What’s in a Worldview Part 4

What’s in a Worldview?

Part 4

“Satan is Real”

Eph. 6:12 “12 For we are not fighting against people made of flesh and blood, but against persons without bodies—the evil rulers of the unseen world, those mighty satanic beings and great evil princes of darkness who rule this world; and against huge numbers of wicked spirits in the spirit world.”

We’ve been talking the last few weeks about the importance of your worldview.

A worldview is how you view the world—it is the lens through which you interpret life.

You either have a worldly worldview that has been shaped by the thinking and values of of the world.

Or you have a Biblical worldview that has been shaped by the thinking and values of Scripture.

Your worldview should answer the hardball questions of life, like:

Why am I here?

Where did the universe come from?

What is the meaning of life?

Is God real?

If so, how do I relate to Him?

Who decides what is right and wrong?

Is there life after death?

In the past few weeks we’ve talked about several components of a Biblical worldview: 1.) Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven. 2.) Absolute Truth exists, and it’s found in Jesus Christ and God’s Word. 3.) God made everything.

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Now today I want to talk to you about a fourth key component to a Biblical worldview—the reality of Satan and spiritual warfare.

Now you might say, “Jeff, we all know the devil’s real!”

Well, listen to this:

A new poll of 1,002 professing Christians, conducted just a couple of months ago by George Barna’s Cultural Research Center, revealed that 40% believe Satan is not a real being, but just a symbol of evil.

This reveals that almost half of the American church does not have a Biblical worldview regarding Satan and the reality of spiritual warfare!

But the Bible is crystal clear on the reality of Satan!

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In the book of Genesis we first encounter the devil in the Garden of Eden.

He appears to tempt Eve disguised as a serpent.

We’re told that Eve is hoodwinked by the devil’s lies and falls into deception.

She eats of the one tree God forbade the first couple from touching, then Adam ate, and sin entered the human race.

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God soon shows up and dispenses judgments on all three of the players—Adam, Eve, and Satan.

Turning to Satan, God said, “Because you have done this...I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel” (Gen 3:15 NKJV).

Now, this verse has sometimes been called the John 3:16 of the OT, because it is the Bible’s first prophecy, and it is Messianic—it contains God’s promise to send a Redeemer.

—And it also contains God’s declaration of war against Satan!

One of Eve’s descendants (the Lord Jesus Christ) would deal a death blow to Satan’s head, while he in turn would bruise Christ’s heel.

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Hence, starting way back in the ancient Garden of Eden, we see that:

SATAN IS REAL

God wasn’t talking to a myth, a fairy tale, or a symbol of evil.

He was talking to a real being who had used the disguise of the body of a snake to attack Eve.

We see that Satan was crafty, intelligent, verbose, persuasive in his approach, and evil through and through.

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Scripture reveals the devil’s sordid history.

We learn that the very first sin to darken God’s universe was not committed by Adam and Eve, but by Satan, whose sin was PRIDE:

Ezekiel 28 describes him before his fall,

“You were the perfection of wisdom and beauty. 13 You were in Eden, the garden of God...I appointed you to be the anointed Guardian Angel.” (vs. 12-13 LB).

The Prophet Isaiah tells us more:

“How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground...For you have said in your heart: ‘I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God...I will be like the Most High.’”

Satan, when he was Lucifer, literally decided to overthrow God!

But God responded to his mutiny with the words, “But instead, you will be brought down to the pit of hell, down to its lowest depths” (Isaiah 14:12-15 NKJV).

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The Bible also adds that when Satan rebelled against God, he drew a third of the angels with him when God cast him out of heaven:

John the Revelator writes: “His tail swept away one-third of the stars in the sky...This great dragon—the ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, the one deceiving the whole world—was thrown down to the earth with all his angels” (Rev. 12:4,9 NLT).

These fallen angels became the demons Jesus regularly confronted in the NT.

The New Testament reveals that, as soon as the “Seed” mentioned in Gen 3:15—Jesus Christ—appeared on earth, he was confronted by Satan!

For instance, when Jesus went into the wilderness after His water baptism, He was personally approached by the same devil that confronted Eve.

It says, “The tempter came to Him.”

In the subsequent showdown in the desert, Jesus successfully defeated three major temptations.

It then says, “the devil departed from Him until an opportune time” (Luke 4:13 NKJV).

In other words, the battle wasn’t over!

Satan would be the Lord’s constant opponent, day in and day out, until Jesus died on the cross, which dealt the fatal blow to Satan’s head, just like Gen. 3:15 predicted.

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The Bible says that Jesus made it His business to destroy Satan’s works everywhere he went.

The Book of Acts says that “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him” (Acts 10:38 NIV).

The Apostle John sums up Jesus’s purpose like this: “The Son of God came to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8 NLT).

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And he destroyed the most lethal of Satan’s weapons against us!

FIRST, He destroyed DEATH:

“Because God’s children are human beings—made of flesh and blood—the Son also became flesh and blood. For only as a human being could he die, and only by dying could he break the power of the devil, who had the power of death. 15 Only in this way could he set free all who have lived their lives as slaves to the fear of dying” (Heb 2:14-15 NLT).

SECONDLY, He destroyed Satan’s POWER over those who turn to Him for salvation:

“God rescued us from the dark power of Satan and brought us into the kingdom of his dear Son,” (Col 1:13 CEV).

THIRDLY, He destroyed our OLD SINFUL NATURE by crucifying it with Him on the cross:

“Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin” (Ro. 6:6 NKJV).

Note: Jesus didn’t come to do battle with a myth, or a symbol of evil, or a fairy tale.

He came to confront, defeat and destroy a real devil and his works!

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Now, that brings us to why it is so important that we hold a Biblical worldview of Satan.

The Bible teaches that, since our Savior is at war with Satan, so are we, His children!

If you don’t believe your enemy is real, how will you ever win your battles with evil!

Paul the Apostle said that all Christians must deal with the strategies and tricks of Satan.

It says, “For we are not fighting against people made of flesh and blood, but against persons without bodies—the evil rulers of the unseen world, those mighty satanic beings and great evil princes of darkness who rule this world; and against huge numbers of wicked spirits in the spirit world” (Ephesians 6:11-12).

The truth is that Satan attacks and opposes God’s children at every turn.

He does all he can to hinder your walk, to distract you away from Christ, and to throw up road blocks to stop your progress.

Paul told the Romans, “I often planned to come to you (but was hindered until now), that I might have some fruit among you...” (1:13 NKJV).

He told the Thessalonians who did the hindering: “Therefore we wanted to come to you—even I, Paul, time and again—but Satan hindered us.”

“Hindered” means “put an obstacle in our way, like a roadblock.”

He tempts the Christian—it is Satan who dangles the bait to lure us into compromise with the flesh.

He does all he can to discourage us, to convince us there’s no use in following Christ.

He will lie to you about God like he did Eve, using his famous one-liner, “Hath God said?”

But the good news is, a very real devil has been defeated by a very real Savior!

We are “more than conquerors through Him who loved us” (Romans 8:37 NKJV).

“He...always leads us in triumph in Christ,” (2 Cor. 2:14 NKJV).

“Greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world” (1 Jn 4:4 KJV).

Jesus’s shed blood brought Satan’s ruin:

“God took away Satan’s power to accuse you of sin, and God openly displayed to the whole world Christ’s triumph at the cross where your sins were all taken away” (Col. 2:13-15 LB).

To hold to a Biblical worldview, you must know that Satan is real, and that Jesus Christ has defeated him!