"Biblical Worldview On The Devil And Demons" Part 2 // Revelation 12:1-11

all right we're gonna be in Revelation chapter 12 to start off we're finishing off a study that I started last week on biblical worldview on the devil and demons so we're gonna be in Revelation chapter 12 and once y'all stand and we'll go through and read it together starting in verse one again there's now a great sign appeared in heaven a woman clothed with the Sun with the moon under her feet and on her head a garland of twelve stars then being with child she cried out in labor and in pain to give birth and another sign appeared in heaven behold a great fiery red dragon having seven heads and ten horns and seven diadem's on his heads his tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth and the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth to devour her child as soon as it was born she bore a male child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron and her child was caught up to God and his throne then the woman fled into the wilderness where she has a place prepared by God that they should feed her there 1260 days actually we're in the book of Revelation on Sunday night and so if you want to know about all that stuff we're gonna be getting to that in probably about a year I'm just joking it's probably gonna be sooner than that anyway and war broke out in heaven Michael and his angels fought with the Dragon and the dragon and his angels fought but they did not prevail nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer so the Great Dragon was cast out that serpent of old called the devil and Satan who deceives the whole world he was cast to the earth and his angels were cast out with him then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven now salvation and strength and the Kingdom of our God and the power of his Christ have come for the accuser of our brethren who accused them before our God day and night has been cast down and they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb by the word of their testimony and they did not love their lives to the death let's pray thanks again Lord for your word thanks again for your protection or we know that we have an adversary and the Bible says that he goes around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour God we know he wants to wipe us out he wants to destroy us and he he definitely wants to keep us away from you but you've you've pulled his teeth Lord and you've you've declawed him and you did it at the cross Lord we thank you for the power that we have in you you said in your word that greater is He that lives within us than he who's in the world and so Lord we thank you for that as we talk about the devil and some of his schemes this morning we pray that you give us real insight real wisdom into what you have for us as believers and the strength that we have in you and we just give you this time pretty bless it in Jesus name Amen you can have a seat on the outskirts of town there was a big old pecan tree by the cemetery fence one day two boys filled up a bucket full of nuts and sat down by the tree out of sight and began dividing the nuts one for you one for me one for you one for me said one boy several were dropped and rolled down toward the fence another boy came riding along the road on his bicycle as he passed he thought he heard voices from inside the cemetery he slowed down to investigate sure enough he heard one for you one for me one for you one for me he just knew what it was oh my he shuddered it's Satan in Jesus dividing the souls at the cemetery he jumped back on his bike and rode off just around the bend he met an old man with a cane hobbling along come here quick said the boy you won't believe what I heard Satan and Jesus are down at the cemetery dividing up the souls the man said beat it kid you can't you see it's hard for me to walk and when the boy insisted the man hobbled to the cemetery standing by the fence they heard one for you one for me one for you one for me the old man whispered boy you've been telling the truth let's see if we can see the devil himself shaking with fear they peered through the fence yet we're still unable to see anything the old man and the boy gripped the wrought iron bar of the fence tighter and tighter as they tried to get a glimpse of Satan at last they heard one for you one for me and one last one for you that's all now let's go get those nuts by the fence and we'll be done last week we were talking about the whole whole deal with Satan and his origin and and one of the questions that people have is why did God make Satan and we talked about that whole issue God didn't make the devil Lucifer did and he did it because of his free will what God did was he made a being that was absolutely powerful absolutely wonderful absolutely beautiful absolutely wise who had a free will and that being with his free will decided to rebel against God not only did he decide to rebel against God he got it looks like from Revelation 12 a third of the Angels to fall with him and that's always the danger of free will if you're going to have a situation where you're going to have fellowship with somebody where you're going to have a love relationship with somebody God loves angels too and you're gonna have a love relationship with somebody you're going to have to give them free will or the love means nothing it's nothing more than you know my my little sisters had little baby dolls this is back in the dinosaur days where you pulled a little string on there's a little ring in the back of the baby doll he pulled the little string and you let the string go on the baby would say I love you and I would always mock my sister she could say my and sisters would carry him around oh she loves me she doesn't love you it's a dog do my little sisters and that kind of thing and there's there's no reality to it if there's no free will and that's always the problem with free will and any parent of a teenager knows that so there's always a problem with the free will you can love people you can care about them but they make their own choices and and sometimes they choose not to love you I've run into lots of lots of parents who have had that situation and it's it's a hard thing and it's broken thing and it's what happened in what happened in heaven with Lucifer it's what's happened on the earth with humankind and so again it's always the danger of freewill and so who Lucifer Falls he becomes the devil and Satan looks like a third of the Angels fall with him like I said before we talked about the fact that he still has access to heaven this event where he's chased out of heaven doesn't happen until the midpoint of the Tribulation Period the last seven years before Jesus comes back and so Satan still has access to heaven and he's still in heaven accusing people before God day and night the the devil is a schemer the devil is a liar and a murderer and this is close to where we left off last time Jesus specifically said about the about the Pharisee he was speaking to the Pharisees but he was talking to them about their father the devil and he said why can't you understand what I'm saying it's because you can't even hear me for your children of your father the devil and you love to do the evil things he does he was a murderer from the beginning he has always hated the truth because there is no truth in him when he lies it's consistent with his character for he's a liar and the father of lies and so Satan has always been a liar he he lied to the other angels when he turned them away from the Lord he lied to Eve when he turned her away from the Lord his leg up propagated by Eve to Adam when she turned him away from the Lord and that lot those kinds of lies have been propagated down through history and then there's the murder that goes along with it and Satan basically murdered the whole human race in turning them away from God and he would like to murder you specifically he would like to but God always puts a limit on the things that Satan can do so Satan's got schemes he's he's been called a schemer he's been called a liar the the name devil itself means slanderer that's that's what the word means it means a slander and so there are all kinds of things that you you have just in the names of Satan's or the or the terms that are applied to him and they tell you what his schemes are like and we need to we need to be aware of these things it's kind of interesting that I'm finishing this up right before Thanksgiving because you're going to be sitting at the table with people and some of them are of the devil [Laughter] I'm messing around kind of you know because you know you know what you know what I'm talking about all right you're gonna have situations where you're sitting with people at your table and some of them are following Jesus and they have real attitudes and they don't know that they're under the influence of the enemy some of them are just you know crazy weird you know you have your weird uncle Steve I'm just gonna use my name so I don't offend anybody else unless your name is Steve and then I'm talking about you know but you get your weird uncle and sometimes you might think he's demon-possessed or something yeah well we'll talk about that in a little bit but all kinds of weird things go on and and the devil looks loves to jump into the middle of situations and divide people and break up families and you know he's he's just into causing chaos in fact the word the name Satan itself means the adversary he's the adversary so is the adversary he's a slander and there's all kinds of things that he comes up with to try to ruin your life and especially in the area of your walk with God we last week spoke about misdirection and camouflage and again one of the one of the things that you run into when you when you think of the devil and I talked about this last time but when I was a kid you know I didn't grow up in church and so I didn't have any scary pictures of the devil in my mind I didn't think in those terms what I thought of was cartoon characters so the devil is who said cowboy I'm Bugs Bunny so Yosemite Sam get all you old people remember Yosemite Sam remember when he was the devil yeah that's what I thought of when I thought of the devil you know some guy in a in a red suit with a pointy tail and horns on his head and that kind of stuff and I think that that's of the devil I think you know I know it's cute and I know I know it's funny and and all that stuff but the devil would like to picture himself as a cartoon character so you won't take him seriously because if he is able to come into your life in a in a way where you don't even recognize that he's there he can he can cause all kinds of chaos and all kinds of train wrecks in your life because you don't even know where it's coming from and that's a that's a great way to win in a battle misdirection is another way misdirection is another way Satan would always like to get you going in the wrong direction in again everything with me is football you know or sports back at that kind of thing and any sport that I've been involved in unless it's a you know unless it was like pole vaulting and stuff you use misdirection all the time and so if I if I want to fit you know I used to wrestle and so if I want to get a guy into a move what I do is I pretend like I'm going for something else I pretend like I'm going for one arm when I really want the other one or I pretend like I'm going for one leg when I really want to wrap up the other one do that kind of stuff and it's the same thing with with football you can have misdirection in football where you're pretending to go one direction and you're actually doing something else you see this all the time and so you you you you know you act like you're gonna do a running play and you do a pass that's misdirection Satan does exactly the same kinds of things he doesn't want you to know that he's there he doesn't want you to know that he's doing certain things he wants to misguide you and get you into areas that don't matter here's one Christians being demon-possessed I know Christians who go around running around trying to figure out what the devil is doing trying to cast the devil out of their lives spending years doing this stuff and never being involved in the real work of the ministry because they're constantly looking at the devil and seeing him every rock seeing him in every situation that's taken place in their life and they needed to go to the next guy he was gonna cast the demon of lust out of them and and that kind of thing that's misdirection the Bible never talks about the demon of lust never talks about that when it talks about lust in your life it talks about the flesh and so we'll talk about that in a little bit in any case there's misdirection here's another one Satan likes to appear as an angel of light this is misdirection there's a passage in 2nd Corinthians 11 13 through 14 it says for such are false apostles talking about false teachers deceitful workers transforming themselves into apostles of Christ and no wonder for Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light and so there are going to be times when you have you have false teachers who look so good they're pretending to be something that they're not and they look so good and it's not something that you should be shocked about because that's how Satan comes along again last week we were talking about the the fact that Satan is absolutely beautiful if you saw him you'd want to fall down and worship Him if he's appearing as as he originally was you would want to fall down and worship Him so he's an angel of light and he's totally capable of causing people to act in such a way that we think that they're right on that they're wonderful in fact there's another passage in Galatians 1 6 through 9 where Paul is rebuking the Galatians and he says this I marvel that you are turning away so soon from him who called you in the grace of Christ to a different gospel which is not another but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ but even if we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you let him be accursed as we have said before so now I say again if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what we have then what you have received let him be accursed and so what the what the Apostle is saying is that Satan can appear to people and give them a different gospel tell them that there's a different way to get to heaven than what the Bible has to say and the gospel is basically this that Jesus dies for my sins and when he dies for my sins he's taking my place he's literally taking my judgment upon himself and then he trades places with me so I can have the rewards for his righteousness so I get Jesus's reward and he gets my punishment and that's why the cross is so important so Jesus dies for our sins according to the scripture and then he rises from the dead to show that that he had conquered sin and death he rises from the dead according to the scripture and that that my life gets changed by that that's the gospel and there are other people who have come up with other Gospels in fact in the context of the you know of angels appearing to them one guy got taken taken off into the boonies this one time and an angel of light appears to him and tells him that all the other teachers all the other people who have been talking about God all the Christian churches or something are something that are defiled they've ceased actually following God and that he's the next prophet of God and that he is the one that people are going to be looking to he is the one who is going to be bring salvation to the earth you know what his name was no it was Mohammed it was Mohammed and somebody said Joseph Smith because you know about Mormonism if it ain't broke don't fix it he didn't just do it with Mohammed he did it with Joseph Smith - if it ain't broke don't fix it and so Satan comes and he doesn't necessarily use brand-new schemes when he comes after people the same thing that he did with Muhammad is the same thing that he did with Charles with Joseph Smith and it's the same thing that the Bible warns about long before either these guys ever came on the scene if an angel from heaven gives you another gospel then what we preached let him be a curse and so again you know stuff that you need to watch out for so that brings up the next point if it ain't broke don't fix it Satan uses the same kind schemes over and over and this is one of the things that we need to get drilled into our heads because a lot of times you know no matter how old you are as a Christian you're falling to the same things again over and over again and if you just pay attention and understand what what the enemy is trying to do then you're not going to get fooled by him turn over to Genesis chapter 3 Genesis chapter 3 again everything with me is a sports analogy and so when when when I was on the line we drilled and drilled and drilled and drilled on we had what was called a read defense and we drilled and drilled on what the what the guy on the opposite side of the line was gonna be doing to us in certain situations so that we would we would understand well enough that we could just counter it by muscle memory and so you know when when I would come up off the line and I will hit a guy who was across from me he begins pushing me he's on the offense I'm on the defense he begins pushing me and the way he pushes me lets me know where the ball is almost all the time and in fact 99% of the time lets me know where the ball is and so if I come up and I hit a guy and I've got him like this and he's pushing me this way the ball is over here it's on my left and if he's pushing me this way then the ball is going to go over here on my right and what I have to do is I have to counter that and get over there to get to the ball if he pushes me straight back the ball is coming up right behind him and if he takes a step back and gets down low I know the quarterbacks got the ball and he's going to pass and so it's just a it's just a read it's real real simple stuff and so I can tell what he's doing by where he's pushing me and Satan pushes you he pushes you he tries to get you away from certain things we were talking about I think we were talking about this last week anytime you want to read your Bible you expect to hear from people anytime you want to read your Bible you expect to have a list going through your head of all the things that you haven't gone to gotten done this week all the bills that you haven't paid although although all the things that need to get fixed in your house that kind of thing and what's happening is you're getting pushed and what he wants to do is keep you away from the Word of God or prayer or going to church and again some of some of use you use got hassled this morning and coming to church look at let's look at Genesis 3 again it says now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made let me do serpent stuff right now you know angels your your picture of Angel there's a unless you're unless you're pretty sophisticated with Scripture your picture of angels is messed up you're thinking of brought blonde ladies with white robes and and and a halo and big wings that's what you're thinking of when you think of an age oh she looks like an angel that's what we say about little babies too a little cherub oh you think a little fat babies with little bitty little bitty wings and stuff you know what sure it was cherub had ice all over their body that's the first thing that's that's like wicked weird that's like really gross little eye out here that kind of that kind of eyes on the back of their head yeah and not only that they had four faces they had four faces and so one was a face of a man when was the face of an ox one of the one was the face of a lion and one was the face of an eagle so four faces how'd you like that appearing in your room yeah so four faces eyes all over their bodies that kind of thing there is a passage in the Book of Isaiah that's that talks about these angels called cereth's Seraphim is the plural so serous and these angels called serifs are around the throne of God and don't know for sure if they if you're talking about a cult totally different class of angel or if you're talking about the same thing as the cherubim but they're called serifs I'll get back to that in just a second so here's a couple of things number one angels were created before the foundations of the earth were created they saw the earth being laid down they saw God creating it and so you have these faces on the angels before those faces were ever connected with animals or with people right so you have faces of eagles and oxen and lions and a man face of a man on an angel before any of those things are ever created which is kind of interesting and in the back in the passage in the book of Isaiah in Isaiah chapter 6 I'm probably gonna kill boy often I'll try to shorten this up anyway in the passage in Isaiah 6 you know that the word Seraph is it's the word for serpent it's the word for fiery serpent it's exactly the same word that was used to the fiery serpents in the Book of Numbers that bit all the people and they had to take the the bronze serpent put it up on the pole so it's a it's it's a word for serpents in that interesting and so you you had this kind of this this kind of thing with the the cherubim represented being represented by these kind of animal things with at least with their faces the four different kinds of animals you know three animals and mankind in their faces and then you have some kind of serpentine quality with the seraphs and these are all the angels that are around the throne of God okay with that in mind back to back to verse one now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made and he said to the woman has God indeed said you shall not eat of every tree of the garden and the woman said to the serpent we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden but of the fruit of the trees which is in the midst of the garden God has said you shall not eat it nor shall you touch it lest you die then the serpent said to the woman you will not surely die for God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and evil actually in Hebrew that says you will be like God's knowing good and evil so when the woman saw that the tree was good for food that it was pleasant to the eyes and a tree desirable to make one wise she took of its fruit and ate she also gave to her husband with her and he ate and in the the which goes on and so when you look at the temptation that was used by the serpent the dragon Satan Lucifer in that passage when you look at the temptation that was used there the first thing that he does is he questions God's Word and you can again see that up in verse 1 has God indeed said you shall not eat of every tree of the garden and so what he's doing this question in God's work did God really say that really is that what God said is that really what he meant it's not really what he's talking about you see where I'm going with this so you come up against a verse in the Bible that you don't like or it goes against some part of your lifestyle you can you can and and and you're sitting there struggling with it on some level or another you can bet that Satan is gonna come up and go did God really say that is that really what he meant and there's there's nothing wrong with answering that question but you have to understand that Satan is gonna question the Word of God every opportunity he gets he's always gonna do it he's not gonna stop it works really well this works really well for people who don't know Jesus oh really is that really the Word of God I've heard that it was just written by men and do you have an answer for that and if you've been going through the studies and you do because you know we talked about that specifically so there's always a questioning of the Word of God and then the next thing that Satan does in the passage the woman says we're you know we can we're free to eat from any one of the trees of the garden but this one no we're not to eat from it nor touch it lest you die is what God said to us then the serpent said to the woman you will not surely die so first he questions the Word of God and then he flat-out contradicts it and that begin is always what Satan does and again if it's not broke why would you fix it and this works on people all the time all the time and so I'm constantly getting in theological conversations with people and when I when I quote verses to them and I don't care if it's people from our fellowship or people who don't know Jesus or pastors it doesn't matter where it's coming from you always get the same thing over and over again not every not everybody that I talked to obviously but it's amazing how often people are questioning God's Word and flat-out contradicting it because they don't like what it has to say and so Satan does that contradicts God's Word and then look at the last thing that he does he says you will not surely die verse four and the last thing he does is what he's named for he slanders God for God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods literally knowing good and evil and what do you what he does is he tells half-truths in that passage because the very next verse after we read verse 6 it says then the eyes of both of them were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves covering with coverings were their eyes opened yes absolutely did they know good and evil now yes absolutely you know what they knew before nothing but good now they know evil and they've been given a little primer on what it is what evil is and what it is to be evil and it was the first sin in humankind and he told the truth kind of didn't he what he did was he told a bunch of half-truths in that passage and a half truth is always a full lie he never you know the Satan doesn't just come up in life flat-out to people what he does is he takes whatever he can whatever truth that he can bring together and he taints it and he twists it and he makes it something altogether different than what it actually was and in the process what he does is he slanders the person that he's telling the half truth about and that's what he did with God God's trying to hold something back from you God isn't actually good God's got good things that he doesn't want you to have does this sound familiar yeah same things same things nothing's changed if it ain't broke don't fix it it's Satan uses it all the time and so don't get fooled by it don't get fooled by it don't get fooled by it when it's directed at God don't get fooled by it when it's directed at others you know there are all kinds of people in your life who are trying to do good by you who are trying to do the right thing by you and I'm not you know I'm a pretty cynical person I know I know the kind of world we live in but Satan will come up and he'll try to destroy relationships that you have and the best way that he knows how to do that is takin a bunch of half-truths slanting them and skewing them and making you have an attitude towards somebody that actually loves you what happens all the time right and it's just nothing but satanic nothing but satanic we have to watch out for this stuff and so you have that the other temptation the temptation in this passage is also in three areas if you look at verse 6 it says when the woman saw that the tree was good for food that it was pleasant to the eyes and a tree desirable to make one wise she took of its fruit and ate three areas good for the food or good for food pleasant to the eyes and something good to make one wise there's a passage in 1st John 2:15 through 16 that says this do not love the world or the things in the world if anyone loves the world the love of the father is not in him for all that is in the world the lust of the flesh the lust of the eyes and the pride of life is not of the Father but is of the world and so let's look at this verse again the first thing that you see there in that passage is that she she saw the tree was good for food and that's lust of the flesh she saw that the tree was pleasant to the eyes that's lust of the eyes and she saw that their tree was desirable to make one wise and that's the pride of life I want to be wiser than anybody else so that that kind of and again here we have you know Marie I'm quoting a passage out of the end of the Bible and this is at the beginning of the Bible let's see you have probably about four thousand years separating those two right there and Satan's doing exactly the same thing when you get to the end of the Bible as he was doing at the very beginning in the Bible nothing's different and so the Satan you'll Wiggles bobbles in front of you you need this you need this Christmas is coming right you need this you know I'm just goofing around about that but he'll he'll he'll throw things in front of you you need this job you need this woman you need this man you need these clothes you need it's you know lust of the eyes and the lust of the flesh obviously we could go on and on with this stuff lust of the flesh they're all things that you're all kinds of things that your flesh wants to do in the fact that your flesh wants to do do it doesn't mean that it needs to be done if it feels good do it that's something that was going around when I was a kid if it feels good we had a whole generation that did that and you know we get divorce and we get sexual transmitted sexually transmitted diseases and we get wrecked families and we get on you know all this garbage that comes from that lust of the flesh and then pride of life you got so many people who just cannot give get over the fact that they're educated you know there's so many people that cannot get over the fact that they have bigger muscles than somebody else so many people that can't get over the fact that you know they have a cute face so many people you know it's just nothing but pride nothing but pride and even when somebody has nothing to be proud about their fat headed you know we got we got the situation all over the place and so again we need to be watching out for it you know when Jesus was tempted in Matthew chapter 4 also in Luke when Jesus was tempted by Satan he was tempted in these three areas once again and so you remember Satan comes to him and in the book of Luke in chapter 4 the first temptation had with eating he'd been fasting for 40 days and 40 nights right so Satan comes up and says if you're the Son of God actually literally that can be translated sincere the son of God when you take this this stone and turn it into bread I know you're hungry I'm adding that little part in there I know you're hungry and you're the son of God and so why don't you do something spectacular Buckey you don't have to wait to go to the marketplace to get some bread why don't you turn this stone into bread and you know famously what Jesus said man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God and he resisted the temptation by quoting what scripture Geron Deuteronomy chapter 6 he's quoting the book of Deuteronomy and so he quotes scripture - to the devil and he specifically says it is written man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God the second temptation was that he took him up into a high hill and he showed him all the kingdoms of the world in the moment of time and he said all these kingdoms I'll give to you because they're mine to give to whom ever I place if you'll bow down and worship Me and so he shows him shows him all the kingdoms that's what Jesus came to get he came to get the world he wants everybody and say he goes I'll give it to you right now if you'll bow down and worship me and so he shows it to him that's the lust of the eyes and then the last thing that he does is he takes him up to the pinnacle the thethe the temple and he says since you're the son of God wants you once you jump down off this pinnacle of the temple and the angels will bury you up and he quotes scripture - Jesus says the angel the angels will surround you and they'll bury you up lest you unless you hit your foot against a stone and he quotes scripture to Jesus you understand that Satan will quote scripture to you to get you to do the things that he wants you to do he'll give you all kinds of backup for all the nasty things that you want to say and all the rotten things that you want to do he'll give you backup for that and so again you you have to watch out for that and again Jesus Jesus quotes scripture and he says you shall not tempt the Lord your God he says again it is written so it's it is written it is written it is written in every at every where satan is coming up against him here's another way that that satan deals with us and again the the word devil means slanderer and so he deals in the area of slander we read in Revelation chapter 12 and verse 10 that G that Satan is called the accuser of our brethren who accused them before our God day and night has been cast down and so Satan is standing before God accusing you before God day and night okay and so if Satan is going to work it that's how that's how Satan is dealing between him and God how do you think Satan's gonna deal between you and other people that have already kind of kind of hit on this whole thing Satan slanders people Satan will take situations and he'll he'll tweak them in your mind so that you don't have a real understanding of what's going on and again this is good for Thanksgiving there are things that are going on around your Thanksgiving table unless everybody there is a believer and sometimes it's even worse if everybody's a believer depending but but there are things that are going on in your family and around your table that Satan would love to use just to separate people and destroy the the witness of the gospel he wants to wreck everything and so you have to be aware of these things so when God looks at your unbelieving family does he hate them no does he love them yeah God God loves people yes he loves them does he love what they're doing no probably not if they're unbelievers he doesn't love what what they're doing and so God has a love for the people who are sitting around your table no matter what kind of jerks they are no matter how awful they've been to you and what I get when I go into a situation like that and you guys I've got a messed-up family you guys know this it's still messed up there's still a bunch of messed up stuff about my family and when I go into a situation like that I'm going into a praying and asking God to give me a heart for the people who I you know who I'm gonna have a problem with that I always know there's gonna be an issue it's always going to happen my mouth my family you know it's like you think my mouth is big you should you should see my family man and so there are conversations that go on around tables like that that are pretty you know intense at times and so I always go into that prayed up and having a heart for my brother having a part for my sisters having a heart for my mom having a heart for you know and then on the other side of the family my dad my stepmom my other sisters I always go into those situations praying and and just asking God to make me a good witness and to give me peace and to seat him the way that he sees him he loves these people he wants them I don't care what happened when I was 12 doesn't matter he wants them right and so what he's gonna do is he's gonna try to jump in them up in the middle of stuff and he's gonna slander people to you they did this they did that they've always been this way little words are gonna come up little phrases are gonna come up during the during the the the dinner that you have with these people and you're gonna be transported back to when you were 12 like I was saying before transported back to when you were 12 and he was 10 and what he did what that dad did you know and all that stuff and again you have to understand it 2nd Corinthians 12 20 says for I am afraid this was Paul talking about the church at Corinth he says for I'm afraid that when I come I won't like what I find and you won't like my response I'm afraid that I'll find quarreling and jealousy anger selfishness slander gossip arrogance and disorderly behavior and it's you know again it's it's something to keep in mind and he was talking about a church that's a bummer New Testament church we want our church to be like a New Testament church and what Paul says about this one is there's nothing but quarreling and jealousy and anger and selfishness and slander and gossip and arrogance and disorderly behavior I don't want any kind of Church like that I want to be any part of that and obviously don't want it in my family you know how did Satan cause the fall of a third of the Angels did he just stand up one day and say hey guys I'm thinking going out on my own hey anybody want to go with me probably not right probably what happened was there was jealousy and selfishness and slander and that brought forth anger and quarreling and gossip and arrogance and disorderly behavior to say the least and again if it ain't broke why would you fix it if he did it with the Angels don't you think he can do it with you so you know again we have to watch out for those things here's another thing that he does he hinders the gospel he enters the gospel remember that story that Jesus gave of the of the different soils and so you know the sword going out in the solid seat and it talks about the first seed that the sword went out and Saudi sowed on hard ground on the path basically and that the birds of the air came and took it away well in Matthew 13:19 it says when anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart this is he who received seed by the wayside and so Satan is in the in the in the habit of going through and any time that he can snatching the gospel out of a person's mind which lets you know that he works in the area of the mind so he tries to snatch away the gospel from people who are who are in danger of believing it if somebody is sitting there hearing the gospel and they're like I don't get it I don't get it Satan comes up immediately goes oh it's a bunch of garbage that's a bunch of BS and you know all of the stuff that the enemy would say about what Jesus has to say about you getting to heaven he's obviously gonna do that stuff the Bible in another passage says that the god of this age talking about Satan has blinded the minds of those who won't believe he wants to put blinders on people and so he hinders the gospel so how do we combat him and one of the things that we need to keep in mind is that we are never going to do better than Jesus in combating the enemy and the way that he did it was by saying again it is written it is written it is written Jesus had God's Word memorized and then he verbalized it and so any any time that I am under the attack of the enemy in the area of my flesh or in the area of my pride in the area of looking at things and wanting them and they're obviously not things that God wants me to have I use Scripture in those areas sometimes I use exactly the same scripture that Jesus used in those areas you shall not tempt the Lord your God you have used that a number of different times there's a passage in James 4 at verses 7 through 8 that says this therefore submit to God resist the devil and he will flee from you draw near to God and He will draw near to you cleanse your hands you sinners purify your hearts you double-minded and so there is a process there so whenever I'm getting attacked by the enemy first off I need to know the enemy's attacking because sometimes it's just my stinking flesh sometimes it's just my lust right but whatever when the enemy is attacking me the first thing I need to be doing is submitting to God I don't stand up on my own in front of Satan Satan's an angel he's radically powerful he can do anything he wants with me you know obviously God limits those things but I'm not powerful against Satan myself it's my big brother Jesus that Satan is actually afraid of and you always keep that in mind and so I need to submit to God then it says resist the devil and that word resist in Greek means resistant keep resisting it's not I resistant to one side he's ok back and then you fold or something that is not what's supposed to be happening you resist and you keep resisting you have an example of of Joseph in the Old Testament remember Potiphar's wife this guy got sold into slavery he becomes a he goes to a a man's house named Potiphar Potiphar likes the kid and puts him in charge of everything that he's got and so he's basically running the household Potiphar's wife has eyes for him he's young and good-looking and she wants to sleep with him and the Bible says that she tempted him over and over again it wasn't a one-time thing and finally he had to just get up and run at one point it's resisting keep resisting its not resist once and then fold okay so resisting keep resisting the devil and he will flee from you because he's a bully and bullies are cowards and when you stand up to them they flee that's the way that it goes I've run into lots of bullies over the years resist the devil and he'll flee from you and then draw near to God and he'll draw near to you and so in that in that passage you had double the emphasis on your relationship with God than you do on dealing with the devil and so you so you submit to God you resist the devil and then you draw near to God deal with the devil and the way that he needs to get deal dealt with you resist him and then you get your eyes off of what he's doing and get them right back on the Lord if Satan doesn't want you reading your Bible what would you do to tweak Satan read your Bible if Satan does who want you to pray what would you do to tweak Satan you would pray if Satan doesn't want you to get along with your brother what would you do to tweak Satan get along with your brother it doesn't you see what I mean it's a push you know you push back go for the ball then that's that's the idea behind that okay and then it fine and then finally it says cleanse your hands you sinners I like that cleanse your hands you sinners purify your hearts you double-minded I think that's kind of hilarious James is pretty rowdy but but there's truth to it I need to submit to God resist the devil draw near to God get my hands clean and purify my heart get my hands clean and purify my heart there's usually some of that that needs to be done too and if you do that Satan's got no power over you you are Teflon to the devil at that point okay let's talk about demon possession in less than 10 minutes you know to her over to Matthew chapter 12 yeah hot I don't know if her I don't know what I should do here Matthew chapter 12 verse 43 Jesus is talking about actually he is talking about demon possession but he's comparing a demon possession to the rebellion of the of the Land of Israel and basically he's giving the the guys that he's talking to a warning about the fact that they're abandoning God and they're opening him themselves up to Satan you abandon God you open yourself up to Satan and in verse 43 he says when an unclean spirit goes out of a man he goes through Dry places seeking rest and finds none then he says I will return to my house from which I came and when he comes he finds it's empty swept and put in order then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself that's interesting and they enter and dwell there and the last state of that man is worse than the first so shall it also be with this wicked generation so uses a picture from demon possession and so in demon possession the spirit of a person is pictured as a house for a demon and when a demon is cast out or goes out of a man he goes through dry places and when he comes back to the man verse 44 he finds him when he comes at the end of verse 45 he finds it empty swept and put in order and so when a demon is inside of a person the opposite of that would be full and filthy and out of order right the it talks about when this demon is cast out and he comes back and finds the house empty he goes out and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself so apparently there's there's levels of wickedness with fallen angels that's interesting and they come back in the last state of the man is worse than the first and again he's doing it in the context of what's going to happen to the nation of Israel but that doesn't change the fact that he just described what demon possession about is about you know Satan has always been a wannabe when when you look at why Satan fell he fell because he wanted to be God and demon possession is nothing but a copy of possession by God when I gave my life to Jesus Christ before I gave my life to Jesus Christ there was no Christ spirit within me there was no little thing that needed to be fanned into flame or or anything like that the Bible says that I was dead and I was under the power of the enemy not necessarily demon possessed and I wasn't but under the under the influence of the enemy and when Jesus comes into you he comes in and you become the temple of the holy spirit God comes to live inside of you that's why you're saved that's that's what that's what takes place when you give your life to Christ God comes to live inside of you and demon possession is nothing but a copy of what God does okay and I'm just gonna give you some some verses that you can write down when when you see guys who are demon and these aren't exhaustive but I'm just using some examples when you see people who are demon possessed in the Bible you have people who cannot speak and so it's dumbness and so Matthew 932 so demon can cause somebody to have a disorder where they can't speak and then you have blindness in Matthew 12:22 and that is caused by a demon not every not every situation where somebody could speak was demon a demon possession issue sometimes it's just healing and not in every situation where people were blind was it a demon possession issue but there was a a blind man who had a demon cast out of him and so that's in Matthew 12:22 epilepsy is another instance where people are flopping around on the ground I actin all weird and not every instance of epilepsy is a demon possession but in this instance in mark 9 17 through 27 that's exactly what it was and so when Jesus is dealing with a healing issue he heals the person when he's dealing with a demonic issue he gets rid of the demon he takes care of whatever the problem is insanity Matthew 8:28 Mark five one through five those are those are two passages where a kid specifically is acting insane and so you have have those kinds of situations and obviously not all insanity is demon cost if it wasn't demon cost Jesus wouldn't be casting out a demon he would just heal somebody and so you see that in the Ministry of Jesus sometimes these healing people sometimes he cat he's casting out a demon okay demons speak in the first person this is out of Matthew 829 suddenly they cried out saying what have we to do with you Jesus you son of God have you come here to torment us before the time that's a person who is demon-possessed saying that so demons are speaking in the first person what do you what if you have what do you have to do with us mark 1 23 through 24 there was a man in their synagogue with an unclean spirit and he cried out let us alone what have we to do with you Jesus of Nazareth did you come to destroy us I know who you are the Holy One of God Jesus tells that guy to shut up right and so again speaking in the first person here's another one right 5 7 and he cried out with a loud voice and said what have I to do with you Jesus son of the Most High God I implore you by God that you do not torment me and it's a demon speaking through a man's voice in each one of those instances and so you have a situation where the demons are overwhelming the personality of the person who's been possessed I mean Greek it's literally demonized in acts 19 13 through 16 it says this then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists took it upon themselves to call them call the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits saying we exorcise you by the Jesus whom Paul preaches also there were seven sons of sceva Juba Jewish high chief priests who did so and the evil spirit answered and said Jesus I know and Paul I know but who are you and then the man and whom the evil spirit was leaped on them overpowered them and prevailed against them so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded that's a hilarious story ok so these guys you know they're watching Paul the Apostle going around and and casting demons out of people and he's using a formula they think come out of them in the name of Jesus so they see that they go well we could use the same formula well they don't know Jesus they're not believers and so they go up and you know they find this guy who's demon-possessed got a new formula let's use the formula come out of him in the name of Jesus whom Paul preaches and the demon goes yeah I know Jesus and I know Paul how'd you like a demon to say that about you I know Steve that's kind of a compliment that's a pretty cool thing I know Paul so Jesus I know Paul I know I don't know you and then he beats a snot tears their clothes off and out they go I could tell you some stories about that I'm not going to it's looking Christians be demon possessed and I'm just gonna rip through this real quick Colossians 1:13 says this he has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the son of his love so if I am demon-possessed and I'm a Christian that I'm not delivered am i but the Bible says he's delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the son of his love I've been I've been transferred I was in the kingdom of darkness and now I'm in the kingdom of light in life and I mean in Jesus's Kingdom first John 4:4 greater is He that's in you you are of God little children and have overcome them because he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world so greater who is he who's in me than he who's in the world first John 5:18 this is a good one we're kept by God it says we know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin the one who was born of God that's talking about Jesus keeps him safe and the evil one cannot harm him so that's 1st John 5:18 and then finally 2nd Corinthians chapter 6 turn over there real quick 2nd Corinthians chapter 6 starting in verse 14 you guys know the passage it says do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers and then in he Paul asks a bunch of rhetorical questions do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers then he says for what Fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness what's the answer none what communion has light with darkness what's the answer none what Accord has Christ with Belial Lyles the name for the devil what's the answer none and what agreement has the temple of God or what part has a believer with an unbeliever verse 15 none in the sense that Paul's talking about and what agreement has a temple of God with idols none and then he says for you are the Temple of the Living God as God has said I will dwell in them walk among them I'll be their God they'll be my people therefore come out from among them be separate says the Lord do not touch what is unclean and I will receive you I'll be a father to you you shall be my sons and daughters says the Lord Almighty on the temple of God Jesus doesn't share he doesn't share and so when Christ comes into your life the devil can't stay there you know I was quoting from those verses about the demons speaking in the first person and you know every single time that they're speaking to Jesus they're screaming what it you know I don't I don't think that they were talking quietly what have you to do with what are we to do with you Jesus you son of God have you come here to torment us before the time I don't think that was the tone I think they were screaming at that point they were flippin out every time a demon got near Jesus they flipped out that's the same thing Jesus is in me and you no matter what this devil can do on the outside you can't do the things that happens it happens to these people on the inside I cannot be demon-possessed I'm a child of God I'm under the power of God and again you keep that in mind last verse then I'm gonna let you go Revelation chapter 12 verse 11 let's start a let's start verse 10 says then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven now solvation and strength from the kingdom of our God and the power of his Christ have come for the accuser of our brethren who accused them before our God day and night has been cast down and they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony they did not love their lives to the death when Satan is cast out salvation and strength and the Kingdom over God and the power of his Christ have come when the power of his Christ have come and the kingdom of God has come and his strength and his salvation have come then Satan's cast out that's the way that that goes as far as how we overcome the enemy we overcome him by the blood of the Lamb I don't know if we're coming by my own righteousness I overcome him by Jesus's righteousness Satan will come along and he'll remind you of your sin he'll remind of you of your past over and over and over again remind you of your past when Satan comes and reminds you of your past remind him of his future you know and the reason that that we don't stand in our own strength in this area is because he's telling the absolute truth when he talks about my sin I have sinned I have fallen short I have blown it I have rebelled I have transgressed I've done awful things it's all true Satan doesn't have to lie about my sin you can just tell the absolute truth about it but I don't stand in my own righteousness I stand in the blood of Jesus the only reason I'm going to heaven is because of what Jesus did for me not because I'm this great guy and I found God or something that is not what's happening and so you overcome him by the blood of the Lamb you always go back to Jesus when Satan is attacking and the word of their testimony you know what Satan wants to get you to do shut your mouth he does not want you talking and so in all these different things that we've been talking about the schemes of the enemy whether you're talking about misdirection what he wants you to do is shut your mouth he doesn't he doesn't he doesn't want you go after the real objective what he wants you to do is he wants you to either be focused on him in the sense that you're looking for the devil all the time whole ministries are built around looking for the devil and very little built around people bringing people to Christ he wants you to focus on yourself as much as possible and not focus on the people who are around you he wants you to shut your mouth do not open your mouth do not talk about Jesus do not lead anybody to the Lord shut your mouth that's always the plan and so again you want to tweak the devil how do you do it open your mouth by the word of their testimony you tell people about what Jesus has done for you and it tweaks the devil every single time and that they did not love their lives to the death and the reason for that is you start opening your mouth things are gonna happen and sometimes they're not gonna be pleasant and you have to be willing to open your mouth despite the fact that you know that people are gonna be upset don't go around being upsetting in the in a sense of just getting up in people's faces but people need to people need to know this stuff you're going to heaven and there's a reason you're going and it's because somebody told you about Jesus they open their mouth it's why you're going and everybody else or it you know on this planet deserves exactly the same chance that you got it's not fair that they should not hear and so we need to open our mouth that's how you overcome it and so again we could go on with that but that's good don't you think that's all still and if you're here this morning and you you don't have a relationship with Christ or you don't know if you have one somebody probably brought you and this you know you guys you guys who brought somebody to church this morning and you know this applies to them what'd I just say open your mouth open your mouth say something because they they need to know the Lord and it'd be good if on Thanksgiving that they had really something to really be thankful about let's pray Jesus thanks again for your love thank you for your word thank you for your protection you're such a blessing to us you've been so good to us Lord and Lord we thank you that there are ways that we can overcome the enemy and you've made them clear in your word Lord we pray that you'd help us to be vigilant in fact you said be watching out be vigilant because your enemy the Satan goes around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour and so Lord we need to have our eyes open we need to understand when things are going without bad when things are going south whether it's around us or whether it's in our heads the Lord and we need to be combating the enemy the way that you do God just blessed these people bless their bless their weak bless their Thanksgiving and father we just want to come back together loving you more and knowing you better and we asked us in Jesus name

Channel: Calvary Chapel Tri-Cities

Views: 2,143

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Gospel, The Bible, Worldviews, Jesus, God, Calvary Chapel, Steve Whinery, Being Like Jesus, Having A Biblical Worldview, The Bibles View on Things, What does the Bible have to say

Id: iammrbzrX7s

Length: 63min 8sec (3788 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 20 2018