Satan His Personality & Power

Well, this morning we're looking at, this actually is kind of the middle chapter on angels, if you think about it. We looked at the angels last week, and so the next two weeks we're going to look at Satan, basically, his personality and power, and how it's going to take Satan, his work and destiny. So actually, today we're going to look at, and I just have this, A little pictorial here. It's not a very fancy one, but there's really two parts of what we're going to talk about today. And actually, that's kind of subdivided.

In terms of his personality, we're going to look at actually his creation, what scripture has to say about Satan's creation. And it's actually more than you might think. You know, it's funny when you think, well, it isn't very much on the creation of Satan. But there actually is an important passage we'll look at Ezekiel, they'll tell us a lot about the creation of Satan. And he's a person, and he has a personality. We're going to look at his personality. And I want to contrast his personality with the Lord Jesus. As I was thinking through this, I was thinking, and we have kind of a definition, what is personality?

We'll look at that a little bit. And then we're going to look at his power, the power of Satan. Along with that, we're going to look, and I think it's important that we see, where does a believer stand in terms of Satan's power? What's our relationship to the power of Satan? We're going to cover that, and the fact that he's been judged, and the victory that we have over Satan. So that's kind of the two divisions that we're going to look at this morning.

Okay. So can we turn to Ezekiel? Ezekiel chapter 28. And I would say if you haven't, if you really haven't spent time in this chapter before, I'd really commend it to you. I think it's, it's one of these chapters in scripture that is, I think it's really important in terms of, of understanding who Satan is and what he's done. Actually, I'd like to have you folks help me read this. So I'd like to start and read the first 19 verses.

I only have 12 through 15 kind of laid out here for us, but I think it's kind of important to look at the chapter and try to get a feel for what's being said here in chapter 28 of Ezekiel. So I don't know, if we could, if someone would like to take five verses and we'll just go around. The first five verses in Ezekiel.

The word of the Lord came again unto me, saying, Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyrus, Thus saith the Lord God, Because thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said, I am a God, I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas. Yet thou art a man, and not God, though thou saidest thine heart as the heart of God. Behold, thou art wiser than Daniel, There is no secret that they can hide from thee. With thy wisdom and with thy understanding thou hast gotten thee riches and hast gotten gold and silver and thy treasures. By thy great wisdom and by thy great traffic thou hast increased thy riches and thy heart is lifted up because of thine riches.

Therefore, thus says the Lord God, because you have made your heart like the heart of Therefore, behold, I will bring strangers upon you, the most ruthless of the nations, and they will draw their swords against the beauty of your wisdom and defile your splendor. They will bring you down to the pit, and you will die the death of those who are slain in the heart of the seas. Will you still say, I am a God, in the presence of your slayer, though you are a man and not God, in the hands of those who wound you? You will die the death of the uncircumcised by the hand of strangers. For I have spoken, declares the Lord God. The word of the Lord came to me. Son of man, take a lament concerning the king of Tyre and say to him, this is what the sovereign Lord says. You were the model of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God. Every precious stone adored you, ruby, topaz, emerald. You were on the holy mount of God who walked among the fiery stones. You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created until wickedness was found in you. By the abundance of your trade, you were internally filled with violence.

And you sinned, therefore I have cast you as profane from the mountain of God, and I have destroyed you. Oh, covering the cherub in the midst of the stones of fire, your heart was lifted up because of your duty. You corrupted your wisdom by reason of your splendor. I cast you to the ground. I put you before kings, that they may see you. By the multitudes of your iniquities and the unrighteousness of your trade, you profane your Therefore I have brought fire from the midst of you. It has consumed you, and I have turned you to ashes on earth. In the eyes of all who see you, all who know you among the people, You have become terrified and you will cease to be forever.

Okay, that's fine. That's great. That's the first 19 verses. Okay, I have a question. You'll notice in here, if you look carefully, in the first 10 verses, it talks about this person called the leader of Tyre. I think King James has it, the prince of Tyre or the ruler of Tyre. And then starting in verse 11, it starts talking about someone called the King of Tyre. And I actually have already kind of given part of it away here. But who would you say who do you think that the Prince of Tyre might be? And it's not an easy question. I mean, I just right. Go ahead. Excellent, Ryan. Excellent. And I don't know. That's there. There are those who believe that. Now, you know, I'm not going to say that's absolutely guaranteed. But I think that if you look at the context here, You know, it's interesting.

You look at the context of the first ten verses, the first ten verses here, and you'll see that here's a person, and it keeps saying that you're a man and not God. You're a man and not God. Look at verse two. It says here that, about the middle, it says, Because your heart is lifted up, you have said, I am a God. I sit in the seat of God in your heart. in the heart of the seas, yet you are a man, not God, although you make your heart like the heart of God." And that idea is repeated.

And it seems to me like that, you know, if you look at the second half, 11 through 19, you know, we see this person called the King of Tyre, and, you know, you go through and you read a description, and that's not the description of an earthly person. It's a person that was in a unique place that was... So the contrast between the king of Tyre and this prince or leader of Tyre, it seems kind of fits if you look at the end times when you see Satan and you see the Antichrist or the first beast. So I think it's interesting. This prince or leader of Tyre says the same kind of things that Satan says. His heart is lifted up. He has pride in it. But the Lord keeps telling him, you're a man and not God, you're a man and not God.

So I think that's really interesting in that. And I, you know, there are other thoughts, I'm not, you know, going to say I'm going to die for that, but I think that's a strong indication that that's a picture of the Antichrist or the first beast. So what I'd like to do is kind of go through and look at, kind of focus on what I have here on the chart and look at this description of And it's incredible what Satan had before, it says, unrighteousness was found in you.

And it said you had the seal of perfection. And that's kind of the idea of completeness. It said he was full of wisdom, perfect in beauty. And then it comes down to the statement you were in Eden, the garden of God. And it seems to me, I look at that and I notice the author, he mentions about some primeval garden. I don't know, I struggle with that a little bit. It looks to me, reading that, that he's talking about the Garden of Eden and creation times. I don't know. There are a lot of ideas out there about the first couple of verses of Genesis and I'm not sure I'm prepared to either talk about that.

But anyway, I'm just taking that It says, you were in Eden, the garden of God. And it talks about, and every precious stone was your covering. And it goes through this long list of these stones or coverings. And they're just beautiful. The ruby, the topaz, the diamond, beryl, the onyx, the jasper. I mean, incredibly, incredibly beautiful.

And then it says, on the day that you were created, they were prepared. So, when Satan was created, all these wonderful coverings were created for him. And actually that word, I think it's good to note that word created, it's the same word, it's that B-R-A, B-A-R-A, it's the same word that's in Genesis. The first chapter of Genesis occurs three times. In the beginning God created, it's the same word. And see, I did it to bring into existence. So God brought into existence, Satan was brought into existence and covered with these wonderful stones.

A beautiful creation. And then it goes on to say, you were an anointed cherub. Remember last week we looked at the cherubims? You know, they're the winged angels that have their wings outspread. And it says, who covers. And that's the idea that, who guards. That could be another translation. He's guarding or he's... It seems that one of his duties was to guard, to guard over God's holiness.

So he was created for that purpose. You were the anointed cherub who covers. And it says, I placed you there. God placed you. That was where Satan was to be. That was his appointed place. And then it kind of goes on. It says, you were blameless. And if you look, that word is morally whole. Faultless. From the day you were created.

And then at a point, it says, until unrighteousness was found in you. So at a point, unrighteousness was found in Satan. And there's a similar picture between the creation of man and the creation of Satan. Man was created perfect, and then at a point in time, his true nature was revealed, or his true aspect was revealed. And it's a little bit tough, and I claim I totally understand it, I'll be honest with you. You say, well, did he have this hiding somewhere? I don't know, I'd appreciate any other thoughts on that. I struggle with that.

But basically, Satan chose to go his own way, and we're going to see that in a little bit. We're going to see how he chose, how he wanted to exalt himself over God. His desire was to be above God, and we're going to see that in the Isaiah passage. But this description here, I think, really shows you what God had planned for Satan, how he was a beautiful creation, how God's plan was for him to be a cherub, an anointed cherub, placed exactly where God wanted him to be.

And if you go on in that passage, you know, there's a little, you know, it says that he was internally filled, if you go down to verse 16, it kind of gives some more aspects of that. It says, by the abundance of your trade, you were internally filled with violence and you sinned. So they came to a point when he sinned. And it says, I have cast you. I have cast you as profane from the mountain of God. I have destroyed you, O covering cherub. And it says, in 17 it says, your heart was lifted up because of your beauty. So it seemed like basically that Satan, he was created so beautifully that he, that was the, you know, a primary aspect in why he sinned. He was enthralled with himself.

So what I want to do next is, this is the creation of Satan. I want to kind of move on to looking more at his personality. We're going to come back to many of these same aspects of Satan's character, maybe from a little bit different perspective. Any other thoughts about his creation? I'm not claiming this is, you know... I think the Lord has laid it out. I think there's maybe some question marks there about, you know, he's created, it seems like, You were blameless in all your ways on the day of your creation. And then at a point in time, He chose His own way.

I thought it would be good just to talk about Satan's personality to kind of define what personality is. And I kind of looked at Webster and I kind of paraphrased a couple of definitions in Webster. The first definition was the quality of being a person. That wasn't real helpful so I decided to put that one down. This is the second and third one. So it says the condition or facts relating to a particular person. That's the second definition for personality. the characteristics that distinguish an individual.

So as I started looking at this, I started thinking about, well, we're going to go in and we're going to look at Satan's personality, who he is, what scripture has to say about the personality of Satan. And I said, well, you know, it might be well to kind of think about, kind of contrast that with the Lord Jesus Christ.

And I was going to ask if someone, this is a formal question, is there a particular passage in scripture you think that describes the personality of the Lord Jesus that comes to mind? There probably are many. There's one that occurred to me, and I want to read that, but I just was curious. Is there a passage in Scripture that speaks to you about His personality, His characteristics that distinguish Him? Facts relating to that particular Lord Jesus? Is there a passage that you can think about? And there are probably more than one.

I don't know where it's at, but isn't there one that says he was without blemish in Psalms or something? Okay, okay. Like Isaiah. He was... You're thinking about Isaiah 53, maybe? That more talks about his suffering, maybe. You're kind of hitting at the fact that he's blameless, pure, that kind of idea. Okay, that's good.

I mean, this could be approached in many ways. Pick a one that I thought of, and it's not my thought. It's not my thought. It was shown to me or I heard it from someone else. And it's been mentioned, I think it's been mentioned before here, so it'll be familiar. Go ahead. The one that comes to my mind is when you were a teenager, they were in Jerusalem. Okay. Didn't you know I would be at my father's house? Okay, that's great. I think really, I mean, this could be a really large, you know, Other ones you can think of? Okay. Okay. Right. Okay. That's good. That's excellent. Okay. Good.

Well, the one I thought about, and this is not mine, and can we turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 13? And what I'd like to do here is read, and if you think about this, and if you think about the fact that God is love, that His very nature is love, and I think you could read a portion here that in the text speaks about love, but you can replace that with Christ or with the Lord Jesus. So I'd like just to read, and like I said, this is not mine, but I think it's just, it's always, It just really astounded me when you read it this way. So let's start in verse 4 of 1 Corinthians 13. And where love is, I'm going to put Christ.

Christ is patient. Christ is kind. And is not jealous. Christ does not brag. And is not arrogant. Does not act unbecomingly. That's a little bit hard. Christ does not seek his own. Is not provoked. Does not take into account a wrong suffered. does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things, Christ never fails, and so on.

So anyway, I thought, you know, if you look at that, these very characteristics of love, which are from God, are characteristics, I think, of our Savior. And I think that just, that just, and it's, you know, it's a total antithesis I can't say that word, but of Satan. It's diametrically opposed to what we're going to see about Satan.

So let's go ahead and start looking at the first set here. Look about the pride. And we turn to Isaiah 14. And this is the second passage I think that I commend to you in terms of studying about Satan, in Isaiah 14. And starting in verse 12, it says, How you have fallen from heaven, O star of the morning, sun of the dawn, you have been cut down to the earth, you have weakened the nations, but you set in your heart. And then I have listed here.

So this is what Satan has set in his heart. And if you look at all of these, these are all exalting Satan over God. I will ascend to heaven. He's not satisfied with where God placed him. He wants to ascend to heaven. And not only that, I will raise my throne above the stars of God. I will sit on the mount of the assembly. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will make myself like the Most High.

So in those five statements, his true personality is revealed, that he wants to be above God, he wants to be like God. Like the Mount of the Assembly, that's kind of the place where the divine seat of God. The clouds sometimes are looked at as could be the glory of God. He wants to ascend above God's glory. And he says, I want to make myself like the Most High. If you think about that one, that's an interesting one.

Do you remember what did Satan offer? What did he tell Eve? Didn't he tell Eve the very same thing? He said, let's look at Genesis, Genesis chapter 3. Didn't he tell Eve a very similar thing? It kind of struck me that this is one of his desires. And then he comes to Eve and tells Eve the same thing. He says, you know what?

You can be like God. In Genesis chapter 3, in verse 5 it says, let's go back to 4, it says, And the serpent said to the woman, You surely shall not die, for God knows that in the day that you eat from it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. So the same thing that is talked about in Isaiah, I will make myself like the Most High, he said, Eve, you can be like the Most High. So that mindset in Satan pervaded his thinking.

All right, let's go on to the next. So Pride was the first one. Conceit is the next one. And this is a very interesting one. You know, what I found in going through this, I found there's just some words that just really, the word pictures are just kind of really outstanding. And this is one that's in 1 Timothy. And let's look at 1 Timothy, 1 Timothy chapter 3. All right, 1 Timothy chapter 3.

And this is talking about, in this context here, it's talking about overseers and deacons and qualifications for that. And it talks about, in verse 6, it says, And not a new convert, lest he become conceited and fallen to the condemnation incurred by the devil.

And that word conceded is really an interesting word. It has the idea, have you folks, I don't know, at work, at my job many times, you know, in engineering environment, we'll have people come in and they'll give real great presentations about what their product can do.

My product can solve all your problems. You see that commercial where this guy has this little widget that does everything, it connects everything to everything. It's on the football games, and it drives you crazy after a while. But anyway, this widget will connect everything to everything. It's IBM, and it doesn't exist.

So people will say, well, that guy does it with smoke and mirrors, right? I mean, is that an expression that you guys have heard? Maybe that's only me and Hal and a few others. It's meaning that it's a sham. He's made it look so wonderful, but it's really nothing.

Well, this word, this root word, conceit, is from the idea of smoke or mist. And it's like a smokescreen of pride. It was one rendering from one author. That this conceit that was in Satan's heart was a smokescreen for what he really was. And we're going to see later on that he appears as an angel of light. But it's a smokescreen for what his true intent is.

So I thought that was really interesting. And this is a warning to elders and to deacons that conceit maybe a smokescreen in terms of being young in the faith. I'm not sure if I'm exactly right, but anyway. So I was trying to connect that with a characteristic or a quality of Satan, basically. This idea of having this smokescreen of pride or his mind blinded by his pride.

So that's that one. And then the next one is craftiness, craftiness and deception. And back in Genesis again, it says, and you'll have to turn it this time, it says the certain was more crafty than any beast of the field. And this idea of crafty is the idea of cunning, sly, and the root word is smooth.

I don't know, after reading this smokescreen, it's almost, boy, I don't know, being around this guy. I don't know whether you've, I'm sure we all have it. Some people, you know, they come in and at first impression sometimes you just, I don't know, you feel uncomfortable with them because they seem to have a smoothness or it seems unreal, unrealistic. Well, this seems to be the characteristic that Satan has.

He was more crafty. than any beast of the field. Animals can be crafty in a sense, but a human can be much more crafty. And if you think about, he was crafty in the questions that he asked. In the question that he asked, the Lord said, you can eat from any tree of the garden. Any tree you can eat, except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. What does Satan do? He says, you can't eat from any tree. He used the same word, any, but he used it flipped around. You can't eat from any tree. Interesting how he's smooth, sly, subtle. And then actually in verses, let's see, I kind of jumped ahead here a little bit. No, I didn't. Okay.

In 2 Corinthians. 2 Corinthians chapter 11. Let's look at that. 2 Corinthians chapter 11. 2 Corinthians chapter 11, and in verse 3 it says, and this is Paul talking about it, he says, But I am afraid, lest, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your mind should be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ. And here's another word that is really interesting, this idea of Okay, a little bit ahead of myself here. Okay, let's go on to 14 and 15. If you jump in the same chapter, 2 Corinthians 11 and 14 and 15, it says, Let's go back to 13.

It says, For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Therefore it is not surprising if his servants, who also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness, whose ends shall be according to their deeds. So these two things here, disguising, or actually it's masquerading, They masquerade himself as an angel of light, or garments of light, garbs of light.

It's kind of like the idea that the fashion is set by Satan. The trend in the fashion of deception is set by Satan, and these ones who follow him have the same trappings, if you will. And then in Revelation 12, we don't have to turn to that one, 12.9, it's basically that It says, who deceives the whole world. It speaks about that, that Satan deceives the whole world. So we see that craftiness and deception are part of who Satan is, part of his personality.

His pride, his conceit, with the idea of the smoke screen, the craftiness, the cunningness, the subtleness, the smoothness. and then the deception, his deception in terms of disguising or masquerading himself as an angel of light. Now, a couple of these, I just, you know, in thinking about his personality, I think some of his personality is disclosed in his conversations that he had or dialogues he had with Jehovah, the Lord, in heaven. And then the dialogue he had with the Lord Jesus when the Lord Jesus was tempted.

So I just kind of went through and I wasn't going to spend a whole lot of time here. We're just kind of looking at the fact that, you know, it's interesting that that, you know, and I think you probably realized this before, that it wasn't Satan that pointed out Job, it was God that pointed him out. So God says, you know, have you considered my servant Job? So God pointed out who Job was, and then Satan comes back and says, well, you know, he doesn't fear God for nothing, you know, you protected him, you made a hedge about him.

So all this dialogue, you know, Satan is constantly seems to be working at trying to find some unfairness or something that, some wedge to get himself in there. And then Satan says, well, the answer to this is you put your hand on, you know, put your hand on and touch him, and he'll surely curse you to your face.

That's going to happen. I mean, that's his, you know, that's where he's coming from. And so, basically, the Lord allows Satan to go forward. And that's something that I think we're going to see, which I think is really important when you think about Satan. In every aspect, in fact, even including the demons, which as I was reading through, in every aspect, the Lord is involved or God is involved in allowing Satan to have this territory. He's given him certain boundaries, certain territories. And so he tells Satan that he has, there's two occurrences here in chapter 1 and chapter 2, and he sets the boundaries on where where Satan can operate. You can't go beyond this.

And then the dialogue with the Lord Jesus, in Luke there, and basically he starts off, you know, he challenges who he is. If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread. And then the Lord Jesus comes back and he, it's, you know, I think it's always comforting. He comes back with God's Word.

It is written, man shall not live by bread alone. And then Satan comes in, and even more incredible thing, if you worship me, or basically if you bow down before me, all these kingdoms will be yours. But what's interesting is those kingdoms were given over, that was part of his territory that he was given. So he has a certain boundary that he was given. And then the Lord Jesus comes back, it is written, you shall worship the Lord your God and serve him only.

So I think in that set of dialogue, that's another part of seeing his personality. Okay. And then in terms of schemes, if you look at Ephesians chapter six, Ephesians chapter six, And actually, if you go back to verse 10, it says, Finally, be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His might. Put on the full armor of God, that you may be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. And here, this is another word that I thought was really interesting.

This is someone who translated strategies. Actually, the root word is methods. And it's like, Satan just doesn't have haphazard He has precise, orderly, I mean it's, that word kind of connotes that. King James has the wiles, the wiles of the devil. There are strategies and methods.

It's not a haphazard thing. Okay. Any thoughts on this, Harry? Right, right. He's constantly, he's constantly, you know, Hey, this is not fair. You know, these guys are, you know, hey, look at that. They're sitting, you know, and he's constantly doing that. You're right. That's a good question. Very good question. Sure. Go ahead. Well, that's a good point. Okay, I see your point, and you're right.

He has access to heaven right now. Now, the question is, I think, and I kind of ponder that, you know, he wants to be, it seems like he, you know, we talked about heaven, I think Verne went through, there's three levels of heaven. The third heaven is the highest heaven, right? You have like the bird heaven, the stellar heaven, and the highest heaven, I think is the...

It seems like Satan has some access. I've always thought he had access to the lower part of heaven. I don't know. I'm not sure I have great proof for this. But access to the highest heaven, I don't think he has that access. But I'm not sure I can give you a good... But he has access to heaven because he's accusing the brethren. So I'm not sure I can give you a good answer. That's a tough one.

Isn't the revelation finally cast out as well for you when you're at that point in time when he's totally cast out with no other accidents? Well, at the point, well, when he's, eventually we cast him into the lake of fire, right? But before that, right, he's cast down. Well, some have put that, you know, some have taken that and said, well, that's, haven't they taken that and said, well, that's what happens in the first part of Genesis there?

They put that back at that time period. I don't know. He obviously has access. The interesting thing to me here is he's included in the term sons of God. Yeah, yeah. In Job it says when the sons of God... And he also appeared at that point. Right. He has access to... And all the questions I can answer how it's going to clear them all up next week. OK. OK. OK. Now, in this section here, I pretty well followed pretty closely what the what The book had to say in chapter 23, and I thought it was well, he went through and he listed his personal strength in terms of what power he had over.

But all these things were, are his domain. He's been given authority over this realm. Like all the kingdoms of this world were handed over to him, as it said in Luke. And the Lord Jesus never, you know, in that temptation, he never, he never said, Satan, that's not true. They were handed over to him. He never challenged that. All the kings of this world are within his power.

That's why he could offer them to the Lord Jesus. In the case of Job, he had control over sickness, but he had boundaries. He could not take his life. And with Peter, it says Satan demanded permission to sift Peter like wheat. And there's a whole bunch in Isaiah, which are kind of scattered through that passage, read part of in Isaiah 14. He weakened the nations. He made the earth to tremble. Kingdoms were shaken. He made the earth a wilderness. He overthrew the cities, the world's cities, and did not allow the prisoners to go home.

Some of those it's hard to see exactly what is being spoken about. I mean, I think there's some... And then, In addition to that, we see in the New Testament there's many occasions where demons are involved. People are demon-possessed. But it's interesting, and they're his angels of darkness or fallen angels.

It's interesting in most of those passages, I'm not going to necessarily go through those, that they ask permission of the Lord Jesus if they can go into these swine. They ask his permission. And in several cases, I didn't look at all cases, but it just kind of struck me that they're under God's control and they ask the Lord. They recognize who he was and they ask him permission to do this or do that. They couldn't act unilaterally.

And that's great. The believer can take great comfort in that, that Satan and his angels are under God's control. They're not out of control in that aspect. Not that they aren't, you know, so to speak. Sure. Rules of engagement? Well, actually, last week there were some passages, and I didn't cover them, that angels can move very quickly from one place to another.

I mean, first of all, they're spirits. They seem like they're spirits by their nature, but they take on bodily form as they appear to man. So they can move around pretty quickly in terms of from one location to another, but they're not omnipresent. And neither is Satan.

But kind of the thought process, if you think about that, remember we said that how many angels were there last week? So, you know, there are plenty of fallen angels out there. It seems like. But that's why I want to do the next chart. The next chart is, well, what does that mean to the believer?

Do we have to go out there and fight Satan? That's a question for you. Do we have to go out and fight Satan? Is that something the Lord has asked us to do? Should we go out and fight Satan? What's our posture? a bodily posture that it kind of connotes where we should be as believers in terms of Satan.

I'm thinking of a particular passage, but I'm just... Okay, excellent. So what's the first part of that? What are we supposed to do? Do we run? Do we dash? Do we... Do we do that? Right, right. We stand, right? We stand where we're placed. We're placed in him when we stand there. We stand in the position that we're placed in.

It's a defensive posture, if you will, right? So if the Broncos were playing the Chiefs today, the Broncos would just be doing defense today. They wouldn't be doing any offense. Probably a poor analogy. Maybe they could win that way. I don't know. Anyway. Well, I want to show you the last chart quickly here.

I think this is just really important to see that Satan has been judged, and that's been completed. It says, judgment is upon this world. The ruler of this world shall be cast out. That's in John 12, 1231. But then it says, the ruler of this world has been judged. And actually, in the original, it's the idea, has been judged and is now under judgment. He has been judged and he is under judgment. That's his place. The trial's been held. and he's under the judgment of God at this moment. So that's important to see that Satan... Now, the sentence will be executed, as we saw in Revelation, at some future time, but right now he stands judged. And then these last four verses, I think are just really... My favorite one is the first one.

It says, in Hebrews chapter 2 and verse 14, it says, He, that's Christ, might render powerless him who had the power of death, death, that is, the devil. And this word, render powerless, is the same word if you look at Romans chapter 6 and verse 6. And it's one of Hal's favorite words. I've heard him talk about it many times. And it's just wonderful if you think about it. The enemy of the Christian is the world and the flesh and the devil.

Well, it says that the flesh has been, King James says, done away with, better rendered inoperative. Well, this is the same word. So Satan has been rendered inoperative, that he Christ might render inoperative him who had the power of death, that is the devil. So our sinful nature from Adam, Satan, they've been rendered inoperative. And there's another passage I think that speaks about the world, how we're dead to the world. Exactly, but it's always just really struck me that you have to be consistent. You know, is Satan done away with? It's the same word that appears here. He's rendered powerless. He's been rendered powerless by Christ's death on the cross.

And then in 1 John 4.4, it says, greater is he that is in you than he who is in the world. And that's that idea that greater, this is kind of a comparative term, it's from this word mega. God has more power than Satan. And then the next verse is in Revelation 12, 11.

He overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb. And this overcome idea is to gain the victory over, and it was because of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then back to Ephesians here, that passage I talked about, it says, who are we strong in and whose strength? Those two ends are just really important there. Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. It's not going to be our strength or our might, it's in His strength and His might and it's in our Savior. So we stand secure in Him.

Last questions? So, final question. Do we have to go out and fight Satan? Go form a posse this afternoon and go out and... It's a done deal. Let's have a closing word of prayer then. Dear Father, we thank you so much, Lord. We thank you for this day, Father. Thank you that you're in control, Lord, and that you have gained the victory, Lord, that we stand in you, secure and safe, Lord. Thank you for that. In Christ's name, amen.