Where Is Satan Most Visibly Active Today?
Chapters
0:05:6 The Father of Lies
5:45 Where Do You See His Works Most Clearly
12:43 Break Free from a Preoccupation with Our Own Self-Consciousness
00:00:00.000 | [Music]
00:00:04.000 | Scripture uses 22 different names for Satan.
00:00:07.840 | His diabolical intentions are recorded for us all over our Bibles.
00:00:13.040 | And we're even assured that he is still present and active in this world,
00:00:17.440 | and in each of our lives. But when, and how, and where?
00:00:22.320 | Those are great questions from a listener named Josh. Hello, Pastor John.
00:00:26.720 | To what extent, and by what means specifically, does Satan influence the world?
00:00:32.080 | Where do you see his works most clearly today?
00:00:37.040 | The word Satan is a transliteration of the Hebrew "Satan,"
00:00:44.000 | and basically means "opponent" or "adversary." The Greek translation
00:00:48.800 | of that Hebrew Old Testament always translates "Satan" with "diabolos"
00:00:56.400 | in Greek, which means "devil." We always translate "diabolos" in English
00:01:02.080 | in the New Testament "devil." And "diabolos" puts a more specific focus on the meaning
00:01:09.120 | of the "opponent" or "adversary," because "diabolos" basically means "slander" or "accuse."
00:01:16.000 | It's used not to refer to the devil. Several times in the pastoral epistles of Paul,
00:01:21.760 | to just refer to people who are slandering others, speaking evil of them, being false about them.
00:01:29.040 | So even though this supernatural being, this fallen angel, an arch-enemy of God,
00:01:34.720 | has a remarkable power in the material or physical realm—like, he can make people sick,
00:01:40.800 | he can throw them in prison, he can even kill them—nevertheless,
00:01:46.240 | his main way of opposing God and destroying God's people is not in the physical or material realm,
00:01:53.920 | but in the mental or intellectual or moral realm. In other words, the best way to think about his
00:02:00.320 | power is not in terms of physical strength, but moral deception.
00:02:06.080 | So let me try to illustrate this from the Bible. Here's the passage that piles up
00:02:14.080 | more designations of Satan than any other passage in the Bible. You need one or two verses to put
00:02:21.600 | the identity and work of Satan before you. It would be Revelation 12, 9 and 10. Here it says,
00:02:30.080 | "And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent"—and remember what the Bible
00:02:39.520 | said in Genesis 3 about him, he's subtler, he's subtler than every beast, so it's his subtlety
00:02:45.760 | that's being focused on in his serpent-like reality—"who is called the devil, diabolo,
00:02:52.480 | slanderer, liar, cheat, and Satan, adversary, the deceiver of the whole world." I don't think you
00:03:03.360 | can say anything more sweeping or more basic than the end of Revelation 12, 9, "He is the deceiver
00:03:12.240 | of the whole world." Verse 10, "The accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them
00:03:22.480 | day and night before God." So at the center of Satan's purpose is to deceive on earth and to
00:03:31.440 | accuse in heaven. If he can deceive you about God and Christ, you will perish. If he can successfully
00:03:39.360 | accuse you of unforgiven sin in heaven, you will perish. And Jesus calls him a murderer
00:03:47.040 | from the beginning, John 8, 44. So the deception and the accusation and the eternal death that
00:03:53.360 | results from unforgiven sin is a way of destroying people and opposing God. So Josh asks me,
00:04:03.520 | "To what extent and by what means specifically does Satan influence the world?" My answer,
00:04:10.800 | therefore, is the extent is worldwide, and the means is deception. We can see this in another
00:04:20.240 | text. Here's Revelation 28-10. He comes out to deceive the nations, but he will be defeated.
00:04:28.880 | "And the devil who had deceived them." So there's the focus again on his major strategy of destroying
00:04:37.760 | the world. Deceive them, and he will be thrown into the lake of fire. So my basic answer to
00:04:44.800 | Josh's question is that the extent of Satan's influence is global, covers all nations,
00:04:51.920 | and the primary means of his influence is deception. He destroys, not mainly by the sword
00:05:01.360 | or disease or killing, but mainly by lying. Jesus calls him the father of lies, John 8, 44.
00:05:10.800 | Specifically, he lies mainly about God, about Jesus, about the gospel, about sin, and oh,
00:05:18.000 | how wonderful it is that he has been dealt a decisive blow. You can see his deception about
00:05:30.000 | the gospel in 2 Corinthians 4, 4. In the case of the God of this world, he has blinded the
00:05:37.840 | minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ,
00:05:42.880 | who is the image of God. So Josh's second question is, where do you see his works most clearly?
00:05:49.680 | And my answer is, therefore, wherever saving truth is hated and resisted and distorted and muted,
00:06:01.840 | so that people are kept from being saved by the truth of the gospel, that's where I see his works
00:06:10.960 | most clearly. 2 Thessalonians 2, 9, Satan comes with wicked deception for those who are perishing
00:06:21.360 | because they refuse to love the truth and so be saved. Satan hates the truth of the gospel.
00:06:31.760 | And the truth of the cross more than any other truth. You remember when Jesus was on earth,
00:06:39.680 | Satan tried to keep him away from the cross? Matthew 16, 23, when Peter says, "No, no,
00:06:45.760 | this isn't going to happen to you." Jesus says, "Get behind me, Satan. That's what Satan wants.
00:06:52.240 | He doesn't want me to die for the sins of the world." Even though at the end,
00:06:57.680 | Satan gave up on that strategy and filled Judas to get Jesus betrayed, nevertheless, at the end,
00:07:04.640 | he's trying to make it as horrible as possible. But his first design was, "I'm not going to let
00:07:10.320 | him get to the cross, no way." And now, Satan is mainly bent on preventing the message of the cross
00:07:18.160 | from being spread, from being understood, from being believed. And he does everything in his
00:07:24.960 | power to distort and silence the saving message of the cross. Remember how Jesus said he snatches
00:07:33.280 | the word. He snatches it. Just as soon as you preach the cross, as soon as you preach the
00:07:38.800 | saving word of the kingdom, boy, Satan will, if he can, snatch the word right out of the mind,
00:07:44.560 | just like birds snatching seed off of a path. Now, why is he so opposed to this central truth?
00:07:52.640 | Because the gospel is the truth that Christ has paid the price for sins of everyone who believes,
00:08:00.000 | and that means Satan cannot successfully accuse us in heaven. He cannot make a case against the
00:08:07.680 | elect because our sins have been covered, and that's the only means he has to destroy us,
00:08:13.840 | which means, of course, he can oppress us, he can distress us, he can tempt us, he can make us sick,
00:08:20.080 | he can kill us, and he cannot damn us ever. They are eternally safe. We, the elect, are eternally
00:08:29.200 | safe in God's sovereign grace. And so he rages against the people of God, and he rages against
00:08:36.080 | the gospel that snatches people out of the damning hands of his own greedy self. You can see this in
00:08:46.560 | Colossians 2.13. God has forgiven us all our trespasses by canceling the record of debt that
00:08:53.920 | stood against us with his legal demands. He has set aside those sins, nailing them to the cross,
00:09:00.880 | and here's what follows. "Thus he disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to an open
00:09:08.960 | shame by triumphing over them in him." When our sins are forgiven, nailed to the cross,
00:09:14.800 | the satanic rulers and authorities are decisively defeated. They are undone, meaning their one
00:09:22.640 | condemning, damning weapon has been taken out of their hands, namely, unforgiven sin. If our sins
00:09:31.600 | are not forgiven, Satan can rightly accuse us before God, and we will be sentenced to hell.
00:09:37.680 | But if our sins are forgiven, Satan cannot successfully accuse us before God. And so Paul
00:09:46.240 | soars in exultation over the great gospel of deliverance in Romans 8. If God is for us,
00:09:53.040 | who can be against us? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? That is in Satan's face.
00:10:02.000 | Who shall bring any charge? It is God who justifies, Mr. Satan. Who is to condemn? It is
00:10:09.840 | Christ Jesus who died, Mr. Satan. You couldn't stop it more than that who was raised from the
00:10:16.720 | dead, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us, Mr. Accuser. So I am sure that
00:10:23.760 | neither death nor life nor angels nor rulers—yeah, nor rulers nor Satan nor anything else in all
00:10:30.320 | creation—can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. So our weapon against Satan in this
00:10:41.040 | world is truth, especially the truth of the gospel of the cross of Christ. And our great mission
00:10:50.080 | is the deliverance of the world. Tell them the truth. Spread the truth. Defend the truth. Live
00:10:59.440 | the truth, for you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free, free from sin,
00:11:05.040 | free from Satan. The words of Jesus to the apostle Paul before he sent him out was, "I am
00:11:12.720 | sending you to open their eyes to the truth of Christ so that they may turn from the power of
00:11:22.400 | Satan to God," Acts 26, 18. That's our great liberating mission in the world, to open the eyes
00:11:31.600 | of the blind by the power of the Holy Spirit, by the great instrument of truth, because Paul said
00:11:38.160 | God will grant them repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they will become free
00:11:49.360 | and escape from the snare of the devil, having been captured by him to do his will.
00:11:54.560 | May God make us valiant spokesmen and spreaders of liberating truth.
00:12:01.600 | 05 Amen. Thank you, Pastor John. Nothing less is called for in the face of this diabolical deception
00:12:08.560 | than what you just called for, Pastor John. Thank you. Thank you for listening to the Ask
00:12:11.680 | Pastor John podcast, and thank you to all of you who support our labors through your regular prayers
00:12:17.120 | on our behalf and through the generous financial giving that makes DesiringGod.org possible.
00:12:23.040 | We are, in fact, engaged in spiritual war in this work of proclaiming the supremacy of Christ
00:12:30.160 | over every power and principality. So thank you for your partnership. Thank you for joining us.
00:12:36.640 | Well, self-consciousness is a very troubling thing. It can be a paralyzing thing for some people.
00:12:43.760 | So how do we break free from a preoccupation with our own self-consciousness? It's a really
00:12:49.840 | important discussion, and it's the topic on the table Wednesday when we return.
00:12:54.400 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke. We'll see you then.
00:12:57.040 | [END]
00:12:58.080 | you
00:12:58.160 | [END]