Satan

This topic is coming up with the ladies on Tuesday. So if you're interested and you're a lady, you can come and do that. And this is a pretty big topic. And I think I was talking with Bill Louie about this. And he mentioned at some point he had covered this in maybe six months. So we're going to try to do it in 40 or 45 minutes, which is, there's a lot of material.

And hopefully it'll be helpful. Hopefully it'll just remind you of what we have in Christ. OK. Basically, on your handout you have the doctrinal statement. So, being an engineer and liking order, I just divided this up into six sentences, which we're going to go through methodically. Hopefully not too laborious, but carefully. And hopefully we'll come away with a good view of Satan. How powerful he is, but what Christ has accomplished on our behalf.

Okay, so I thought to start off with, it would be good to kind of compare mankind and the angels. And Satan is an angel, a fallen angel, but he is an angel, he is a created being. So the first part is that both angels and mankind were created. And we're going to see that. There are several verses that talk about that, that Satan has been created. Obviously man was created, so there's a similarity there. And here's another similarity. Satan sinned. He actually sinned before man, and he showed up in the garden, right? And he kind of helped along the process. Mike's been teaching this in his class. We were there with Adam, in him as our federal head.

So Satan kind of He deceived Eve. We'll see that deception is part of Satan's plan. And then basically, as a result of Satan's sin, he took a third of the angels with him. They followed him. And as a result of Adam's sin, all men fell. Satan was judged. We'll see that. And man has been judged. But the wonderful news is that for the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, Christ has taken our judgment. He's taken our place. have that judgment upon us.

And then lastly, not a pretty picture, but the Lake of Fire, which was created for the devil and his angels, is going to be the place where Satan, we know some revelation there, we'll see this, that will be his ultimate destiny along with the fallen angels, and that will be the place for all unbelievers. But what's interesting is, Scripture says, that awful place was not made for man. It was made for the devil and his angels.

So that's interesting. And I won't be able to answer all questions about Satan today, but hopefully I'll get you thinking. Okay, so let's go on. Is this a good picture of Satan? This is a chart from Hal Malloy, back when he taught major Bible themes. Is this a good picture? If you ask a man in the street, what does Satan look like, they'll say, well, yeah, he's got a pitchfork and all kinds of weird things. But is this accurate? Well, it's not. And we're going to see that Satan is a lot more clever than that, and actually a very beautiful, creative creature. So starting off, we're going to cover these six points. I'll just go briefly here. We believe in the personality and subtlety of Satan.

He is the devil and the author of sin and the adversary of God and man. But as a curated and fallen being, he is not equal to God. Satan is a judged and defeated foe, thus rendered powerless in the believer's life by the cross of Christ. Satan is alive and well. and tempts believers and blinds the minds of the unsaved so they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ. The Lord strengthens and protects the believer from Satan, and the believer's battle against Satan is entirely in the standing in who they are in Christ. And lastly, Satan shall be eternally punished in the lake of fire. So we're going to take each of these and kind of start off. The first one is the personality and subtlety of Satan. And actually I have, maybe this is more in the front end, I have more to say about his personality and other things than I do about the latter parts.

And it just kind of worked out that way. Okay, personality. Webster says that personality is the condition or facts relating to a particular person, the characteristics that distinguish an individual. So we have three things here. We have condition, facts, and characteristics. So we're going to look at, in a sense, Satan's condition, the facts about him, and his characteristics. So to start off with, he functions as a person. And one of his big issues is pride. And there are a couple of key passages in Scripture. Isaiah 12-14 is one of those. So in this, Satan exalts himself. And he says some pretty incredible things.

He starts off, he says, I will ascend to heaven. He wants to be where God is. Even though he has access, God has allowed him access. And if I understand what scripture says, he was an angel and he was with God. I will raise my throne above the stars of God. He not only wants to be in heaven, he wants to be above the stars, which are pictured in scripture as being over God.

He wants to be above that. I will sit on the mount of the assembly." And that was a place, there's a passage that talks about how the divine seat of God, the mountain of the house of the Lord, that's the divine seat. So he will sit there, that's where God sits. And I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. He wants his throne, Satan's throne, to be above God's throne. And we're going to see later on in the dialogue that Satan had with the Lord Jesus, wasn't that what he said? He wanted to have that position. So, this is all Satan's pride coming out.

I will make myself like the Most High. So, all these I wills. I will do this, I will do that. So, there's kind of maybe an overarching... That's conceit. You know, a person who is very prideful, we often call that conceit. That kind of collects his pride. In 1 Timothy, it talks about The idea of pride and actually let me see delay. Okay, it talks in first Timothy 3 verse 6 It's talking about it's talking to new believers or a new convert and it says and not a new convert So that he will not become conceited and fall into the condemnation incurred by the devil so conceit was one of his downfalls if you will the conceit that conceit and that word is literally it has the idea of of a smokescreen, a smokescreen of pride. Or he is blinded by his pride. And we see that sometimes. People are so enthralled with themselves that they're unreasonable. They don't have any reason. And that was Satan, I think.

Additionally, some of the characteristics are craftiness, deception. That's kind of all his subtlety, if you will. And I have like three passages down there in Genesis. It talks about the fact that the serpent, Satan, was more crafty, cunning, sly, subtle. The root word is smooth, smooth, a smooth operator. He has all the angles figured.

And I think we see some of these aspects in Because sin is sin, we see some of these aspects in people. And it always maybe unnerves us a little bit when a person is too smooth and too, you know, it's just too much to take. And Satan was certain of that type. And then secondly, in 2 Corinthians 11, it talks about he disguises himself as an angel of light. So the picture we see, rather than this kind of scary creature, scary person with a tail. And that picture is there in Revelation. But the picture that the interaction that we see with people is one of being smooth and light, not darkness.

He puts on a garb of light, if you will. And then in Revelation it says he deceives the whole world. In fact, in the end of Revelation it talks about the beast and the false prophet. They deceive the world. Then it talks about Satan. He deceived the world. So deception is one of his characteristics.

Okay, so let's go on. So continuing on, another key passage is in Ezekiel. And in the text, if you were to read Ezekiel there, you'll see that it talks about the king of Tyre. But I think that person is really, in a way, taking the place, it's an earthly person taking the place of Satan. Because all the words really track with who Satan is.

It said, and this is kind of, I put in bulletized form some of those verses. Let me just turn here for a second. OK, it said, you had the seal of perfection. It's talking about before his fall. You had the seal of perfection, full of wisdom, perfect in beauty.

Boy, you sure don't see a scary kind of, you know, I've heard it said that Satan doesn't hang out in the lower district, in the bars, and in the bad part of town. He's in the good part of town. He's the smooth, crafty person. So we have a picture of Satan sometimes that's not accurate to scripture. And then the question is, well, how much of his beauty did he retain? And I'm not sure I can answer that. So, you were in Eden, the garden of God. This is kind of before.

Every precious stone was your covering. And look in there, it talks about the ruby, the topaz, the diamond, and a whole bunch of other stones that adorned him. On the day that you were created, so here he was created, they were prepared. You were the anointed cherub. Remember a cherub is this winged creature and over the Ark of the Covenant there's two cherubs and they kind of sit facing each other and they have wings and they're glorifying God. And they were prepared, and they were prepared. You were the anointed cherub who covers, and I placed you there.

So God had a plan and a purpose for Satan. I believe it was to glorify him, as man is to glorify him. The purposes of the angels are to glorify God. You walked in the midst of the stones of fire. I think this speaks of his privileged position. And I don't quite, you know, some versions have coals of fire. A very privileged place.

But then you were blameless in your ways from the day that you were created, until righteousness was found in you, until unrighteousness was found in you. So it goes through this passage and it talks about his wonderful position, and then it gets down, there's kind of a change, and from then on it talks about how unrighteousness was found in him, how sin was found in him. And we're going to look at that a little bit more. I'll continue on. I want to cover this part before I get into other characteristics.

Just keeping the theme of his personality, Satan had a couple of dialogues. One of the dialogues was with God the Father in heaven concerning Job. Basically the dialogue is, the Lord says, have you considered my servant Job? Then Satan says, well it's not really fair.

You put a hedge around him. You did all these things. You've kind of stacked the deck. basically at the end of this thing he says behold all that he has is in your power and I think this is you know some people say well boy that's that sounds kind of scary I don't think that's an accurate picture for the for a believer. I think this is a special case that God has shown us. I think as we look at what we have in Christ, we see we're secure in Him, and that's how we're to view Satan's interaction.

Okay, then it goes on, the dialogue with the Lord Jesus. Basically, He tempts them in the wilderness, if you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread. And Jesus always goes back to Scripture. It is written that man shall not live by bread alone, So what I'm trying to show here is that Satan interacted just like any other person in scripture. He interacted, he had dialogue, he had dialogue with Eve and with Adam in the garden, probably just with Eve, I think. So there was dialogue between Satan.

So he has the characteristics of a person. So we should not think of him as anything less than that. So the second point is, he has a personality. Not a very nice personality, a very ominous personality, if you will. Deceptive, conceited, crafty, but a very beautiful creature. He was in an honored position, but he fell. And he functions as a person in relation to God and man. The second point is, he is the devil and the author of sin.

So this is sort of a section talking about the titles for Satan. And in scripture, I got a number of about 17 different titles, and we'll see some of those today. But there's one passage in Revelation, Revelation 20 in verse 2, where it speaks of four of his names. Let me just read that for you here.

Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding the keys of the abyss and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold of the dragon, the serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. So this is a passage that talks about Satan's being bound for a thousand years, the Millennial Kingdom. So the first name is Dragon, the idea of a huge serpent. And that might be part of where that picture kind of came from that I showed you earlier about having a tail and he was red and he swept his tail, would sweep away and sweep the stars out of the heavens. He was called the Serpent of Old.

That kind of speaks of the deception that he has. He's a deceptive hypocrisy. Thirdly, the devil, the accuser of slander. And usually, many, many times, he's falsely accusing. He falsely accuses. It's kind of Satan's game, if you will. And obviously Satan, the adversary of God, Christ, of his people, and mankind.

So God is at work. in a sense, with the believers and unbelievers, but there's a vast difference between his effectiveness and what he can do in the believer's life. The unbeliever, it's pretty amazing. I'll show you shortly, you think, well how can anyone be saved with Satan controlling this world stage, if you will, and blinding the minds of the unbelievers. So how can anyone be saved? But the good news is that men and women are being saved because of God, because of His plan through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.

Okay, he's the author of sin. And starting back again in Ezekiel there, until unrighteousness was found in you. It's kind of some amazing things. You were internally filled with violence and you sinned. So what's neat is you can look at The scripture about Satan and about man, you see where Satan sinned, man sinned.

Like I tried to show you earlier, there's a parallel there. His heart was lifted up because of his beauty. Here's pride. He's very prideful, lifted up. You corrupted your wisdom by reason of your splendor. So his splendor, he was overcome with himself, if you will. By the multitudes of your iniquities you profaned your sanctuary. So he had a special place that God had made for him, but he had multitudes of iniquities.

So that's kind of part one of that. Let me see if there's something else I wanted to mention here. Oh yeah, there's a really good, in 1 John, it says, and we saw that, for the devil has sinned from the beginning, or literally has been sinning from the beginning. So he sinned, and he continues to be sinning.

And actually, he can do nothing else. There's no other mode of operation. Satan doesn't have a good period, if you will. He's constantly, 24-7, doing his thing, which is smoke screens, and his pride is exalting himself. So let's go on. He's a fallen being. A fallen being is not equal to God.

Timothy says, this is speaking about believers, "...so that he will not become conceited, a new believer, and fall into the condemnation incurred by the devil." The devil incurred condemnation and judgment. I like to use Wiest, and Wiest renders it, "...fall into the judgment of the devil." Isaiah says, "...how you have fallen from heaven, O star of the morning, O sun of the dawn."

Two more names for Satan there. An important point. Some people say, wow, boy, Satan is so powerful. He can do all kinds of things. Well, something to realize is that God is described in scripture as being omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent. No created being has God's essence. So since Satan is created, that's why I wanted to make sure that Satan is a created being. Otherwise, he would be God, and Satan is not God. He was created to glorify God, and he fell, just like man was created to glorify God, and he fell. When we start ascribing characteristics of God to Satan, I think we err.

I think that's a big error, and a big source of confusion and maybe fearfulness, that he can somehow be every place that... I remember Hal Malloy talking about... He was talking about somebody he was counseling, and he said they were concerned that Satan was, you know, whatever. And Hal kind of was saying, well, he was down at Joe's house. How can he be at your house? He can't be two places at the same time. That's always helped me.

Is this really Satan doing this? Probably not. The old man is very capable of scaring us and making us go off on the wrong path. Many times I don't think it's Satan. Satan doesn't need to. Our old sin nature is very sufficient in doing that, very sufficient in making us sin. But Satan is tempting. Temptation is part of his ministry, if you will. but he has given Satan limited powers.

Okay. Okay, that's two. Now we're to three. Let's see how we're doing here. This is the good news. Satan is a judged and defeated foe. In John 16-11, it talks about a concerning judgment because the ruler of this world has been judged. Actually, let me just go back here. And this is kind of neat. And this is where it's kind of neat to look at the verb tense and things. Has been judged is in what's called, in Greek, the perfect passive. And doesn't mean that, as one would say, you're perfectly passive and you're taking a nap. It means basically that Satan was judged in the past. He continues to be judged in the present and into the future.

He doesn't somehow slip out of judgment. He's under God's judgment since he fell, and he continues to be under God's judgment. And that's good news. He's been judged by God. Secondly, Timothy again falls into the condemnation incurred by the devil. Condemnation is the act of judgment. It says, now judgment is upon this world. and the ruler of this world will be cast out. So we know this is God's... Satan is judged and he'll be cast out.

In essence, he'll be cast in the lake of fire. But what's needed is this idea of being cast out, has the idea, it's this word that in the Greek has to throw. You throw something, like you throw a ball. In that word, it's to throw the ball, or cast the ball, and then the out kind of makes it more emphatic. So it's literally, we'll be cast out, we'll be cast forth outside.

So it's a double emphasis on the fact that Satan will be cast out. Satan rendered powerless in the believer's life. This is really key. If you remember one verse, this is a verse that was read at the beginning. Therefore, since children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death, Christ's death, he might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil." So if you remember one verse from today, I hope you remember this verse in terms of the believer's relationship to Satan. he has been rendered powerless. And that's something that you want to hang on to. Just like, as we'll see here in a second, he's been rendered powerless.

And rendered powerless is the same word that we find in Romans 6.6.

And let me just read Romans 6.6. It says, knowing this, that our old self, our old man, was crucified, or co-crucified with him, Christ, that our body of sin might be In most translations, it's like done away with, but the better translation of that word is rendered powerless, taken offline.

He's been put in neutral. He can rev his engine, if you will, but he can't affect the believer. So, just like our sin nature has been put offline, Satan has been put offline. And that's wonderful news. The three enemies of the believer are the world, the flesh, and the devil. Well, two of them God already talks about. He says, wait a minute. Don't be fearful. I put Satan in neutral, so to speak, or offline. I put your sin nature offline or neutral. I've accomplished that for you. You can rest in me. You can trust me. So that's wonderful news. We're not to be slaves of our sin nature, and we're not to be slaves of the devil. Our minds can do all kinds of crazy things, but we're not to be there. We're to trust the truth of Scripture.

On the other side, Satan is going to rev his engine. He's going to rev it and make it sound really bad, like my son sometimes. He'll come and we can hear him in the parking lot because his engine is so loud. So Satan is going to do that. He's going to rev his engine. He's going to make it sound bad. And he's called the tempter. And literally, he's the one tempting. Tempting is one of his characteristics. It's part of his personality.

In Ephesians, it warns us about the schemes, or the wiles of the devil. And that's kind of interesting. These schemes, or actually, schemes in the Greek is the idea of deceit or cunning. And it's the idea of methods. He has a method. He has a plan. And one definition I thought was really kind of neat, he pursues an orderly technical procedure. Sounds a little bit highfalutin, but he has a plan, and it's going to look good, and it's going to be deceptive. So we're to be aware of that.

And Ephesians 4.14, craftiness in deceitful scheming. So he's crafty in his scheming. And it says also in that passage, we're not to be tossed to and fro by this. We're to be aware of this. We're to understand this. OK. OK, so now here's the part that's just kind of astonishing. He blinds the mind of the unsaved. So now we're going to switch gears.

We've been talking about believers. Now we're going to talk about unbelievers. And this is a hard reality of the unbeliever. And it says, I've kind of bulletized this passage. even if our gospel is veiled. And that word veiled is to be hidden. So the gospel is veiled. It is veiled to those who are perishing. So the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, the saving news of the Lord Jesus Christ is veiled, it says. And here's why it's veiled. The God of this world, Satan, has blinded the minds of the unbelieving So they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ. So you look at that and you say, boy, that does not sound good. And it isn't good. It's terrible. And just some of the words in here, there's like three Three kind of key words, blinded the minds. And that's kind of the idea of, once again, it seems like I keep finding these words for smoke or smoke screen kind of appear in some of these Greek words. This is the idea of a burning or, the root is from a burning or smoking. picture.

The minds is really our understanding, our thoughts. He's blinding the thoughts. He's not the thoughts and the understanding of the unbeliever. So they're understanding. And I think, you know, you see this when you talk to an unbeliever many times. They just don't, they don't understand it. And you may talk to them very sincerely. You may try to share with them, but they many times do not understand. They cannot understand. And then the last part, they might not see the light of the gospel. It's not going to dawn upon them. It's not going to occur to them. They think it's foolishness. They think the gospel is foolishness.

But the wonderful news is that God is greater. And I think one of the verses that really is encouraging to us as those who witness to others and others who come to the Lord Jesus Christ, is that in John 16, 8, when the Lord Jesus left to go to be with the Father, He said, I will give you another comforter, the Holy Spirit, And he will convict the world concerning... Actually, convictus maybe sounds like you're going to jail. It's better convinced is a better word. I think I've shared this before.

He's convincing the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment. So the Holy Spirit of God is 24-7 convincing the world of their need for a Savior. And so God is able to overcome the smokescreen, this blinding of mind. He's able to overcome that when they put their faith and trust in the Lord Jesus. But it is amazing. You can't say, well, he can just believe. All he has to do is just try hard. No, he can't. He has to trust in what has been presented to him by the Holy Spirit.

Okay. The Lord strengthens and protects believers from Satan. Okay, and this is kind of an important part here. And we're going to start talking about the armor that the believer has. And this is kind of leading into that. It says, finally be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the full armor of God so that you'll be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.

So, There are five points I want to make. First of all, is I being strong. This is not telling us to get buffed up. It's not telling us to do spiritual push-ups. It's telling us to trust what God has done. The strength is to be constantly strengthened in the Lord. It's in the passive voice and it's the present tense. God is going to do the strengthening and we're to allow Him to strengthen us. Be strong in the Lord, not in ourselves. Secondly, it's in the strength of His might, or by His mighty strength. Strength that is inherent in the Lord.

Thirdly, put on. This is a picture of clothing. We're going to see a picture here shortly. Put on, and it's actually kind of neat. It's to envelop in, to hide in, to clothe with. We're to put on all that God has for us. And it's not going to be a mysterious list. It's not going to be some list that we can't, well, I can't do that. It's going to be the simple truths of what Christ has done for us. And we're to put on the full armor of God, not just part of it, but the full armor of God.

And then it says, stand firm. So you think, oh, finally, something for me to do. I'm going to really stand firm. I'm going to really just stand firm here. But what's interesting is it's a military term for hold your position. We are to wear the armor so that we can stand. We're to know what we have in Christ and stand in that.

So that's kind of a conditional picture. But our positional picture, if you will, comes in the Gospel of John. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. And I will give them eternal life to them, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand."

So that's what we hang our hat on. We look to our position to order our condition. We look to what Christ has done for us. Now we're going to switch and look at the following verses in Ephesians 6. The believers battle against Satan. It's entirely in their understanding of who we are in Christ.

So in Ephesians it gives us six pieces of clothing. It says, stand firm therefore, having girded your loins with truth, that's the first one, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, the second one, having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace, in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith, which is able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one, and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And then here's a picture from Verne. And he did this in the Ephesians series.

And so we have, first of all, the helmet is on the, and this is a Roman soldier. You know, I looked at some different commentaries and they said, well, it seems like Paul was, he was familiar with Rome, right? He was imprisoned in Rome. He knew the Roman soldiers. So he kind of used the metaphor of the Roman guard to kind of, you know, there's a connection here. So salvation is the Roman helmet there. Righteousness is a breastplate. Faith is the shield of faith. The truth is this belt of truth, if you will. The sword is the word of God, and shod with the gospel of peace on his feet.

That's hard to say. What's neat here is that this battle, what would you say? So this is a spiritual battle, first of all. And it says in several passages that we don't have this battle against flesh and blood. So we're not going to see a flesh and blood person show up. This battle is a spiritual battle.

So there's a spiritual solution, and the solution is we know about God's salvation, his righteousness, we know about faith in him, the truth of who he is, the word of God, and the gospel. Those are all things that every Christian knows about, and that's our armor. So it's not a mysterious armor. It's not something that is complicated. But that's our armor. We are to clothe ourselves with our armor, resting in our position in Christ. And I'm just thinking about this. This is a totally defensive posture.

Do you see any offense here at all? The sword looks a little offensive to me, but that's the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. What's interesting is, would you say this is a good strategy for the Super Bowl? So what if the Cardinals or the Pittsburgh Steelers, what if they said, we're only going to have defense, no offense?

They'd say, you're going to play this game and never have any offense. Well, that's what the Lord tells us. He says, no offense. Totally trust in me. And it makes total sense because we can't do it. He says, I want you to be totally in a defensive posture.

Trusting totally in what I provided and that's and that's a and Mike has shared this in the men's Bible said this There's that's a defensive posture and that's wonderful because we're totally trusting what Christ has done. He's totally sufficient So to tell your friends when you watch the Super Bowl today that we're going to go and have a defense only It's great for the Christian life not too good for a football game and Okay.

And then lastly, the question comes up about spiritual warfare. So here's our picture again. And this is a chart I borrowed from Vern. Spiritual warfare is standing in our position in Christ, carried out by the life of Christ, in and through the believer, so that Christ's life is shown in our character and our behavior.

So we're to be resting in this position, resting knowing that Christ has defeated Satan and that we can trust him and stand in that position. And the last point is, Satan shall be eternally punished in the lake of fire. And that picture I found on the internet, I don't think that's actually all that great a picture. It doesn't look, you know, it looks like somebody put some fire on a lake and burned it a little bit. It doesn't look, I think it's a lot worse than that. I don't know, but that's my opinion.

It says, Revelation 20.10, and the devil who deceives them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophets are also. And they will be tormented day and night forever. We have a couple other versions. The devil, the one who deceives. Notice the word deceives them. And the Amplified has the devil who has led them astray, deceiving and seducing them. So we're to be aware of his schemes, aware of his methods. But that's not to move us from our position in Christ. We are to rest about Satan, trusting in what Christ has done for us.

Let's pray. Dear Father, we thank you for this message, Father. We thank you that we are more than conquerors through Christ, that you have provided all that we need, all the full armor of God, and it's not something mysterious. It's something that we know from Scripture. We can read about, understand, and we're to believe it by faith, and we're to trust that you have accomplished that, Lord, and that we can rest totally in you and trust you for our relationship to Satan. We thank you for that. In Christ's name, amen.