The Devil - Part 1

Good evening. What's your names? I've seen you at baseball. I met you. You're at cross country. And you go to church up Route 4.

What's it called again? That's right, yep, because I drove by it. And you've got the attendance sheet. Thank you. He's Zozma. Good to see you again.

So it's Brendan, Brendan and Olivia. Good to see you here. Some people I don't know. Well, good evening to you. Why don't I introduce myself for those who don't know me. My name is Michael Coughlin and I am a member here at LaRue Baptist Church.

Does anybody know what we're talking about this week? The armor of God. Does anybody know what passage of the Bible we would turn to to read about that? Alright. Good. So let's turn to Ephesians 6.

Well, we are not exactly going to go by the same order of things as the children. So hopefully it will be... The goal is for it to be helpful and edifying to everybody who's here, regardless of where you are at in life and in your relationship with God. So let me pray, and we'll dig into Ephesians 6. Father, thank you for your word that is true, it is infallible, it is inerrant, And it is sufficient for our needs.

I pray that as we open your word, your Holy Spirit would use it to illuminate our minds as to what truth is. And that it would be used to motivate us to do whatever it is that we need to do individually. And as well as the things that we all need to do that are common things to all of us. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen. Let me read Ephesians 6, starting in verse 14, where we talk about the armor of God.

Stand firm then, it's Ephesians 6, 14. Stand firm then with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness arrayed, And with your feet fitted with the readiness of the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God.

So I want to give you a scenario. I want you to imagine that you walked into a situation, whatever it is, and somebody just hands you 200 pounds of chain mail, says put it on. They hand you a heavy sword, metal helmet, and they say here just wear this. But they don't give you any reason to wear it. You are unaware of any danger that's impending. You don't know of any enemy that can attack you.

It would be absurd. You'd never put that kind of thing on, is the point. And so, where I want to begin is to go back a few verses from where we just read about the armor of God, the belt and the breastplate, the helmet, the sword, the shield. And I want to read about the reason why Paul, the apostle who wrote the book of Ephesians, is telling us to put on the armor of God.

So go back to verse 10. Does anybody want to read it? Some of you might want to because I read from a different version than a lot of you carry, so I get it if you want to. I have a volunteer. Josh? Finally be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.

Yeah, go ahead up to 13 then. Yep, so we read about the enemy. Okay, put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers under this present darkness, Against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

Therefore, take up the whole of our job. That you may be able to withstand in the evil day, having done all to stand firm. So the goal today is to convince you, if you're not already convinced, that there is in fact a devil. And that he is a formidable opponent. And he is not someone to be trifled with and it is in fact the devil and his schemes and his accompanying fallen angels or demons that are working for him against us that is who we putting on the armor of God for You note if you read the armor of God passages there nothing about the armor of God that is intended to protect you from yourself We read a book this winter in the men's group, remember Larry, The Enemy Within.

The armor doesn't protect you from what's within, it's to protect you from what is without. Wow. And so tonight, let's look at the devil. And I tried to make a little mnemonic device for you. And so I said the devil's schemes need to be ended. I couldn't come up with anything with the word enemy.

It was just so difficult, but they need to be ended. And so the first point is that the devil exists. He has existence. So turn to Revelation 12, 9. If I ask for volunteers, don't feel like you'll get made fun of if you seem over eager to read. I'd rather people be eager and just participate or else I'll start calling on you.

And then I'll end up calling on someone that didn't want it. And so I'll just do Jeremy. Jeremy, read Revelation 12, 9. I know he can take it. And the great dragon was thrown down. Yes, and turn to 1 Peter 5.8.

So Revelation wasn't intended to explain the whole passage. We'll actually revisit Revelation 12 a couple times. The idea being the devil exists. We're not trying to figure out who he is yet or anything like that, but he exists. The greatest trick that some people have said the devil has ever done is what? Anybody know that phrase?

Convincing me it's not real? Yeah. Some people, the guy that said it, some French guy wrote it, and then it was repeated in a movie called The Usual Suspects, which is about 30 years old now. But the guy said the devil's greatest trick was convincing us that he didn't exist. Why? Why is convincing us he doesn't exist a good trick?

Say it louder. Yeah. He can work surreptitiously, he can work secretly if you don't realize he exists. The enemy that you know is coming, you'll prepare your home for, right? Right? You know, we all have whatever security features you have in your home and on your property, and it's based on the enemies you know are potential or likely.

And so if he can hide himself in such a way that you don't even believe he exists, you're leaving yourself open to him. So 1 Peter 5.8, just continuing to prove not only that the devil exists, but I believe the devil is still our opponent today. So 1 Peter 5.8, who would like to read that? Larry? Be sober-minded, be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around in roaring line, seeking some to devour.

Absolutely. And so both these passages, I believe, are teaching that the devil's active today. These aren't things that were written just for a first century church to understand, and then we don't have to worry about it. We don't talk about the devil a whole lot. Some people that do obsess with the devil and the demonic, they have sometimes some other theology we don't like.

And so we end up avoiding a lot of spiritual talk, a lot of supernatural talk that the Bible doesn't shy away from. Because we don't agree with some people's supernaturality and the way that they deal with it. And so what we want to be is biblical. So secondly, the devil not only has existence, but the devil has a nature. He is a spirit being who, as far as I know, never sleeps.

So I call him restless. And he moves very quickly. So turn to Job 1.7. We're just jumping around the Bible right now to proof text. Next, some things that we need to understand about the devil. The goal is, either by the end of today or at some point tomorrow, if we don't get through it, that you will recognize the devil as a formidable opponent, and you will be motivated to want to know what the protective armor that God has provided is.

So Job 1.7, Where have you come from, said Yahweh to Satan, And Satan replies, from roaming through the earth and walking back and forth in it. What's interesting is that somehow the spirits like the devil and the fallen angels, they do seem to be able to move quickly. And so the devil is not omnipresent. Do you know what that means? He's not everywhere at once.

Who is? Only God, right? There isn't an angel that's ever been created. There's no fallen angel or demon that is everywhere at once like God is. But the devils can advance and move quickly through the air. They have the power of the air.

And there's something about that in Ephesians 2. So flip to Ephesians 2. I want you to look at the text yourself. It's more important that you encounter God's Word with your eyes and your Bible. You see where things are. God will work through that.

In Ephesians 2, 2 and 3, somebody read about Satan. David, real loud for us, though. And which you have used to live when you followed the ways of the Lord that the Lord could have a human of the air the spirit is now a part of those who are disobedient All of us also live in the moment of death at one time, right? I think the dead, the creatures of our flesh, involve its desire and thoughts.

Like the rest, we work in my nature, discerning the past. The devil is called the prince of the power of the air? The ruler of the power of the earth. There's something supernatural, something that we don't experience or understand about his ability to get to different places. And we'll see in a little bit as well. He has an entourage so he can send demons to bother Jeremy while he's possessing someone else somewhere.

Very powerful beings. We have a weak theology, I believe, of the supernatural sometimes. And I think by reviving that, we will be more prepared to defend ourselves from demonic powers. Turn to 2 Corinthians 4.4. There is a sense that the devil has a significant amount of power. Some people would say he's God's devil is the way that they describe him, implying not that God approves of him, but he's God's devil, meaning he does nothing outside of what God controls and limits him to.

So when the devil does anything that he wants to do, it's all within God's plan of how he's going to affect salvation for his people and bring glory to himself. But the devil has been given authority. Read 2 Corinthians 4.4 with me. I'll read it. The God of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers so they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

There's a lot in that verse, but what I wanted to bring out was that Paul, the apostle, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, actually calls the devil the God of this age. The word he uses is theos. It's the same word used for God throughout the New Testament. And so he's considered the God of this age. There's something about the authority he's been given that is remarkable that he's even called a God.

And you can remind yourself that when Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, one of the temptations the devil gave him was he showed him all the kingdoms of the world. And the devil said, all these I will give you if you bow down and worship me. Now I'll tell you what, if anyone ever offered something to you that you knew for a fact they couldn't give you, it wouldn't be a temptation.

The devil had authority to grant these things to Christ, and so he's been given authority by God. He is a spirit being with a lot of power, so he has existence, he has nature, and he has a disposition towards us, towards humanity, and in particular, towards God's people. We'll turn to John 10.10. John 10.10. Somebody want to read that for us nice and loud?

This is about the devil. The beast's purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and fast-finding life. Isn't that wonderful? The second part, right? But you see the contrast?

Why do we say, Jesus loves me, this I know? Because he gives us good things. He gives his own life for humanity. If you've repented and trusted Jesus as your Savior, it's because Jesus, when we say he left heaven, is one of the phrases we use. He didn't count equality with God a thing to be grasped or something to hold on to, but he humbled himself by becoming a man.

And then he humbled himself to the point of being a servant of men, to the point of dying on the cross. And he did that because he loves his people. And the devil comes only to steal and kill and destroy. And of all the things the devil could do, the description Jesus gives of the devil here is very unflattering. There's no good of steel killing and destroying.

He hates God's people. He hates humanity. Look at Revelation 12.10. This is part of the example of God's disposition towards you. Revelation 12.10. This is right after what Jeremy read earlier, that the great dragon was hurled down, the serpent called the devil and Satan.

He was hurled to the earth and his angels with him. Those are demons. So if you think about it for a second, everything was an angel that God created. Not everything, but God created angels at the beginning. And a portion of the angels fell from heaven, just like we fell from our standing with God at one point, and they became demons. The difference is, is God doesn't redeem the demons that have fallen.

Men have a chance to cry out for salvation. But listen to verse 10. I heard a loud voice in heaven saying, Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ Verse 1 The accuser of our brethren or the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down He accuses them day and night before our God Remember I said he was restless?

As far as I know, he doesn't sleep. So while you're sleeping, the devil is trying to tell God, hey, see what he did today? See how he turned away from you, even for a moment? The devil's the accuser of the brethren. He's the accuser of God's people. He accuses them day and night.

Look at 12.17. Jason, can you read that real loud? Yeah, Revelation 12, 17. This whole section is really good about the devil. Then the dragon became furious with the woman and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus. There you go.

His disposition... Oh, sorry. There was more. And he stood on the sand of the sea. He is enraged at the woman, and that's talking about Mary, who gave birth to the seed that was promised by God that would crush the serpent's head, the devil himself. And he went to make war with the rest of her children.

So the devil can't attack God. He tried in Christ, he failed, he knows he failed, and now he's mad. But he's not giving up. He's going to attack God's people. He hates you. I guess this is what I want you to understand.

This isn't a game. It's not Halloween. It's not dress up. He hates you. Right now he hates you. Whether you're a Christian or not, he hates you right now.

If you're not a Christian, then you're just obeying him, but he hates you. He's a really bad master. If you are a Christian, he hates you even more. Revelation 12.12 talks about how desperate he is. Also, you should have most of these scriptures in your notes, and you can look them up again later. You can come back and tell me you thought we read it wrong.

Whatever you want. I'm an open book here, too. You can come up to me after and say, Hey, I think you got this wrong, and I'm not going to get all offended or anything. I'd rather just know and find out what I did wrong, honestly. Revelation 12, 12. Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them, but woe to the earth and the sea.

With great fury the devil has come down to you, knowing he has only a short time. What do you think that means? Say it louder. And he knows it. So what's he going to do? Call back.

Yeah. Yeah. It's like when the football team's down 50 to nothing and they still try to get a touchdown, you know, just some kid's mom can clap for him. He's so angry. The devil will not repent, right? Andy, you repented at some point, right?

You became a Christian, right? Okay, the devil will never repent. He found out that he was not in God's good grace, and he spent the rest of his time raging against God. And the interesting thing about the devil and demons is some of them believe the Bible better than we do. They know what God has said, and they believe it. They know Jesus is coming back.

They know his return is imminent. And he actually lives like it. Some of us don't. Some of us sit around like we think he'll never come back in our lifetime. It doesn't matter if he does, I'm just going to do what I want anyway. The demons actually believe what's written in this Bible.

They just don't worship the God that wrote it. So the devil's desperate. And I wouldn't want a desperate man coming after me. But we have a desperate spiritual being with way more power than maybe all men combined, for all I know. Looking at us, wanting to attack us. Just so you know, we're not going to finish the whole outline tonight.

But if you don't mind bringing it back tomorrow, we'll finish it all tomorrow. So he's desperate. In 1 John 3, 8-13, we have an interesting confluence of the devil and humanity. 1 John 3, 8, it's right before Revelation. It's got the Johns and then Jude. But John, one of the apostles, is writing to the church and he says, The one who practices sin is of the devil.

Because the devil has been sinning from the very start, this is why the Son of God was revealed to destroy the works of the devil. And he says, anyone born of God refuses to practice sin because God's seed abides in him. He cannot go on sinning because he has been born of God. He says, by this the children of God are distinguished from the children of the devil.

And he clarifies what he means. He says, anyone who doesn't practice righteousness is not of God, nor is anyone who does not love his brother. So just in case that's the first time you're reading that, John isn't saying you quit sinning when you get saved and you never sin again. He's saying when you come to Christ, you will give up the habitual practice of sin and you will steadily grow in your faith and you'll grow in righteousness, which is part of the armor of God we'll talk about.

But listen, he says, this is the message you have heard from the beginning. We should love one another. Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And he says, why did Cain slay him? Because his own deeds were evil while those of his brother were righteous. And I think what we have is an example from the very beginning, the devil's influence on humanity.

John compares being a son of the devil or a son of God, and then he immediately contrasts it with Cain and Abel. And I think we could easily say, you know, Abel is seen as righteous in the Bible. He's a child of God. And Cain is seen as unrighteous, a son of the devil. And the ultimate hatred of men when one man would kill another man, especially his own brother, is just a small picture of the devil's, I could say, love for hating men.

He hates us. He hates all people. He's the father of lies in John 8, 44. And so then briefly, he has an entourage. Back to Revelation 12 and then 13. In fact, let me pause.

So I said he exists. He has a nature that he's a spirit being. He's powerful. He has a disposition of hatred towards us and he's desperate to destroy. Does anybody have a question or if you just have an additional comment, something that struck you as you were reading the scripture? Excellent.

That's okay. If you think of it later, you can, you really just break in anytime, raise your hand, or I guess if there's a silent part. You can just pop up. So Revelation 12.7, he has an entourage. So this will be the last point tonight. Many demons serve the devil.

He's not alone. Most of us, some people at least would argue, would probably never encounter the devil. Frankly, most of us are just small potato Christians that aren't that big of a threat to him in a sense, I guess is what we're thinking. But I do think that we are plagued by the demonic and by his schemes And he has several schemes that we look at tomorrow But he has an entourage of demons So as we think about your necessity remember the whole point of why we talking about the devil is not so we can become better demonologists It's so we can be motivated to obey Paul's command to therefore put on the full armor of God that we may be able to withstand the wiles or the devices of the devil.

So Revelation 12, 7 through 9. There was a fry that wanted to read earlier. Do you want to read, Susan? All right, 12, 7 through 9. The Lord rose from heaven with Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. The dragon and his angels fought back, but he was defeated.

There was no longer any place for them in heaven. The great dragon was thrown down at each and every servant who was called the Devil and Saint, the deliverer of the whole world. He was thrown down to earth, and his angels were thrown down to heaven. And I heard a loud voice in heaven saying, Now the salvation of the powers and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come.

For he, the accuser of our brothers, has been thrown down to the accuser's men day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony. For they loved not their lives, even unto death. Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and dwell in them. But woe to you, O earth, and sea. The devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short.

There's so much there to praise. It's almost sad to just talk about the devil through all that, because it's talking about salvation and power, the kingdom of our God, the authority of his Christ, the blood of the Lamb, the word of their testimony, conquering. So one thing I want you to remember is, bleak a picture I can paint of your power to defend yourself against the devil whatsoever.

However, Christ's power to crush the devil is infinitely greater than your weakness. So you should not leave scared of the devil or any of those kinds of things. Assuming you a Christian you should know by the power of God he already been defeated and Christ equips me with what I need so that I can live a life that will not be demonically controlled or influenced In fact, you may eventually one day find yourself thinking you've actually withstood some kind of demonic something.

I don't know if you will. The devil has many devices, some of which are cloaked in things that are very natural. And so oftentimes you're experiencing the devil's temptations, where it's not really a direct thing, where it's like you versus the devil. He's got things in the middle that he's really trying to attract you with. But he has an entourage. All these angels were thrown down with him.

And you know what? They're as angry as he is. He's just the leader. And they hate you. And they hate your children. They hate your parents.

They hate your co-workers. It's not a friendly picture where there's some redeeming qualities left. Like the bad guy in a lot of movies always has that one little part of him where you're like, Oh, I kind of empathize with them, you know. They try to make you empathize with them. It's actually something that's changed in the last 25 years where there's more empathy for bad guys in stories.

It used to be they were just bad when I was a kid. Now they make you kind of like the bad guy and then they write them a whole backstory movie where you're rooting for them. You know, that's how they do it now. It's all designed, just so you know. It's part of the devil's plan. But in Revelation 13, 2, God says, The beast I saw was like a leopard, with the feet of a bear and the mouth of a lion.

And the dragon gave the beast his power and his throne and great authority. And so this dragon that Jason read about standing on the sea is the one who is effectively giving authority to the governments of the world, which is what I think the beast is describing. And so you have an enemy who hates you. He exists. He's not unreal. He's not a figment of your imagination.

He's not fake. He's real. He exists. He has a nature. He's more powerful than you. Believe it or not, he's smarter than you.

Some of you don't believe that. I didn't believe it. I thought there no way the devil smarter than I am He smarter than you are He stronger He more committed to doing evil than you are to doing good He has a disposition towards you of hatred. He wants to steal, kill, and destroy. And he doesn't even care if it spites himself or his demons. He doesn't have any moral code to live by.

And he has an entourage of demons. And so tonight, if you meditate on these truths, meditate on the fact that God has the devil on a leash. That the devil will come no closer to you or to anyone than God allows. And sometimes God will allow that to be very, very close. And it's all designed to drive you to God. It's all designed to make you say, I need God.

I need to trust God more. I need to call on God for help. And I need to call on God for strength. And the beauty is that God is unlike the devil who comes to steal. God came to give. If you ask God, he will give it abundantly.

James says you don't have because you don't ask. And so let's ask God now to bless us with understanding. Father, thank you that we can learn from your scripture truths that are vital to our existence and to our flourishing. Thank you that you give us everything we need for life and godliness. So help us to take seriously your warnings and admonitions about the devil himself and help us to not fear him as men would fear such a powerful being, but to respect him as for what he is and to trust you, the power that we can call on to help us.

You have the power that we need. And so I ask for everyone in this room that we would all call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation. That we'd all be forgiven of our sins, cleansed by the blood of the Lamb, and that we might, by the word of our testimony, testify that we have defeated the devil's devices by the grace of God. Help us this week to understand how this armor will be effective for our lives, and that we may be able to teach others.

In Christ's name I pray. Amen.