Well, what legitimate authority does Satan have over this world? It's a very important question and it arrives today from a listener named Aaron in Texas. Hello Pastor John, in Matthew 4.9 and in Luke 4.6, what authority is Satan talking about? Is he lying that he has authority to give or does he truly have authority over the earth?

If so, what is it and how does this relate to God's complete sovereignty over all things? Here's what the devil actually said to Jesus at the temptation in the wilderness that creates the question we were just asked. Matthew 4.8, "Then the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.

And he said to him, 'All these I will give to you if you fall down and worship me.'" And here's Luke 4.5, "The devil took him and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time and said to him, 'To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I will give it to whom I will.

If you then will worship me, it will be yours.'" So my first answer is, if Jesus had worshipped Satan, of course Jesus would have abdicated his divine authority. He would have ceased to be God. If he were worshipping the devil, he wouldn't be God. The devil would be God.

And yes, Satan would then give him the whole world and still control the world, because Jesus would not be God, he'd be Satan's lackey. All of which, of course, did not and could not happen. And Satan, as usual, was a fool to suggest it. He's an idiot. He's always saying stupid half-true things.

But notice the words of Luke 4:6. Satan is not the ultimate authority in the world, because in Luke 4:6 he admits this, "I can give all this authority because it has been delivered to me." Ah. Namely, by whom? God. In his sovereignty, God considered it wise, as part of his curse on the world after the fall of Adam and Eve, to give Satan a huge power in this world.

But he doesn't have ultimate power. We're not dualists. We don't think there's God and Satan duking it out for power in the universe. God is God, not Satan. Satan is not God. All Satan's power is by permission. He has no autonomy to do anything God does not permit for infinitely wise purposes.

So we see Satan given permission to afflict Job, right? This is the same kind of paradigm. The Lord said to Satan in Job 1:12, "Behold, all that he has is in your hand, only against him don't stretch out your hand." So Satan went out from the presence of the Lord.

All his acts of opposition to God, all his acts of opposition to God's people, are part of God's plan as he gives Satan permission to exercise tremendous power in this world. Nevertheless, Satan's sway in this world is terrible and vast. Here's what we read. This is 1 John 5:19, "The whole world lies in the power of the evil one." Or Ephesians 2, 1 and 2, "You were dead in trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the"—note this phrase—"prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience." Or 2 Corinthians 4:4, "The God of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers." Or John 14:30, Jesus says in his last night, "I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming," meaning coming against me tonight, the ruler of the world.

But the note of the New Testament, the note that is struck in the New Testament is that in Christ's death and resurrection, the decisive blow against Satan has been struck. And as he comes against Jesus in his final hours, Jesus says, John 12:31, "Now is the judgment of this world.

Now will the ruler of this world be cast out." Or Luke 22:53, he says, "The ruler of this world is judged." No, that was John 16:11, "The ruler of this world is judged." And here's Luke 22:53, Jesus says—I love this phrase, it's just so sovereign—"This is your hour and the power of darkness." You get an hour.

You get one hour. I know when it starts, I know when it ends. That's your hour. It's all by sovereign permission that you can do your dastardly deed in Judas and in me tomorrow morning. The most important passage on Satan's defeat in the cross of Christ is Colossians 2, 13-15.

Goes like this, "You who were dead," that's us, us Christians, "You who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our trespasses by canceling the record of death that stood against us with its legal demands." That's a sweet sentence.

The entire record of your life that you regret, canceled. "This he set aside, nailing it to the cross." And here comes the decisive Satan verse. "He disarmed," so in dying for your sins, in nailing your record of debts to the cross, he disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to an open shame by triumphing over them in him.

So he disarmed them by nailing our record of debts to the cross. Because Satan's power is this, he's a great accuser. Nothing in his court folder, as he stands before the bar to accuse us, if he has nothing in his folder, what's he gonna do? Powerless in this courtroom, because our record of debts has been canceled.

So his one damning weapon against God's elect is taken out of his hand, namely unforgiven sin. There is no unforgiven sin anymore. We're forgiven, so what's he gonna condemn? Nothing. So now, in every battle with the devil, we can have total confidence of final victory, which is why Romans 8, 38 says what it says, "I am sure that neither death nor life nor"—now, these are demonic beings—"nor angels nor rulers nor anything else nor present nor things to come nor powers," satanic powers, "nor height nor depth nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus." He has been decisively defeated.

A friend told me once that when he was converted in college, along with several other athletes—he's a big hulking football player type, and he was converted by an old elderly woman, a petite woman—and she hosted in discipleship groups at her house these football players, you know, twice the size of her.

And she insisted, as her discipleship method, that every one of them say, after their conversion, one hundred times a week, "He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world," 1 John 4:4. And I thought, wow, that's a wise way to start a Christian life, because that's really true.

Amen, and profound. Thank you, Pastor John. Aaron, thanks for the question. For everything you need to know about this podcast, go to DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn. Well, self-love is a loud mantra in our culture. It echoes in our advertising, and it's on repeat in our social media feeds. Self-love is becoming inseparable from our cultural image in America.

Self-love is just what we do. So do we need to learn to love ourselves more as Christians? It's an important question from a high school teen, a listener to the podcast, and it's on Friday. Next time. I'm your host, Tony Reinke. We'll see you then.