Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.-Matthew 4:1

 “Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear my word. You are just like your true father, the devil; and you spend your time pursuing the things your father loves. He started out as a killer, and he cannot tolerate truth because he is void of anything true. At the core of his character, he is a liar; everything he speaks originates in these lies because he is the father of lies.”–John 8:43-44.

For our struggles are not against flesh and blood but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.- Ephesians 6:12.

A Child of the Most High God

I need someone to help me
I need someone to save me.
The devil’s in my head
He’s trying to enslave me.
Who can I turn to?
Who’s gonna listen?
I try to ignore him
But I can’t seem to resist him.

Now You tell me there’s someone,
You call a glorious savior
Who can redeem me from sin
And help to change my behavior.
You say he is the sacred son
Of an omnipotent Father
Who will forgive all my sins
If I give Him my honor.

But now the voices start to tell me,
“Don’t believe this silly hype.
This God isn’t real
He’s a myth, an archetype.”
“Just think, say the voices,
How could this all be true?
Why would this God
Send His son to die for you?”
“Why would he do that?
What have you misconstrued,
That for one minute you can believe
He’d send his son to die for you?”

Now I’m so confused
Are these voices even real?
Should I listen to what they tell me?
Or should I just ignore their spiel?
Please, now I’m begging,
Don’t let me slip away.
I want to believe what you’ve told me
But I can’t just ignore what they say.

Then I hear a gentle voice saying:
“Stop crying, dry your tears.”
“You know not who you are,
With your silly little fears.”
“You’re a child of the Most High God,
Get on your knees your Father’s here!”.
Show your respect to Him
With proper awe and trembling fear.”
“For, He created everything,
The entire universe.”
The air you breathe, the earth you walk,
And all that they transverse.”
“You’re a slave to no one
Kick that notion to the curb.”
You can’t let the lies of the devil
Cause deceit and truth to blur.”
“You can turn to God
Any time anywhere.”
“Ask Him for his help,
Then trust Him with your cares.”
“If you submit your life to Him
He will indeed make you free.”
“So, build your faith to spite the devil,
Then relax and watch him flee.”
©Linda Troxell 09/08/2017

 

Do not be fooled, Satan is after you. Wait, let me start over. Do not be fooled Satan is real and he’s after you. So many people today believe that Satan is not real but merely a symbol of evil. And many who do believe he’s real, believe he’s tucked away in hell and not a real threat. We really can’t blame them though, many pastors are reluctant to preach about a devil who is alive and stalking us. They believe that people want to come to church to feel good and being made to consider a devil who’s both alive and a threat does not feel good. But if you are not convinced the devil is real, just consider this scripture: Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.-Matthew 4:1. If that doesn’t convince you, here are a few more to consider, Isaiah 14:12, Hebrews 2:14, and Luke 10:17-19. And if you believe he is real but has no power, consider this. The Jews who wanted to kill Jesus because they didn’t believe He was the son of God, told Him they were not born of fornication and they had only one Father and that was God. Jesus said to them, “Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear My word. You are just like your true father, the devil; and you spend your time pursuing the things your father loves. He started out as a killer, and he cannot tolerate truth because he is void of anything true. At the core of his character, he is a liar; everything he speaks originates in these lies because he is the father of lies.”–John 8:43-44. Satan has the power of evil, the power to pursue the things he loves, stealing, killing, and destruction. In the end, he wants to be more important than God; he wants to be worshipped as he once worshipped God. He wants to be, not famous and adored as an actor or rock star, but infamous and despised as Hitler or Jack the Ripper.

However, unlike a rock star or an actor, Satan is not the least bit disturbed that he is overlooked; for now. On the contrary, he likes it. Because if we don’t know him or don’t believe he’s real then we aren’t guarding against him. That way when he comes after us, we will never think to blame him for the results of his sabotage of our lives and our relationships with God. And as any general will tell you, if you don’t know your enemy you can’t be prepared to defeat him. But Satan is alive and he is coming after us. So, how can we prepared for an attack by Satan, I thought you’d never ask.

The first thing we need to do to prepare for Satan’s attack is to be aware of his purpose. And we can be sure that what he wants is nothing short of the overthrow of God. He wants to destroy God and to be worshipped himself. Next, he wants to eradicate God’s greatest creation, the one made in His image, mankind. John 10:10 tells us, The thief comes to steal and kill and destroy. And in John 8:44, which we read above, Jesus gave us Satan’s motive and method for his takeover, murder, and lies. Satan is in no hurry, he is playing the long game. He’s both patient and strategic.

Once he has snared us, he lets us believe that we are getting away with many sins, even to feel that we are succeeding by means of those sins. But it is only a device so that later we will fall further and be more securely in his clutches. 2 Timothy 2:25-26 tells us that when we are engaged in a struggle against the devil we must repent and hope it allows us to access the truth so that we may come to our senses and thereby escape the trap of the devil who has taken us captive to do his will. And after coming to our senses we must, as Paul tells us in Ephesian, put on the full armor of God in order to stand against the Devil’s wiles. Wow, captive to do his will and armor to stand against his wiles. Serious stuff from someone who is widely believed to not exist at all.

Next, we must be sure not to underestimate the power of our enemy. Do not doubt that he is powerful. He is powerful enough that our Lord found it necessary, when he taught us the manner in which we should pray, to include a request that God save us from the evil one. Do not underestimate the meaning of this. When Jesus gave the Apostles the Lord’s Prayer he was not telling them to pray those words. No, He was telling them to pray in the manner of those words. He was giving them a templet, if you will, for all prayer. And that means that He felt that every prayer we pray should include a request that we are delivered from the evil one, the devil. It seems He believed the devil is a real threat.

In addition, we must know about the power of the devil to be prepared to fight against him. We know that the devil’s power is mighty and supernatural. We know this because Paul speaks of our struggles with the devil and his power as For our struggles are not against flesh and blood but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Ephesians 6:12. We know simply because he is the devil and a direct enemy of God, that his power is dark and unholy. And in 2 Thessalonians 2: 9-10 we learn from Paul how Satan works using displays of power and signs of wonder to convince us he is both powerful and of God. And if we don’t know the truth of God’s word we will be deceived. Paul goes on to say that wickedness will deceive those who perish because they refused to love the truth that could save them. Armed with this knowledge we know that in order to fight against and withstand the devil we need to know and love the truth. How do we do that? By reading, studying and memorizing scripture, which is the ultimate truth, the word of God.

But that isn’t all we know about Satan’s power. We know that he rules the angles who he took with him when he was kicked out of heaven. 1/3 of all of the angels followed him. So, he is by no means alone in his devilish work. These are the same demons that Paul talks about as forces and authorities and rulers of darkness and powers in the spiritual world. Satan is not confined to hell and we are not safe from him or his cohorts. Because we are human we have a difficult time getting our heads around what it means to fight against an enemy that isn’t flesh and blood.  But although Satan is not a man, he is a personality with an evil heart. And do not make the mistake of believing that the demons who Satan rules over do not control flesh and blood men and women, nor that they influence and control rulers of nations. Satan keeps us busy believing our enemies are the Democrats or the Republicans, the Russians or the North Koreans; he leads us to fight over the immigrants and gay rights, over sexual harassment and travel bans. He does this so we cannot win our war with him because we don’t even show up for the battles. We’re off fighting the wrong enemy. But our enemy is not flesh and blood.

When we look around the world and see the brutality, the greed and the indifference toward the unfortunate and helpless it isn’t hard to imagine that demonic forces are influencing all of us, including our world leaders. And we have no room to judge them for that. They are, as we are, susceptible to the lies and tricks of Satan and his minions. He prays on their insecurities convincing them that other rulers are disrespecting them and they cannot let that go or it will only grow. He works on their greed telling them that they really deserve so much more than what little they have. He works on their pride telling them that they are the smartest and strongest and so deserve the most. And they, like we, believe him. And that is how Armageddon will start.

If we know the truth of God, if we have been reborn, we have nothing to worry about when Armageddon comes. The outcome is preordained, God will win. But for those who have not resisted Satan by taking advantage of God precious gift of grace and salvation, it’s a different story. They have everything to worry about. Because, just like the devil is real and stalking, hell is real and burning. Hell is another thing many pastors don’t like to preach about. They feel it scares the parishioners. Who wants to think about such a frightening topic? It doesn’t feel good. Well, they aren’t doing them any favors. For the price of avoiding a bit of unease today, they are risking an eternity of not just discomfort but true and literal agony. The way to avoid that is with the truth, and the truth is the devil is real and he’s after us. And hell is real and it’s the ultimate destination of those who don’t know the Lord and His truth.

 

Point for Prayer and Pondering

1. Does your pastor preach about the devil as alive and stalking?
   1a. Whether your pastor does or doesn’t, do you agree with the choice?
   1b. Do you know how the rest of the congregation feels about it?
   1c. Do you believe the devil is alive and stalking?2. What about hell. Does your pastor preach about hell as a real place?
   2a. Whether yes or no, what do you think, is hell real?

   3. How prepared are you to resist the devil?
   3a. What do you think you need to be better equipped to resist him?