[MUSIC PLAYING] [LOUD CROWD NOISE] God isn't really
something to worship. He's just waiting
destroy all of us. I guess there's a God
out there somewhere. I hope there is a God. God isn't really
something to worship. God, Allah, Buddha. God is everywhere. Good morning, great to
see you this morning. [APPLAUSE] Go ahead and turn in your
Bibles to the Gospel of Luke. Luke chapter 10, we're going to
look at a few verses together. We've been doing a
series on doctrine, starting with the doctrine
of God, the character of God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the
nature of man, his fall, his need of redemption. We looked last week at
angels and we're continuing this doctrinal series 2020. And today, we look
at a topic that is probably one of our least
favorite things to talk about. And that is the devil. Nobody really likes to
talk about the devil. In fact, I have discovered
that most people in the world don't believe there is a devil
that is in a literal sense. Or the devil has just been
portrayed as this weird cartoon caricature of a skinny
guy in a red satin set of pajamas with a
pitchfork and horns, half man, half beast,
all of that nonsense. A Gallup poll was done that
revealed 89% of Americans say they believe in God,
whereas 61% of Americans say they believe in the devil. And what was
disturbing about those who said they
believed in the devil, half regarded the devil
as an actual real person, a literal person, the
others, not literal. And a bulk of them considered
themselves born again Christians. So just get that in mind. You've got a born again
Christians say, I believe in God, I follow Jesus, but I
do not believe there is a devil. Is there a problem with that? Yes. And I'm going to show you why. The devil has been
reduced to a fairy tale. One person told me,
it's stuff, it's something parents
made up to scare their kids into obeying them. There are all
sorts of songs that have reduced the devil to just
a humorous cultural caricature. So we have songs like "The
Devil And The Deep Blue Sea." Or "The Devil With
A Red Dress On." Or "The Devil Went
Down To Georgia." And judging from the elections,
that actually may be the case. "The Devil In Her Heart,"
"Run, Devil, Run." Or it has ended up to be in
foods, like devil's food cake. Who eats that? They eat it in hell. Devil's food cake, or
deviled eggs, or deviled ham. And so people have regarded
the idea of a literal devil as passe, as naive. And rather they
would prefer to see the devil is just sort
of a general idea of evil in the world. Listen, one of the first
principles in warfare is to know who your enemy is. And there is no more powerful
an enemy than one who is there, but you don't think is there. If you have an enemy
who exists, but you don't believe that enemy exists
and yet he does, he's won. So what I'd like to do
today in this study-- by the way the name of
this study is Satan-- His Meaning, Minions,
and Methods-- is give you some surprising
facts about the devil. Essentially, there are
three enemies that we face, the world, the
flesh, and the devil. The world is the world
system of ideas and values that disregards God. The flesh is your flesh,
your fallen nature. And those two enemies
would not have any kind of a powerful
foothold without a third enemy, the devil. The devil uses your flesh and
uses the world to get at you. And even though the
Bible says, according to Paul in his
epistle, we are not ignorant of Satan's
devices, unfortunately I've discovered a lot of
Christians who actually are ignorant of his devices. So allow me to go through
this and give you, starting in our
text here in Luke, chapter 10, six surprising
facts about the devil. Number one, he is real. I know that doesn't
surprise you. But that is a surprise to the
average person living today. Satan is real. He's not a Halloween
costume, he's an actual real personal being. Now in Luke chapter 10-- and by the way, you may
want to turn in advance to two other
passages we're going to look at in a little bit. One is Ezekiel chapter
28, and the other one is Isaiah chapter 14. Luke 10 is where we begin, but
then Ezekiel 28 and Isaiah 14. In Luke 10, Jesus sends out
his disciples, not 12 of them, but 70 of them, to the towns
and villages around the area on his way to Jerusalem. He sends them out two by two. He wants them to go
into the village, speak about the kingdom
of God, see who's open, see who is not open, and
get ready for his coming to those areas later on. So it's sort of like
an evangelistic team that is sent in advance. So they go, they do what
Jesus tells them to do. They come back, and they are so
stoked at what they discovered. Let's pick it up in verse
17 of Luke chapter 10. "So then the 70 returned
with joy, saying, 'Lord, even the demons
are subject to us in Your name.'" They saw some exercise
of spiritual authority as they went. "And he said to them, 'I saw
Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Behold I give you the
authority to trample on serpents and
scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and
nothing shall by any means hurt you. Nevertheless do not
rejoice in this, that the spirits
are subject to you, but rather rejoice because your
names are written in heaven.'" It's pretty obvious
that those 70 disciples believed in literal demons. Because they said, the
demons were subject to us in your name. So they believed. It's also pretty obvious Jesus
believed in a literal devil, because he named him. I saw Satan fall like
lightning from heaven. So you got 70 and Jesus
believing in a real devil. Now what evidence do we
have that the devil is real, that he is literal. Let me give you three
lines of reasoning. Number one, philosophically,
philosophically. By simple reason, there
has to be an adversary. I mean, just think it through. There's a God, he makes a world. And yet the world that he made
is not in perfect harmony. It's in disarray. And we wonder, well,
why is that the case? If you have an all-powerful
good God who can do anything and he makes his
creation, yet his creation seems filled with violence
and flaws and problems, you've got this dichotomy. God made it, and yet
it's filled with evil. You have a mix of happiness and
sorrow, wisdom and stupidity, kindness and cruelty. How do you account for that? The presence of another
being, another powerful being. I mean, you tell
somebody about God. God loves you, has a
wonderful plan for your life. That person happens to be an
unbeliever and shoots back and he says, what do you mean
there's a God who loves me? Why is there so much
bad stuff in the world if there's a good God? So just reasoning it
through philosophically, it makes sense. But a stronger
line of evidence is biblically we know it to be so. The Bible speaks about
Satan 54 different times. It means adversary, an enemy. He is your enemy. Another 35 times the
Bible speaks of the devil. And when the Bible speaks of
the devil, it doesn't say it. It uses personal pronouns,
he, him, himself. Also, Satan, the
devil, is called the evil one, the wicked one. He's given the name
Abbadon and Apollyon. in the book of Revelation. One is a Hebrew word,
one is a Greek word that means destroyer. Real names, formal names,
speak of a real person with personality, and power,
and planning, and purpose. And the strongest case
for the biblical position is the Lord Jesus
Christ, himself. Like here, he named Satan. I saw Satan fall from
heaven like lightning. Jesus had conversations
with Satan, like when he was being
tempted in Matthew chapter 4. And the Lord Jesus
rebuked him personally. Or when Jesus spoke
of the devil's work against the gospel, he
said, the word is sown. That is the parable of
the sower in Matthew 13. The word is sown. As soon as people hear it, Satan
comes and takes away the word that was sown in their hearts. There again, he is speaking
of a literal, real Satan doing a work. Or how about when Jesus told
Peter near to the crucifixion. He said, Peter-- or
he put it this way, Simon, Simon, Satan has
been asking for you. He wants to sift you like wheat,
but I have prayed for you. Well if I was Peter, I wouldn't
feel too good about that. Because Jesus just
identified an enemy by name who has been
asking for my soul. Now let's look at verse 18
again a little more carefully. "And he said to them, 'I saw
Satan fall like lightning from heaven.'" What he
means by that is, I was there when it happened. When the fall from
heaven happened, I saw it, I was there,
I experienced it. In fact, the whole reason
Jesus was on the Earth was to undo all the
bad stuff that happened since he fell from heaven. Listen to what is written in
1 John chapter 3, verse 8. "For this purpose,
the Son of God was manifested that
he might destroy the works of the devil." Now, the reason I'm
making a deal out of this is, that means if you say
you believe in Jesus Christ but you don't
believe in the devil, you are making a mockery out of
what Jesus said he came to do. If he came to destroy
the works of the devil, that's the purpose of the
incarnation of him coming, if you say I don't
believe in a devil. Devil doesn't exist. It's just an idea. If Jesus believed in it, the
disciples believed in it, James wrote about it, John wrote
about it, Paul wrote about it, Peter wrote about it, and you
say, yeah, I don't believe it, then you are making a
mockery out of the entire New Testament. So we know it philosophically. Moreover we know at biblically. But third, there's
another line of evidence. We know it experientially. I mean, who can live today
with all that is going on, and deny the existence
of the devil? Anybody that does that
is just out of touch. Back in his day,
D.L. Moody said, "I believe Satan exists
for two reasons-- First because the Bible says
so, and second because I've done business with him." And you have, as well. You know by your own
experience, yeah, it's real. There was a poem years ago,
and one of the stanzas says, the devil is voted not to be,
so of course the devil is gone. But simple folks
would like to know, who carries his business on? Somebody is doing it. Somebody is causing all these
problems and all this evil. So the devil is real. He's real. In fact, there are
some people that are so convinced he is real,
they worship him openly. The Church of Satan has
been growing in numbers since it was developed in
the 1960s in San Francisco by Anton LeVay. Thousands, millions of
people worldwide say, not only do I believe there
is a devil, I worship him. So that's surprising to a
lot of people in the world, but that is the first one. He is real. Second one, the second
surprising fact-- and this is going to surprise
some of you. Not only is he real,
but he is magnificent. Now I've gotten some of your
attention by saying that, because the last thing you
expected in coming to a church service to hear an
evangelical pastor say the devil is magnificent. But he is. Or in the very least,
we have to say, he was. He was so magnificent
that God describes him as the most glorious
creature he had ever made. In fact, he is so
beautiful there's an indication in
the Bible that we're going to have some capacity
in the future to see him. And when we do, we're
going to be surprised when we look at him, probably
because of his beauty and magnificence. Turn with me to the
book of Ezekiel. I've had to mark
that in advance. Go to the book of
Ezekiel chapter 28. And we don't have time to
go through a lot of it, but let me just kind
of cut to the chase. We're going to
begin in verse 11. But let me set it out for you. In Ezekiel 2008, actually
in this section of Ezekiel, the prophet is
pronouncing God's judgment upon different nations. And there's one
nation in particular in this chapter, the
kingdom of Tyre which was a city-state right up
on the upper Mediterranean coast in what is today Lebanon. And at the time,
there was a ruler of Tyre called the
Prince of Tyre. And that is to whom this
section is addressed, a lamentation against
the Prince of Tyre. We know him to be a
real historical figure. His name was
Ithobaal the second. He was a very ruthless,
godless, prideful ruler. In fact, he even
claimed that he was God. So judgment is proclaimed
against Ithobaal, the Prince of Tyre. But then in verse 11,
there's a shift that occurs. Then somebody who cannot be
identified in the earthly sense is talked about. And that is the King of Tyre. And from the description
that we are about to read, we will understand that the
description cannot fit any human being. And you'll see why. Let's begin in
chapter 28 verse 11. "Moreover, the word of the Lord
came to me, saying, Son of man, take up a lamentation for the
king of Tyre, and say to him, 'Thus says the Lord God-- you were the seal of perfection,
full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.'" Watch this. "'You were in Eden, the Garden
of God.'" Now I highly doubt that Ithobaal the second
was in the Garden of Eden. This does not fit any
description of any human ruler. What the prophet is
doing is after addressing the Prince of Tyre, he goes to
the very source of evil itself, the King of Tyre, the real
power behind the earthly Prince. And that shouldn't bother
you, because the Bible does that a lot. It kind of shifts from
one reality to another. In fact, Jesus did this. Jesus was talking to
Peter when he announced that he was going to Jerusalem
and he would be crucified, and Peter said, oh
no, we're not going to let that happen to you. And Jesus said to Peter,
get behind me Satan, Satan. What's he doing? He's addressing the power
that gave Peter the thought, we're going to keep you
from going to the cross. Get behind me Satan. So we see that here, but in
a bigger kind of a sense. So he's addressing
the King of Tyre. And look at the description. In verse 12, you were
the seal of perfection. In other words, you're the
sum of everything I have made. You were the best of the
best, the seal of perfection, full of wisdom, and
perfect in beauty. What a statement. If you want to know what
God thinks is beautiful, you would need to
see this angel. Why is that important? Because when people
today think of the devil, they think of him as what? Ugly, right? Misshapen, a deformed
half beast, half man. Say, you were
beautiful, magnificent. In fact, the only angel
in scripture-- and this does describe an angel because
it talks about the cherub. You'll see that in a minute. The only angel in
scripture given this much detail of beauty
is not Gabriel, not Michael, but this one. This was the most glorious
creature God ever made. So it says, "You were in
Eden, the Garden of God. Every precious stone was your
covering, the sardius, topaz, diamond, beryl, onyx, and
jasper, sapphire, turquoise, emerald, with gold." I don't quite know what that
means, the psychedelic kind of beauty that was displayed. "The workmanship of
your timbrels and pipes was prepared for you on
the day you were created. You were the anointed
cherub who covers." A cherub is an angel. It's the highest of the ranking
of the good angels, the most powerful, surrounding the
presence and glory of God. "I established you, you were
on the holy mountain of God, you walked back and forth in
the midst of the fiery stones. You were perfect in your ways
from the day you were created, til iniquity was found in you." Now it goes on to say, "By
the abundance of your trading you became filled with
violence, and you sinned." And you sinned. Back in Luke 10, Jesus said, I
saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. This describes why. What happened to him? Well, we just read it. You'll notice in
verse 15, he says, "Iniquity was found in you." Verse 16, "you sinned,"
and then verse 17, notice, "Your heart was lifted
up because of your beauty. You corrupted your wisdom for
the sake of your splendor. I cast you to the ground. I laid you before kings,
that they might gaze at you." Now go back to verse
13 for just a moment because I want you
to notice something. What was it that this
cherub was doing in heaven? Two things. Number one, he was a musician. Notice in verse 13, he
talks about your timbrels and your pipes. "The workmanship of
your timbrels and pipes was prepared for you." Timbrels and pipes are
musical instruments. Why is that important? It would seem to mean that
this cherub, this being, in the Garden of
Eden who was there, that at one time in heaven,
he was the worship leader. He was the worship leader,
he was the choir director. It's interesting to think, when
God made his supreme creation, he made a musician. Now if you're a
musician, don't get big headed about that, because
look what happened to this one. But verse 14, "You were the
anointed cherub that covers." Inferring that Satan must have
had some position of hovering over the throne of God
to protect his holiness and protect his glory. So he is real, he
is a magnificent. Third fact, he made the
stupidest choice ever. It's mystifying to me still. It's surprising still to me
when I think of what happened. Because I think, wait a minute,
you had like the best gig ever. If you're the
anointed cherub who covers, if you're the
highest of God's creation, if you're number 1 minus
1, you've got a good gig. Don't mess that up. But he did. Iniquity was found in him. He sinned, his heart was
puffed up with pride. Now I want to show
you how that happened. It is described. Go back now to
Isaiah chapter 14. Isaiah chapter 14,
remember Jesus said, I saw Satan fall like
lightning from heaven. OK, remember that. And let's read now in
Isaiah chapter 14 verse 12. "How are you fallen from heaven,
O Lucifer, son of the morning! How are you cast
down to the ground, you who weakened the nations!" You know that Lucifer is one
of the most beautiful names you could come up with. And yet I've never
found a parent saying, here's my little son
Lucifer, could you dedicated him to the Lord. No, nobody does that. But you know what it means,
Lucifer means daystar. Or son of the morning, or star
of the morning, or shining one. It's a beautiful,
beautiful name. Yet to use that name would
be almost profane because of what happened. Now I told you last
week that there are three beings in the
scripture of which we have the name, Michael,
Gabriel, and Lucifer. And the only reason
we know their names is because those
beings are germane to the biblical narrative. But I would suppose, therefore,
that all the angels have names, and God knows all of them
just like God knows your name. I don't think when
God calls an angel, he says, OK, angel
1,650,016, come forward. He knows their names. They have names,
they're identified. Now what was the horrible
sin to cause judgment? Begin in verse 13 of Isaiah 14. "For you said in your
heart--" Remember what we just read in Ezekiel. You were lifted
up in your heart. You were puffed up with
pride in your heart. "So you said in your heart-- I will ascend into heaven,
I will exalt my throne above the stars of
God, I will also sit on the mount of the
congregation on the farthest sides of the North,
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds,
I will be like the Most High." Notice five times Lucifer going,
I will, I will, I will, I will, I will. That is the definition of sin. Sin begins when a
person, a being, says in his heart, what I want
is more important than what God wants. I will exalt my will
above God's will. That's sin. That's where it all begins. Five times he uses
the word, I will. He goes, "I will be
like the most high." Verse 15, "You shall be
brought down to hell," this is God's response, "to
the lowest depths of the pit." Now go back to what he
says here in that verse. I will ascend into heaven. Why does he say that? I mean, if he's already
in heaven, why does he go, I'm going to ascend into heaven? Well, you're already there. So why are you going to ascend? For him to ascend, there's only
one person left who's higher, and that's God. For the chief angel to get a
promotion would make him God. That's the problem. Something happened in his
heart where he is now not satisfied with worshipping
God, but now he wants to be worshipped as God. I will be like the Most High. And when that happened,
Lucifer became Satan and he was cast out of heaven. I saw Satan fall like
lightning from heaven. Verse 15, "You shall be
brought down to sheol," hell, "to the lowest
depths of the pit. Those who see you will gaze at
you, and consider you, saying-- 'is this the one that
made the Earth tremble, who shook kingdoms?'" So he
says, I'm going up in life. God says, you're
going down to the pit. And it's going to be fulfilled
in Revelation chapter 20, when it tells us that Satan
is cast into the lake of fire. He and all of his demons,
cast into the lake of fire. And God has been waiting a
long time for that to happen. Still hasn't happened yet. And when it finally
does, it's God's way of eternally demonstrating the
absolute stupidity of defying God. You want to defy God? You want to exalt
your will above God? Let me show you what
that will get you. Because the chief of my creation
tried that, and here's his end. Now I want to apply
that with this question. What choices are
you making in life? Are you making stupid choices? Are you making smart choices? You say, Skip, define stupid. OK, here's a stupid choice. Any choice that moves you
away from the heart of God is stupid. Any choice that draws you closer
to his heart and will is smart. Anybody who says, I want this,
I want that, I will this, I will that, is stupid if
it's against the will of God. And God will demonstrate
that eternally by casting the greatest
creation he made into the pit. So a lot of surprising things. He is real, he is
magnificent, but he made the stupidest choice ever. I'll give you a
fourth surprising fact about the devil. And that is this, the devil
is not the opposite of God. The devil is not
the opposite of God, but he wants you to think
he's the opposite of God. Oh, he loves it when people
give the devil more credit than he's due. He loves it when
people think, yeah, he's like, he's like
the opposite of God. He's powerful like God. I read a news article in
the LA Times some years ago. It caught my attention
so I cut it out. 17-year-old boy said, "I often
think of Satan as a cool dude." I'd never heard anybody talk
about the devil as a cool dude. But this 17-year-old
boy said, "I've often thought of the devil
as a cool dude, since he controls one
part of the supernatural." Wrong. "He tends to let you be on
your own and do what you want, whereas God wants to
put you in a jail cell." Listen, the devil
wants people to think he is so awesome
and so powerful, that the universe
is sort of like one big celestial boxing ring. And over here in the corner,
ladies and gentlemen, is Jesus Christ, and over
here in the other corner is the devil. And they're duking it
out, who's going to win? What round are we in? Are you kidding? The devil was created by Jesus. He can't go one
round with the champ. He is not the opposite of God. He was created. He was created. Tertullian, one of
the church fathers, had a pretty famous
saying in his time. He gave it in Latin, it
was [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH].. Which literally translated,
means Satan is God's monkey. What that means is, the
devil tries to ape God. He wants to be like the
Most High, so he does things to get the earth, people on the
earth, and hopefully demons, the third went with
him, to believe that he is more powerful than he is. But Jesus said,
I saw Satan fall. He didn't stay in that
position, he went down. I saw it. And the 70 disciples said,
the demons are subject to us in your name. That just shows that God
is superior to the devil and the demons. He's not the opposite of God. He doesn't have the
attributes of God. Listen, the devil is not
self-existent like God is. God is self-existent. Nobody created God. The devil is not
self-existent, he was created. If he was created, it
means he is contingent. If he is contingent, it
means he is inferior to God, supremely so. So he's not self-existent. Something else he's
not, he's not sovereign. Yes, the devil has
certain freedoms. But did you know that
Satan operates only within the government of God? That he has to get permission
from God to do anything? I don't know why God gives him
the permission he gives him, but he has to have
permission to do it. For instance, when he
wanted to attack Job, he had to appear before
God and make an appeal. And get permission
to go after Job. In the Gospel accounts
of the man who was demon possessed, and Jesus came
to deliver the man who was possessed with demons. The demons had to get permission
from Jesus to leave that man and go into a herd of swine. Permit us to go into
the herd of swine. And unless Jesus would have
said the word go, which he did, those demons would have
stayed in that man. They had to get permission. The apostle Paul talked
about his thorn in the flesh. Remember in 2 Corinthians
chapter 12 he said, there was given to me-- which implies God gave
it to me, or God allowed it to be given to
me-- there was given to me a thorn in
the flesh, listen to what he says, a messenger
of Satan to buffet me. In other words, God
for his own purposes can even use the malevolent
designs of the devil in trying to attack
you for his own glory and for the good and
betterment of his people. Because Paul said, I
ended up hearing God say, my grace is sufficient for you. My strength is made
perfect in your weakness. So he's not self-existent,
he is not sovereign. Something else the devil is
not, he is not omnipresent. Don't think the devil
is everywhere, he's not. He is limited spatially. He can only be in one
place at one time. A demon can only be in
one place at one time. The demons were in the man,
and when Jesus cast them into the herd they left
the man and they went over to point B, the herd of swine. But they are limited spatially,
they are not omnipresent. Another thing the devil is
not, he is not omniscient. He doesn't know everything. He can't predict the future. I hear Christian sometimes
get freaked out, and they go, I think the devil
can read minds. I think demons read my mind. And I've heard
people tell stories of before they were saved,
they went to a fortune teller or a psychic. And the fortune
teller or psychic gave details of their life. And I don't know
how he knew that, but he knew what I
had for breakfast. Well, your husband knew
what you had for breakfast. I mean, it's
observable information. It's past history. I'm sure there was
a demon present when you were having breakfast who
told it to the fortune teller. But that's different than
predicting the future. That's something only God knows. So the devil is not omniscient. He doesn't know the
future, he doesn't know what you are thinking. I mean, even good
angels lack information. Remember what it says in
Peter, that the angels desire to look into things
regarding our salvation. That's because
angels experientially don't know what it's like
to have God's mercy, grace, and forgiveness. We do. Redemption is something
unique to human beings. We have that. That fascinates the angels,
they desire to look into that. So if good angels don't have
all the information and know everything, certainly
demons don't. So he is not the
opposite of God. He's not real. He's not-- he is magnificent. He is real. He is magnificent. He's made a stupid choice, and
he is not the opposite of God. Let me give you a
fifth surprising fact about the devil. He is highly organized,
really into organization. I don't know if you
read the book The Seven Habits of Effective People. I don't know, but
he's highly organized. And one would have to be. To be effective
in a fallen state, you have to get organized. When Satan fell from
heaven, the Bible indicates that he
managed to bring other spirits, angel
spirits, with him. That he staged a coup
in the heavenly places, a mass rebellion of which he
has been sort of a ruler of, ever since. Revelation chapter 12,
John said, "I saw a dragon, and his tail drew a third
of the stars of heaven and threw them
down to the earth." We read that and go, so
what, that's a vision. What does that mean? Well, you keep
reading that chapter and it tells you that the
stars are fallen angels. And it says, the great
dragon was cast out. "That serpent of old,
called the Devil and Satan," "And his angels were
cast out with him." Did you notice that? His angels. So with a third of the angelic
hosts that rebelled with him, he has put together a
highly organized network of powerful spiritual beings
of which he is the chief. He said, I wanted
to be like God. That's his-- that's what
he's God, that network. But that is why Jesus calls him
the ruler of this world, John chapter 12, John
chapter 14, and John 16, the ruler of this world. Paul said at
Ephesians chapter 2, he's the prince of
the power of the air. That's an interesting
description of him. Prince of the power of the air. Air meaning, the atmosphere. Meaning Satan's
realm is the earth. The earth that has
this atmosphere. But I kind of see more in that. He's the prince of the power not
only of the air, but of the air waves. He is very interested in media. He is highly invested in media. And he seeks to pervert
that, and I think he's done a pretty good job. Luke chapter 11 verse
15, he's called the ruler of demons, the ruler of demons. So you've got this
coup that was staged. He has fallen, he has
all these angelic beings that went with him
who are now demons. He is like the prince of
them, the ruler of them. And that system is
highly organized. In fact, we have names
of their rankings in Colossians 1 and
Ephesians chapter 6. Let me just read one to you. Ephesians 6, Paul
said, "We do not wrestle against flesh
and blood, but," listen, "against
principalities, against powers, against the rulers
of the darkness of this age, against
spiritual hosts," or armies, "of wickedness in
the heavenly places." All of those are titles of
rankings of angelic beings that are evil against you. Now this freaks most people out. OK, the devil is real, he's got
an army, and they hate my guts. Well, that's because we
focus on the wrong truth. A third of the angels fell,
that leaves how many left? 2/3, they're outnumbered. Satan's outnumbered 2 to 1. 2 to 1, and greater
is He that is in you than he that is in the world. Focus on the 2/3 that did
not fall of whom God said, he sends them out
to minister to those who are heirs of salvation,
Hebrews chapter 1, rather than one third of demons. Yeah, demons are real. Yeah, demons are out to get you. But God is living in you and
His angels are surrounding you. That's what you
need to focus on. [APPLAUSE] Yep, Satan is highly organized. So is God, and
he's better at it. And I'll leave you with
the sixth surprising fact, maybe not so surprising to you. Satan, the devil, has an agenda. He has an agenda, a
very specific agenda. It's not just to create chaos. He's not just a bull
in a China closet. Here I go, blululuh. No, he has an agenda, which is
this, to disrupt and destroy the work of God. To disrupt and destroy
the work of God. The very name, Satan,
means adversary, enemy. He is our enemy. He is against people. He's against certain ones. Question is, who is he against? At the very basic level, I
suppose you could say, well, he's against everyone, right. 1 John chapter 5
verse 19, we know that the whole world lies under
the sway of the wicked one. Peter said, the devil
is like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. He'll take anybody down,
anybody who's available. But if you've been
in the military, you'll understand this. There are people who would
be considered the enemy. But within the camp
called the enemy, they have what is called
HVTs, High Value Targets. High Value Target, get the
High Value Target and the rest will fall. I believe Satan has High Value
Targets he has been after. Let me give you a few of them. Target number one, HVT
number one on Satan's list, Jesus Christ. Ever since Genesis
3, 15 announced somebody is going to
be born, Satan, who is going to crush your skull. Satan has tried to attack
the messianic line. That's enemy number one, to him. Jesus and those attached to him. Number two for Satan, HVT,
High Value Target, holy angels, holy angels. You know, we're a little naive
and prideful, I would even say, to imagine that the devil
himself is out to get me. He has some bigger fish
to fry first of all. Even beyond the earthly realm,
even beyond the political, even beyond the elections,
even beyond the rulers of this world, and that
is, in the heavenly places, Satan fights
against holy angels. You want to get a little
insight into that, read Daniel chapter 10 where
an angel says to Daniel, look, as soon as
you prayed, I came. But 21 days I fought the
demon prince of Persia. And it was such a
heavy fight I had to call for super angel Michael
to come and help me out. But here I am. So there's a battle going
on in heavenly places, far beyond the earthly. So Jesus, holy angels, number
three, number three High Value Target, Israel, the
nation of Israel. God has made a plan for
the nation of Israel in the Old Testament. And in the New Testament
he made a covenant with Abraham,
Isaac, Jacob, David, that he will have a
theocratic kingdom upon this earth,
the likes of which has not been fulfilled yet. And that is why in
Revelation chapter 12, it is Satan fallen from heaven
attacking the nation of Israel. So we have Jesus, holy
angels, and Israel. Those are High Value Targets. Let me throw in a fourth,
unbelievers, unbelievers. Satan and his demons
attack unbelievers. What's his purpose
with unbelievers? Keep him unbelievers. Keep him deceived. Distract them, do
anything to distract them to get them to reject
God and never receive Jesus as Savior. Remember, Jesus
said the thief Satan comes to kill, to
steal, and to destroy. Satan wants unbelievers
to die in unbelief. Number five, fifth High
Value Target, believers. But let me be
specific about that. Believers who are making
an impact for the gospel. Believers who are
making an impact. If you are a
serious-minded Christian, you have a target on your back. Now, if you play it
cool, you say, yeah, you know I believe
in Jesus and stuff, but I don't want to get too
fanatical and too serious about God. By and large, Satan's won. He'd made you impotent. You're just going to sort
of veg out through life and go to heaven. But if you are
saying, you know what, I want to do damage to
the kingdom of darkness between now and heaven. I want to seriously
promote the gospel and help people in
the name of Jesus and storm the gates of hell. HVT, High Value
Target on your back. And he'll use everything he
can to hinder your witness, to lessen your
effectiveness, because he is Satan, the adversary. So I know as we come to
a closure, saying Skip, this sermon today
is not on the high-- number 1 to 10 encouraging
list, I put this down at the very bottom. Because you just told
me there's a real devil who hates my guts,
who wants to destroy my witness, who sends his
demons out, and he is my enemy. You're right, I told you that. And that should make you happy. Now you're looking at me like,
you're weird, you're nuts. You're telling me that
the devil is my enemy and that should make me happy? Yes. That's what I'm telling you. Because the other alternative
is the devil isn't your enemy, he's your friend. That's far worse news. If you're going to have any
relationship with the devil at all, you want him as
your enemy, not your friend. Because if he's your
enemy, God is your friend. God is your friend. I'm going to close with
this, Charles Haddon Spurgeon wrote these words, "There
is something very comforting in the thought that the
devil is an adversary. I would sooner have him for
an adversary than a friend. Oh, my soul, it was
dread work for you if Satan were a friend of yours,
for then with him you must forever dwell in
darkness, shut out from the friendship of God." And he closes by saying, "but
to have Satan for your adversary is a comfortable
omen," In other words, it should bring you comfort. "For it looks as if
God were our friend." And so far let us be
comforted in this matter. Satan hates you. Yes, thank you Jesus. I'm so happy, God,
that he hates me. He hates me because I
defected from his kingdom. I didn't listen to his lies. I said, I figured it out, devil. The wages of sin is death,
I'm quitting before payday. I'm giving my life to Jesus. Now he's my enemy, good. Because God is my friend. God is my friend. Father, how thankful we are
for the friendship of God, for the words of our Lord
Jesus Christ, who said, I no longer call
you my servants, I call you my friends. And to be a friend of God is to
have the devil and his minions as enemies. We are comforted
in that thought. We know he is real. We know he's powerful. But you are God,
you created him. And his future is total
annihilation, destruction, in the future. So we have unmasked him, Lord,
and seen him for what he is. A defeated foe. Fill us with your
spirit, Lord, to march into the future boldly,
confidently, not afraid. Not afraid of what's going on
around us, not afraid of what's coming at us, but comforted
at who is living inside of us. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen. Let's all stand and
worship together. We hope you enjoyed this special
service from Calvary Church. We'd love to know how
this message impacted you. Email at
mystory@calvarynm.church. And just a reminder,
you can support this ministry with a financial
gift at calvarynm.church give. Thank you for joining us for
this teaching from Calvary Church.
