As we resume our discussion about life under the New Covenant, let's start tonight by reiterating that the objective of the series is to call attention to the fact that a lot of manmade traditions and ways of thinking are blocking our ability to receive all that God has for us under this Covenant. Consequently, we fall short on fully developing our relationship with the Lord and on achieving the victory in life that's been made available to us. The challenge is to find out for ourselves in the Word of God who we really are in Christ instead of depending on what others tell us about who we are.
Now it seems clear in Scripture that a significant part of New Testament life is supposed to involve RESISTING an enemy of God with the name of "Satan." Depending on which translation you're using, the specific word "Satan" is mentioned more than 50 times and the corollary name "Devil" just under 50 for a total between the two names of about 100 mentions. That's a lot of mentions and it doesn't include the "functional reference names" for the same individual such as: Enemy, Adversary, Deceiver, Liar, Father of Lies, Slanderer, Accuser, Serpent, Dragon, Evil One, god of this world, etc. Suffice to say for purposes of this article that a supernatural individual having the principal name "Satan" is referred to hundreds of times in our Bibles written there by various carefully-selected prophetic people of God who as they wrote were inspired and directed by none other than the Holy Spirit.
The Problem of Passivity
It's amazing to me that the Bible could speak so extensively about somebody like Satan and yet receive back such a big yawn of indifference from what's probably more than half the Body of Christ. Why would that be? The fact is, there could only be one answer to that question: the Deceiver has successfully DECEIVED a lot of folks into minimalizing his presence. Many people call themselves Christians and yet they don't believe Satan even exists, or if he does exist that he causes any particular inconvenience for anybody. Others see the whole subject of demonic influence as superstition that enlightened, modern believers should reject/ignore. And still others are pretty sure he does exist but they're afraid to acknowledge or confront him for fear of provoking his reaction. In addition to that, more than seventy percent of the planet doesn't even profess Christianity so you might say the devil has a lot more folks on his team than we have on ours.
Meanwhile, the entire earth is manifesting an unparalleled manifestation of EVIL that's growing in influence and intensity as it organizes under a Spirit of Anti-Christ to confront the Kingdom of God. Where do we think all this evil comes from? Are so many people so naïve, so ill-prepared as to not only ignore the Word of God but to also not PERCEIVE what's presently happening on the earth? Does all of this EVIL on the earth seem natural, like it belongs here as a consequence of natural events? If we would just truly CONSIDER what's happening on the earth we could clearly SEE the fruit of satanic work in process but DECEPTION has lulled the Church into a passivity that's actually helping the Enemy achieve his goals.
Before going any farther, I need to deal with the scripture that says God is the One who CREATED evil (Isaiah 45:7) so that PASSIVITY in the face of evil does NOT become a "correct" response to it. First of all EVIL is not a THING; it is a form or a classification of KNOWLEDGE. We know this because the Bible says that in the beginning God was the only One who had the KNOWLEDGE of good and evil (Genesis 3:22). All KNOWLEDGE is part of God's creation because He knows ALL things so in the context of creating knowledge, God DID create a form of knowledge called evil. But He's NEVER practiced evil Himself and in fact His original plan for Man was that we would also NOT have a knowledge of EVIL but only of GOOD (Genesis 2:17). Indeed, He instructed Adam to stay away from that particular tree, but Adam was created a FREE man with the ability to make his own choices and decisions and it was Adam who chose to put the knowledge of evil onto the earth. Sin is by definition the application of EVIL which God opposes.
Satan DOES Exists and He's Busy Working
In this week's article we're only going far enough to shut the door on passivity and at least ACKNOWLEDGE the existence of this Enemy that the Bible refers to as Satan. Then next week we'll come back to what the Church is supposed to be doing about him. For now, the point is this: New Testament life is supposed to INCLUDE having to deal with a supernatural adversary whose name is Satan and he's the one who's PRESENTLY disrupting our lives, causing our trials and tribulations and attempting to impede the expansion of the Kingdom of God on the earth.
We know there IS an enemy and that his name is Satan because the Word of God says so and because there are NO scriptures telling us that he has moved on to some other planet. I know it's not fashionable to believe that every word in the Bible is true and absolute but that particular fashion is one of the causes of the Church's passivity and it WILL be the cause of many, many people calling themselves Christians whom Christ at the end of days will deny and call LAWLESS because they refused to do the will of the Father (Matthew 7:21-23).
We can also see in the New Testament that there are a number of references to specific acts of Satan and those references serve to verify that there was such an enemy at the time of the early Church. Here's a sampling:
Matthew 4:1-11 - Satan came to tempt Jesus in the wilderness and Jesus had to RESIST him.
Matthew 13:23 - Jesus had to RESIST Satan when the enemy was influencing the Disciple Peter.
Luke 13:16 - A woman had a sickness for eighteen years caused by Satan.
Luke 22:3 - Satan entered into Judas Iscariot.
Acts 5:1-10 - Satan entered into Ananias and Sapphira causing them to sin and then die.
2 Corinthians 12:7 - Apostle Paul given a thorn in his flesh by a messenger of Satan to torment him.
There are a number of other New Testament scriptures that tell us he will be an ongoing force to contend with because he'll be pursuing objectives that work against the Kingdom of God and make life difficult for us. Following is a sample of those kinds of scriptures.
Mark 4:13-19 - Satan comes to steal the Word.
John 10:10 - The thief comes to steal, kill and destroy.
2 Corinthians 4:4 - He is the god of this world blinding the minds of the unbelieving.
Ephesians 6:11-12 - We will have to struggle to stand firm against the schemes of the Devil
1 Peter 5:8 - Your Adversary the Devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
Now I want to repeat here that there are NO SCRIPTURES, NONE that I've been able to find telling us that at some point before Jesus returns Satan will give up and slink off into the night. He's active right up to the end as the Dragon referred to in Revelation 13:1 who's finally thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone in Revelation 20:10. In sum, the only way Christians of today could not know about the current presence of Satan or could ignore him after they do know, is by the fact that Satan has successfully stolen the Word from a large segment of the Church. If FAITH comes by hearing the WORD (Romans 10:17) then the Devil's objective for stealing that WORD before it can take root (Mark 4:1-11) becomes the obvious starting place for a vital CONFRONTATION to occur. Apparently he's been successful because there are millions of self-defined Christians believing that there's no Hell or Satan to deal with or that at the least he's perhaps present but a non-factor in current Christian life.
In conclusion, if you're going to take the Bible for what it says then Satan is real and the life of the Believer is to include the task of RESISTING him like Jesus did when He was confronted in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1-11). The Bible clearly instructs us to RESIST him and next week we'll focus on what ought to be an important part of life under the New Covenant: using our authority to RESIST the enemy.
Thanks for joining our discussion tonight. We'll be looking for you again NEXT Sunday night on December 13. In the meantime may the Lord bless you with every spiritual blessing (Ephesians 1:3), pushing you to VICTORY in every area of life!
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Sinners' Prayer
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Jesus, I declare today with all my heart that I believe in you and I believe that God raised you from the dead. I acknowledge that my sins have been forgiven for all time and I ask you to come into my life today and be my Lord and Savior. Thank you for salvation and eternal life.
If you were sincere as you prayed, God has already come into your life and you're a new creation, a totally new species recreated in His image. Now ask the Lord to lead you to a good faith-based, bible-teaching church where you can be equipped to fulfill your potential in the Kingdom of God.
When you get a moment have someone help you look up the following scriptures because they confirm what you've done by saying this prayer and believing what you said:
Romans 10:9
2 Corinthians 5:17
Ephesians 2:8
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