I want to tell each and every one of you here today several things you should know, several things that you must know, if you expect to prosper while you are in this life. The first is this: there is a great conflict going on around you every day, a great battle between the forces of God and the forces of Satan, a battle that makes all the wars that mankind has ever waged pale in comparison. This was a war that started when Lucifer, created by God to guard His throne room, stood up in pride and said "I will be like God!". When Lucifer, later called Satan (the Deceiver), stood forward and declared war on God, he started a conflict that would last thousands of years. A conflict that was not physical, but spiritual, trying as that old Devil would to lead mankind away from their loving Creator.
The second thing you need to know is this: Satan does not like you, but only wants to use you to defeat God. God, with infinite tenderness and love, reached down from the Heavens and created a perfect place for mankind to be. He created the earth, a diamond in our solar system, the only world where we might comfortably live and serve Him. He reached down into the earth He created, gathered a bit of dust, and with the gentlest of touches formed man from the ground that he would inhabit. After forming the shell (the body) our Father breathed into man's nostrils, and from that point in time man became a living soul. Satan saw the beautiful relationship being formed between Creator and created, between God and man and, in deceitful cunning set a trap in the Garden of Eden that, he thought, would destroy God's Plan. Satan cares nothing for you and your loved ones, but he will manipulate you if he can to upset God's will in your life.
And I'll tell you something else: you have no power within
your own selves to defeat Satan. Many have tried, and lost. Though
the number of saved in Heaven will be numbered as the sands of the sea,
many others, an overwhelming number, will be in Hell, lost for all eternity,
because they accepted or tolerated the unholy one. Many, even Christians,
have met death prematurely because they tried to defeat Satan within their
own power. Today we're going to look at the tactics of Satan in the believer's
life, and how our Lord showed us the way to conquer Satan.
Satan never comes into your life to deceive you when you're on top of the world. He always comes in when he perceives a weakness in you that he can flaunt. Jesus had just spent forty days and nights fasting and praying to the Father in preparation for His coming earthly ministry. While in this period of prayer Jesus was focusing on the Father, not on His own physical needs. I want you to note that Satan did not come to Jesus while He was focused on the Father. Jesus was at His peak, on top of the spiritual world. Instead, Satan came after Jesus ended this spiritual state, focused on His own body, and noticed He was hungered.
Hungered is
a Greek word (peinao) which literally means "to be famished". Jesus wasn't
just a little hungry. This wasn't some simple craving like we sometimes
get when we crave a little ice cream, or a chocolate bar. Jesus was famished,
He had an overwhelming urge to eat. No wonder, my friends. After
forty full days and nights without food our Savior was literally starving.
And, right in the midst of this physical weakness, here comes the
tempter.
Hundreds of thousands of souls have died and gone to Hell following this doctrine of Satan. An untold number of souls have died with these words, "I can do it myself" fresh from their mouths. Satan wants you to reject the Grace of God for your own works. He wants you disbelieve that your Father is less than sufficient, that His provisions are less than what we need in our lives.
2 Corinthians 3:5-6 "Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God; Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. "
Our God is sufficient, He is all powerful, He is our Provider in both life here and in the world to come. When we take our eyes off of our Lord, when we begin to think that we can operate best under our own power, we substitute our inefficiency for His sufficiency. We reject the best pattern for our lives for the tattered rag of our works.
Paul the Apostle had terrible problems with his eyes, in fact his whole body, his entire life. He had to have a secretary follow him around and write as he dictated the Word as God gave it unto him. God used Paul in such a mighty way that, in order to keep Paul humble, the Father allowed a messenger of Satan to torment that great man. Paul wrote:
2 Corinthians 12:7-8 "And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me."
Three times Paul fell to his knees and, in heartfelt prayer, said "Father, please remove this messenger of Satan from me. Please, take this trial from my life. Please, Father, give me peace in this area". And three times God told Paul "My grace is sufficient for thee".
2 Corinthians 12:9-10 "And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong."
People, God is strong when we are weak. When we rely on
His sufficiency, when we rely on His Grace, when we say "Father, I just
can't do it, but
you can, then He is free to shine His power through
our lives. Satan wants to rob you of the unlimited power of God. Refuse
to comply!
Satan has been using this lie from the very beginning, telling mankind that we have no place in the Plan of God. Satan wants us to believe that we are either worthless to God or, failing that, greater than God. Satan told Eve in the Garden:
Genesis 3:4-5 "And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil."
"God doesn't really love you. God just wants to hold you down. You're not really in His Plan, so make your own plan. You're worth it!". Satan wants mankind to forget that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. Satan wants you to forget that you were so precious to God that He gave up His Most Precious for you. All are valuable to God, and all are called to come and share in that great Plan of Salvation. Never forget that, those who are Christians are firmly planted in that great Plan of God:
Revelation 1:5-6 "And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen."
We who believe do not need to prove ourselves to that
old devil, for we are kings and priests unto
God. And if you have not believed in Jesus Christ,
God is calling you into that exalted position in His Plan today.
Satan says, "You know, God promised this and that. If it's a promise, if it's really really true, then go ahead and put Him to the test. Do something foolish and prove to yourself that God keeps His Word".
When we follow Satan's leering voice in "putting God to the test" we allow doubt, like an ugly stain, to color our relationship with the Father. God has shown us from the beginning that He keeps His Word. When man fell in the Garden God promised the devil defeat through the very mankind that he caused to fall into sin:
Genesis 3:15 "And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel."
This was the very first promise that God made to mankind, a promise that a Savior would one day come and bruise the devil, though He Himself would be hurt in the process. This was God's promise that, though we would toil under the curse of the Fall, we would one day be free from sin and restored to a right relationship with God.
God gave 300 prophecies in the Old Testament about the Promised Messiah. The Father told us where Christ would be born, how He would live, how He would die. The odds that any one person would be born and, in his lifetime, just fulfill 8 of these 300 specific prophecies is 1 in 100 trillion. The odds that any one person would just, by chance, happen to fulfill all 300 prophecies that Jesus the Messiah fulfilled when He came go well beyond imagination. One mathematician, Dr Stoner (American Scientific Affiliation) stated it this way: "We take 10 17 silver dollars and lay them on the face of Texas. They will cover all of the state two feet deep. Now mark one of these silver dollars and stir the whole mass thoroughly, all over the state. Blindfold a man and tell him that he can travel as far as he wishes, but he must pick up one silver dollar and say that this is the right one.". This is an utterly impossible that Jesus just happened to fulfill all of the prophecies of the coming Messiah. Jesus was the Messiah, and fulfilled these prophecies, because God keeps His promises.
Numbers 23:19 "God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?"
As God kept the awesome promise that He made in the Garden,
then we know He is more than able to keep the promises He has made to us
for our lives.
In our world today there are around 100,000 cults that worship anything but the true God. There is the cult of Mormon who believe that "As God was, we can become". There is the Christian Science cult that states "worship the inspired scriptures of Mary Baker Eddy, it is the way to salvation". There are the Unitarian/ Universalist cults that say, "Believe what you want, God loves you anyway. There is no Hell, only Heaven", and the Jehovah's Witnesses who tell us that Jesus was no more than a good teacher. 100,000 cults, one purpose: to drive you away from the Saving Grace you can only find in Jesus Christ. 100,000 cults, one master: Satan.
Just as God kept His promise about the Messiah, He will keep His promise concerning judgment. God did not prepare Hellfire for mankind. Hellfire was designed specifically to be a place where Satan and the angels who followed him would be imprisoned when human history is at an end.
Matthew 25:41 "Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels"
None of you belong in Hell, but you must not think that God is lax in judgment. You must not take the words of Jesus lightly:
John 8:22-24 Then said the Jews, Will he kill himself? because he saith, Whither I go, ye cannot come. And he said unto them, Ye are from beneath; I am from above: ye are of this world; I am not of this world. I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins."
John 14:6 "Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. "
Satan wants you to believe that there are many paths
to God, that you can become gods, that you really don't need
salvation through Jesus Christ. Satan is a liar, and a murderer. The
cults may talk about Jesus, but they present Him in a way totally different
from the Gospel message of the Scripture. You must accept the Christ of
the Bible, accept what He did for you on Calvary, to find peace with God.
How are you living today? Are you living under the words It is written, are you a Believer living your life by the Word of God? Or have you forsaken It is written for an uneasy alliance with the devil, rejecting the Saving Grace of the Cross?
Just prior to the great day, a poor carpenter walked in a dark garden praying. It was fitting, I guess. Man fell into Sin in the Garden of Eden, and man's hope of salvation walked praying in another Garden called Gethsemane. The man's friends all lay sleeping, unconcerned that in a few hours their friend would go through the greatest torture in history. The carpenter, knowing what was about to come, prayed to His Father:
Matthew 26:39 "And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt."
He prayed this not once, but three times, much like Paul prayed three times to be relieved of his own suffering. Jesus Christ did not want to go through what He was about to go through. Just as the Father prophesied thousands of years before in another Garden, this cup of suffering, though it would bruise and defeat Satan, would also bruise the Savior. Jesus did not want to go to the Cross, but He had to go to the Cross, for it was the only way to save us.
Today you have heard the Word of God. You have heard It is written. You have seen two pathways, the righteous and the devil's. I ask you, this morning, to tell the Father nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt. If you are a Christian who has allowed the cares of this world to overwhelm you, please, today is a good day to renew your faith in Christ. If you are an unbeliever who has been hanging on to a useless way of life, following the devil's siren call, today is a good day to start a new life in Christ. None of you can have the abundant life of joy and peace, the blessed assurance of eternal life, unless you submit your will to God's Plan. I pray God will lead you to make the right choice. "Not my will, but thine, O Lord".
John 10:8-9 "All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers: but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture."
Return
to the Main Menu/ Bible Studies!