we learn to think differently. We rather than thinking the ways of this world or the way the enemy wants us to think, we're learning to think so that we respond the way God wants us to think. Our mind is saturated with his word. So his word renews our mind. Now that's only possible if we are believers, right? If we are saved. So really what Paul is telling us we need to do, think like a child of God. You're saved. Now think like a child of God. Your mind has been saved just like the rest of you has. Your soul. Your mind is a part of your soul. Your inner being that has been saved, made new. Now keep it renewed in the word. Think like a believer. Okay, that's how you protect your thought life with salvation. Okay. The helmet of salvation. And the last one is the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. All the other parts of the armor are defensive in nature in the sense that they protect from attacks and onslaught. This is the one that is offensive that we strike back with. It's obvious. He tells us what it is. The sword is the word of God. So what does that mean for us? How do we how do we attack with the word? What does that mean? Great example, Bill. When when Jesus was tempted by Satan, three temptations, and we've looked at those before, remember there are the three basic foundational pillars of the world system that Satan threw against Christ. Every time Jesus responded with the word, didn't he? Every time he quoted from the book of Deuteronomy, all three times. So what he was doing was he was not only fending off the attacks of Satan, he was striking back. The way you strike back at Satan is to use the Bible to use the word of God. So again, another good reason to have our minds saturated with the word so that we can actually use the word of God to strike back. So we defend ourselves and then we say, okay, now Satan, the Bible says this. So I'm not going to go your way. I'm going to trust God's word. Yeah, Tommy. Yes, good. Good example. Yeah, I think most of us have been there, haven't we? Where Satan attacked us at some point in our lives and we were able to respond with a promise of God from his word that kind of put that matter to rest? Good illustration. Yes, after Jesus attacked him with the word, the Bible says Satan left him for a season for a little while. He's going to try again. You can be assured of that. Okay, so really I wanted to spend a little time here, maybe not quite as much time as we did, but that's okay. It was worthwhile. Because I think the armor and what we're being taught here is critical. It is key to understanding how to stand against Satan. That's the reason Paul spends nine verses on this in a relatively short book is because this is a key spiritual warfare principle. And not just because it's a nice little picture of a Roman soldier, it's because he's identifying the ways Satan attacks us. He attacks us in these different areas through our thought life, the desires of our hearts, through integrity and honesty, through the firm foundation of the assurance of our salvation or the willingness to spread the gospel. He attacks us in the area of faith and the attacks us in our responsibility to use the word of God. Those are the different areas of attack. And that's why that that the armor is so important. Okay, so that's number one, waging warfare, Satan wages warfare against us. And that's why we have the armor. Any other question or comment before we move on to the second way, Satan works against us as believers. Yeah. He's going to be in trouble, isn't he? He's defenseless, really. Yeah. Yeah. Don't go out with that, your armor. Good, good, good thing. You know, the great thing too. We didn't really look at this, but in the very next verse in verse 18 and 19, Paul talks about prayer. And that has often been called the dressing room where we put on the armor. If you're going to, if you're going to go out to face Satan to do a days battle, the way you put on the armor is in prayer. So it's a good reason to start the day with some time with the Lord. Yeah, you know, that's a great question, Gina. I think there are a couple ways to look at that. Satan has always been active. And it's not like he started out real slow and he's kind of picked it up. He's always been active and he's always done everything he could to try to defeat God's God's people and God's work. And people, even in Bible times, faced some really amazing temptations. If you read and understand like what the city of Rome was like or what the city of Corinth was like, they were really bad places of debauchery and just awful sin. Those are hard for believers back then too. But on the flip side of that, the Bible does say that in the last in the last days, perilous times will come. And second Timothy three evil will increase more and more and more. And so I do think there is an escalation of his efforts and effectiveness to capture the minds of the world. And to marshal all of that against believers. And I think we're seeing that rapidly escalate in our day. You know what and what would be easy to spend some time on this. But what what used to be the common values of our society are now under attack on every front. And it's like what used to be accepted as good moral values is now seen as well. You're big. It's your intolerant. You don't you're not accepting of everybody. And so now we're being our values are being pushed out to the margins. And it's it's it happened this week in Georgia. And it's happening today in North Carolina where the attorney general said, I will not enforce the law that the legislature passed. I will not fight for this this law. Anybody wants to come in and sue us fair game. It's basically what he said. So our our value system I think is under increasing attack. And so we're being pushed aside as well you're just discriminators. And we're shaking our head saying, no, we don't believe that. We don't feel that way at all. But we do stand for biblical truth. And that stand for biblical truth being further and further pushed out to the edges. David. Good good counterbalance. That's a good counterbalance to make sure that we don't let the media overwhelm us with such bad news that we despair. You know, let's remember the end of the book. Let's remember who wins. Let's remember what God's power is like. That's good counterbalance. David, thanks. It is easy to read all the news and get very frustrated and almost despair. And that's not what God wants us to do. We're to occupy till it comes where to shine our light boldly and strongly in this this culture. So very good. Okay, we got a couple of other hands. Carolyn. Yeah. Exactly. God has said it would get worse than it is. And so it's all part of his plan to bring history to its consummation. And we know what that consummation is going to be. It's going to be his glorious kingdom. So we've got a lot to look forward to. Another thing that we need to be careful about is there's always been evil in this world. Going back to Gene's question, there's always been incredible evil. It's just that today the information is so much more readily available about what's happening all across the world that it seems overwhelming to us. And it may appear to us that it's so much worse than it ever has been when you know just a hundred years ago people lived in their communities and didn't know what was going on in the next state much less around the world. So that's part of it. That's part of why things seem so much worse is because we know so much more we have ready access to the information and that's part of it. Okay. Ready to move on. All right. Let's let's do the second one. Part of what Satan does in relation to believers is accusing and slandering. Revelation 12, we've looked at this verse before. Then I heard a loud voice in heaven saying now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Messiah for the accuser of our brothers and sisters who accuses them before our God day and night has been hurled down. Now somebody remind me what's the timing of this event we've looked at it several times in rev 12. What's the timing of it? When does it happen right in the middle of the tribulation exactly exactly we've looked at this before that whole chapter that describes an event that takes place in the middle of the tribulation where Satan is cast out of heaven for good. You know he has already been cast out when he sinned of his position around the throne of God as the anointed cherub. Okay remember we saw that but he still has access into heaven to accuse us and this passage says that he's accusing believers day and night. So this is going on all the time. What is he accusing us of sin anything okay anything he can clear up right he's got a lot of material work with though right. He's accusing us of sin no question and in the middle of tribulation he's going to be cast out for where he doesn't do that anymore that's when he takes out his wrath the revelation 12 says on Israel and other believers in the tribulation time just interestingly enough that coincides with the anacryce going into the temple to proclaim himself God at the same time. So I've always been convinced that the anacryce is actually indwelt by Satan this time when he's cast out of heaven he indwells the anacryce that motivates him to extreme persecution of Israel and and believers in the tribulation time the last half of the trip. But you know Satan not only accuses us before God where else does he accuses her own flesh her own mind other thoughts other people okay. I mean he has lots of ways to accuse us right I mean read read Psalm 31 and others that talk about David talking about the words of the wicked that were used by the enemy to torment him Satan sometimes does use other people to accuse us to attack us in that way. But he may use our own thoughts our own doubts our own guilt our own self accusations to keep us defeated okay so he may accuse us in that way too David yes yeah that's true it's another reason why it's so important that we know God's word and we know it well so that Satan does not twist it and try to use it to even defeat us and accuse us he actually tried that with Jesus didn't he Satan actually quoted in the second temptation from Psalm 91 about go ahead and cast yourself down and the angels will bear you up well that's what Psalm 91 says they will do so he tried to twist God's word okay yes okay good good question Satan doesn't know our thoughts so how does he control our thoughts and I think it is important to understand that let's start with your first statement Satan does not know our thoughts I think that's true because that seems to be the realm of omniscience of course you know Psalm 139 God knows our thoughts even before we think them God knows everything we think Satan I don't I don't believe he does I think you're right about that because that would put him in the category of omniscience however Satan has a lot more experience than you and I do and he's watched the way people think and the way they act on those thoughts for millennia so he has a pretty good guess of how we're going to do it he does not know exactly but he has a pretty good guess because he's watched human behavior for thousands of years at least 6000 maybe a few more he's watched human behavior so he kind of knows how we think typically but we're actually going to get to this a little bit later one of the ways he tempts us it is clear that Satan can influence us to think in a certain way he can he can in a sense through various circumstances or whatever kind of drop thoughts in our mind can you think of an example of that in the New Testament where Satan caused someone to think a certain way Judas Satan filled his heart to do who else in a nice and safara yeah why I've satan filled your heart to ligand so Holy spirit I'm still thinking of someone else and he got rebuked for it Peter yes yes when Jesus says in Matthew 16 he's describing that he's going to go to the Jerusalem he's going to be arrested beaten and killed and Peter says not so Lord it will never happen to you and and what did Jesus say to him get the behind me Satan he wasn't calling Peter Satan he was saying Satan has used you to say that or he has placed that thought in your mind he goes right on to say for you are not thinking the thoughts of God but the thoughts of men so Satan kind of motivated him to think that so that's one of the ways Satan can can work in our minds but I don't think he knows our thoughts in the same sense that God does well yeah yeah and it was all through an accusation wasn't it remember what he accused Joe above before God what did he accuse Joe above I'm hearing so much I can't untangle the what I'm sure everything you said he accused him of yeah that's right let's try it again what was it his faith wasn't strong enough okay it was part of it okay all right what did God's or what is Satan say to God okay he serves you because you take such good care of him if you take some of that stuff away he wants to so that's an accusation of what impure motives he accused Joe of impure motives Joe is only serving you because of what he gets out of it you take those things away he won't serve you that was an accusation against Joe and it was an accusation to God of impure motives on Joe's part and so God allowed Satan to take a lot of things away from him and prove to Satan that Joe would still serve him okay so he does accuse and slander us yeah that's Bill that's a good question I don't really know I don't know whether Satan really believed that or whether Satan was just wanting to mess with Joe I don't know Barry yes yeah that's a good point this this our sinful nature is the root of a lot of our problem so it's not like Satan has to do it all he's got he's got some stuff there to work with you know and and and sometimes Satan can kind of just sit back and say man they're doing a good job messing up on their own they don't need me and and that's because of our sinful nature yeah so we can't blame Satan for everything yeah yeah let him think of these stand take key lestie fall first Corinthians 10 12 is very true in that regard okay slander accuse by the way one other thing that we need to recognize in this whole realm of Satan accusing and slandering is that we have a defense attorney don't we when Satan is the prosecuting attorney in heaven and accuses us look at these verses in first John 2 wonderful verses my dear children I write this to you so that you will not sin all of God's commands are written to protect us from sin but if anyone does sin and there's the inescapable reality we are going to send we are going to be disobedient it's not a it's not an escape or it's not an excuse but it is reality so he says if anyone sends we have an advocate with the father advocate means one who takes up our case one who is an advocate for us one who is really in a sense of the fence attorney in courtroom setting okay we have an advocate with the father Jesus Christ the righteous how can he be an ad why does he take our defense well he's the atoning sacrifice for our sins that's why and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world so he has died to pay for our sins so when Satan accuses us before the father of sin and no doubt once the father to follow through on that since John King is such a terrible sinner he doesn't deserve to be in your book he doesn't deserve to be in your place in heaven he deserves to be with me letting go let me having Jesus Christ is our defense attorney and it's not that he has to convince the father of this but in a legal sense he presents the fact that he has died for us pay for our sins Satan has no claim on us so that's that's the way he is that's the beautiful truth of this whole thing that even though Satan does a lot of accusing you know he's never won a case never has won a case because of our advocate okay any other question or comment there but we're not going to get to the next one so we'll just wrap up with any comments you have or questions David yeah that's a good good thing to remember that Satan does not have immunity to do whatever he wants to do he he has a certain amount of freedom but God is absolutely in control and Satan can only do as much as God will allow him to do and whatever Satan does to destroy and so forth is ultimately going to be covered under the broader umbrella of God's sovereign purpose for this world same thing is true of our lives so that's important to remember it's a good good way to end on that positive note of God sovereign control over all things let's pray Father thank you for the fact that we know that regardless of what Satan does you are in control and as Joseph said to his brothers you minute to me for evil but God minute for good so we thank you father that you counter everything that Satan does in this world in the beer picture you are still in control we thank you that we can rest sure to that and trust you not only individually and personally but corporately for the church and you work around the world that you will continue to do as you determine to do as you decide to do thank you for that Lord may we be aware of the schemes and attacks of our enemy may we understand better the ways in which he seeks to undo us and may we defend ourselves appropriately with your armor in Jesus name amen