Welcome back. On Friday of last week in APJ 1869, I think it was, we looked at the terrible things that Satan can do to people and to us. We saw that Satan can bring on physical suffering. He's behind much sickness. We know that Satan brought a thorn of physical pain into Paul's life.

He can even throw Christians into prison, we saw. Satan got Jesus arrested, beaten, and thrown on a cross. And just as he sought to destroy our Savior, Satan seeks to destroy our faith today. He's very powerful. But he's not all powerful. Where Satan acts, he only acts by permission and never with ultimate control.

Nevertheless, he's real. He's strong. He's evil. And he's on a very long leash. And even on that long leash of God's providence, he does terrible damage. Those were the points from that recent episode, "Satan is no Joke." But there's another reality we must add into the mix, and it's this.

There's only one finally destructive weapon in the artillery of Satan. Only one. One lethal weapon that he can wield over you and over me. What is it? Here's Pastor John's answer in a 1996 sermon. All the old high priests, remember what they did in the Old Testament? They had bulls and they had goats and they had doves and they'd go into the Holy of Holies and they'd take blood and spill it on the altar, cover the sins of the people for a year, perhaps on the Day of Atonement.

And they had to do it for their own sins, too. And here comes Jesus. And he has in his mind, "I'm going to do a high priestly work one time and it's over. No more temple sacrifices when I'm done because the blood I'm taking is not the blood of a bull, the blood of a goat, the blood of a lamb, the blood of a dove.

It's my blood. Infinitely valuable blood. And I'm going to pour it out one time." Or another image would be, "I'm going to go in there and I'm going to lie down and I'm going to die. I'm going to do that. I'm going to finish this whole system of sacrificial offerings once for all by laying down my life that I might propitiate sins." So the aim of his death is to make propitiation for the sins of his people, verse 17, and the aim of his death is to destroy or nullify the power of the devil and his power over death in verse 14.

Christ strips the devil of his power in death by propitiating sins. Now we've got to deal with that word "propitiate," okay? It's okay if you don't know that. It's okay. It's not common parlance in American vocabulary. You won't hear it on TV, probably. You won't read it in the newspaper, and even Christians have pretty much dropped it.

But let's get it, okay? Let's just get it. Stick it in so you can use it now and then with people you ought to use it with. To propitiate in the context of judgment and punishment for broken law, to propitiate is to take away the wrath and the anger of the offended party.

To propitiate their wrath. So here's God the lawgiver in justice and holiness who has the expectation that people will love him, honor him, trust him, obey him, delight in him, and the whole world falls short of that expectation. And therefore the justice of God kicks in and he has a legitimate just anger against sinners.

Now the solution to that is not only to deal with the guilt of sin, but the anger of God. We've got to get rid of his anger. We can't. There's not a thing in the world you can do to do that. Only one person can take away the anger of God.

God. And since he's just, he doesn't just say, "Well, we'll let bygones be bygones. I'll sweep my anger under the rug and sin is okay. It's not a big deal. My honor is not worth dying for." Instead what he says is, "I love you so much and I love my honor so much that I will send my son as the high priest to absorb my anger." That's what happened at the cross.

He put his son forward and son willingly in love to us and in love to his father, lays his own life down on the altar of the cross as a high priest and as the offering of the high priest. And God pours out on him the curse of law.

Galatians 3.14, he became a curse for us. And in doing that, drains every drop of the wrath of God against his elect dry. In Jesus Christ there is therefore now no what? Condemnation. This is a glorious, this is what was meant back in chapter 2 verse 4 when it said, "Oh, don't neglect your great salvation." This is a great salvation.

Now we're right on the brink of answering our question. We're not there yet. We haven't got it solved, but we've almost got it solved. The question was, how is it that the death of the son of God, Jesus Christ, our high priest, by propitiating sin, defeats the devil? How is it that the devil loses his power to destroy you through death because of that?

There is only one lethal weapon in the artillery of Satan. If you've ever thought about this, listen carefully. There's only one lethal, deadly, final, destructive weapon in the artillery of Satan. You know what it is? Your sin. Nobody goes to hell because of being harassed by the devil. Nobody goes to hell because of being possessed by the devil.

Nobody goes to hell because of being oppressed by the devil. Nobody goes to hell because of seeing green apparitions on their ceiling at night and hearing weird noises under the bed, which are real. Nobody goes to hell because of that. People go to hell for one reason, unforgiven sin.

Period. That's all. Satan has one way to get you to hell, keep you from a savior, and get you to sinning. That's all. He can't scare you. I mean, let's get rid of our fear of this guy. He has one deadly weapon. Sure, he can rough you up. He can kill you.

Revelation 2.10, he has thrown many of you into jail. For 10 days, you will suffer and you're going to die. Satan can kill you today. This text does not mean that Satan's hands are bound and that he can't make you sick or that he can't make you dead. It means the one who had the power of death to destroy you no longer has that power.

Death, where is your victory? Oh, death, where is your sting? It's gone. Why? Because the law is satisfied and sins are forgiven. And all Satan can do is look you in the face and just rage at you. And if you're covered by the blood of Jesus, if you're clothed with the righteousness of Jesus Christ, you can look him right in the face and say, "Be gone, Satan." Or if he rages against you such as to put you in jail or to make you sick or to kill you, you can smile back at him and say, "I'm free from the fear of this thing." Powerful clip.

This is from John Piper's sermon preached on June 23, 1996, titled "Jesus is able to help those who are tempted," a sermon on Hebrews 2, verses 14 to 18. And of course, that sermon is online at DesiringGod.org. And if you find a powerful sermon clip like this one, send it to me.

Give me your name, hometown, the sermon title, the timestamp of where the clip happens in the audio, and make a note of what stands out to you. Put the word "clip" in the subject line of an email and send it right to me at AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org. That's an email address, AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org.

Well I cast my cares on God, and those cares keep finding their way back to me. So how do I get rid of those cares for good? It's a great question from a college student, and it's up next time. I'm your host, Tony Reinke, and we'll rejoin in studio with Pastor John on Friday to talk about casting our cares on God.

I'll see you then. 1. What is your passion? What is your goal? What is your goal? What is your passion? What