OUR POSITION AND OUR VICTORY
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the people around us had acted from our perspective alone, we would have assumed the parade was over and gone home. The lesson is pretty obvious when it comes to my perspective versus God's. He sees the whole parade, so He knows what's happening at every point along the way. That's why I need His wisdom. I can't act on my perspective alone.
Wisdom is the ability to see life as God sees it. Aren't you glad He gives us wisdom as His children so we don't have to try and figure things out based on our limited perspective?
We know God wants us to operate in His wisdom because Paul prays that God will give Christians a "spirit of wisdom" (Ephesians1:17
17 That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him:
Why do we need God's wisdom? There are a lot of reasons, but let me suggest two in particular.
First, we need God's wisdom to understand who we are in Christ-what it means to be an heir with Him, to reign with Him, to experience His limitless power, and to be seated with Him "in the heavenly places."
Until you grasp the position, privileges, and power that are yours in Christ, you will be a candidate for defeat in spiritual warfare.
Second, we need God's wisdom to see our enemy as he really is.
I hope the message has come through already that when it comes to God's people, Satan is a defeated foe. He's a roaring lion, but all he has is his roar; he has no lasting bite. He has access to our lives, but he is a spirit of influence only. As we will see, Christ thoroughly defeated and disarmed Satan at the cross. That's why it's so tragic whenever the enemy convinces a believer that in his or her case, defeat and bondage are inevitable and irreversible. At chose times, Satan's roar seems to be joined by a big bite, as a believer capitulates to his influence on earth.
Who You Are in Christ
In this lesson, which opens the book’s final section, I want to help you understand these two very important truths: who you are in Christ, and why the enemy is a defeated foe. Since we must have God's wisdom to see this, and since Paul prays for wisdom on our behalf, let's begin with the apostle's prayer in Ephesians 1:15-23
15 Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints,
16 Cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers;
17 That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him:
18 The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints,
19 And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power,
20 Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places,
21 Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come:
22 And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church,
23 Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all.
A Child of the King of Kings
There is much more in these wonderful verses than we can cover in this limited space. But several verses deserve highlighting, as they are especially helpful and relevant to the issue of spiritual warfare. In this passage we learn we have the privileges of being God's children, having God's power in our lives, being on the winning side, and being able to walk in victory.
Notice first that the wisdom Paul prays for in verse 17 is the kind of wisdom that yields a knowledge of God. As a child of God, your primary calling is to get to know your Father, not the enemy. We are never told to know Satan in the way we are told to know God.
As I said before, I'm not overly curious about the things of evil.
Satan is not the focus of my time and attention. I want to be aware of my enemy and understand his attacks so I can stand against him, but I don't want to know any more about Satan's works and ways than I need to know to defeat him and help other believers do the same. We are to keep our eyes on Jesus (Hebrews 12:1-2
1 Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,
2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
Limitless Power
The greatest verse on God's power in the entire New Testament may be Ephesians 1:19
19 And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us-ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power,
Paul prays that we will understand "what is the exceeding greatness of [God's] power toward us who believe, according to the working of his mighty power." Why does Paul use all of these superlatives to describe God's power? I think God is saying to us through the apostle, "Don't put a limit on My power. Don't box Me in. Watch what I can do."
How great is this power we have available to us, then? It's great enough to bring a dead man back to life! That's what verse 20 says. God's power was supremely on display when He raised Christ from the dead.
Don't miss the point. The same power God used to raise His Son is the power He gives you and me to live a victorious Christian life. I can't even imagine how much power it took to raise Jesus from the dead, can you? That's the power we are to stand in day by day.
What a far cry this is from the impression we often get that spiritual warfare and resisting the enemy is a matter of gritting my teeth and hanging on for dear life. That's trying to stand against Satan and live the Christian life in the flesh. It never has worked, and it never will work.
You're on the Winning Side
It gets even better. Paul reminds us that after God raised Jesus from the dead, He set His Son "at His right hand in the heavenly places" (Ephesians 1:20b). A person can't sit down until the work is finished.
Jesus has sat down, so this is a picture of completed work.
Jesus is not battling the spirit world on our behalf today in the sense that there's any doubt about the outcome. The conquest has already been made. He is presently enthroned "far above" any other power (v. 21). We'll see in Ephesians 6 (which I deal with in chapter 14) that these authorities Paul names include demonic entities who work in assigned realms.
So what we have here is not only a vivid picture of Christ's finished work, but a picture of total defeat for the kingdom of darkness. In the ancient world, the victor in battle would take the highest ranking officer of the defeated forces, lay him down, and put his foot on his throat, the most vulnerable part of the body. It was a gesture of abject defeat for the loser. The victor would also strip the enemy army of its weapons and parade the defeated soldiers through the streets, saying in effect, Look, the enemy you feared has been defeated. He has no weapons.
You don't have to be afraid of him anymore."
That's what Christ has done with our enemyl Satan and all of this You Can Walk in Victory
You can walk in victory!
I'm not saying that the battle is easy because we’re on the winning side.
This book makes it clear that we are in a profound spiritual battle. Even though freedom and victory are our birthright, we must stay on the alert. Getting free is easy, staying free is hard.
Walking in victory is the hard part. But it can be done, and I don't know any better illustration of this truth than the lives of great Chris-tians. Our family has read hundreds of missionary biographies, and we've seen this over and over.
God Shall Deliver You
Let me leave you with another positive truth before we turn to the subject of Satan's defeat at Calvary. In 2 Timothy 4:18 Paul writes, "The Lord will deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me for His heavenly kingdom. To whom be glory for ever and ever."
That's a wonderful promise, that God will deliver us from Satan's evil work. But actually, this promise is even more thrilling than that.
The King James Version doesn't really capture the idea here. The New International Version better reflects the Greek by translating "work" as "attack." It reads, "The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack." Isn't that tremendous? What a promise. The Lord will deliver or rescue me from every attack of the enemy and bring me into His heavenly kingdom. This is a promise of victory in spiritual warfare for every man and woman who is in Christ.
Your Defeated Foe
A pastor from the Midwest wrote me recently of the newfound freedom and spiritual victory in his ministry. He is now full of joy, and it has affected much of his ministry. He explained how his freedom has revitalized one particular ministry, his counseling.
Once this pastor realized that Satan is already a defeated foe, he realized that he was not fighting to gain the victory, but was fighting from a position of victory. There is all the difference in the world between those two approaches to the Christian life.
Defeated at the Cross
That is a crucial aspect of spiritual warfare I teach my clients under satanic attack, and we all need to remember that Satan has already been defeated at the cross. Several passages of Scripture discuss this defeat. The first I want to look at is Colossians 2:13-15. This passage is probably the most important on the subject, especially verse 15. In fact, I think these three verses should be printed in your Bible in gold.
Paul tells us that Jesus dealt with three important things in His death on the cross. The first two were our sins (v. 13) and the requirements of the law (v. 14). We were "dead" in our sins, which means we couldn't do anything about them. But Jesus made us "alive together with Him"-by forgiving us "all trespasses." The sentence of death for our sins was removed from us and placed on Jesus. Through the cross, the Savior also fulfilled the requirements of the Law, which released us from its bondage (v. 14). This "handwriting of ordinances" was a writ. ten acknowledgment of debt made in the handwriting of the debtor.
The Mosaic law put us in debt to God. But He canceled that debt, nailing it to the cross. Jesus paid it all.
The third victory Jesus accomplished on the cross is in verse 15, and it's the one we need to focus on. Here Paul outlines the fatal blow that Christ's death dealt to the demonic world: "And having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it." The "it," of course, is Christ's death, which to all outward appearances was a defeat not for Satan, but for Jesus Himself.
But thankfully, appearances don't count in the spiritual world.
Jesus "spoiled" demonic principalities in His death; chat is, He disarmed the demonic world. He took away their weapons.
Then, Jesus put these defeated powers on open display. Just as a conquering general paraded his defeated enemies through the streets, Jesus put the vanquished forces of hell on parade. We no longer need to fear these defeated foes. Another reason to put a conquered enemy on public display was to remind people that cheir allegiance was not to the losing army, but to the one on the horse, the conqueror. implications for the final days too, because we know that He will ride forth someday to conquer (Revelation 19:11-16).
Colossians 2:15 also tells us that Jesus marched in triumph over Satan and his forces. This completes the picture of utter defeat for the demonic world. Jesus accomplished all of this while hanging in weakness and shame on a Roman cross--hardly the epitome of the conquering hero. But His power was not dependent on what was seen. We can praise God for that.
Three Questions
The truth of Jesus Christ's triumph over Satan raises at least three ques. tions in my mind. The first is, Why did the demonic world push so hard to have Jesus crucified if the cross was the instrument of their defeat?
I believe this is answered best in 1 Corinthians 2:6-8, a passage I didn't understand for years because I didn't believe in the reality of the spirit world. Paul says the "rulers of this age" (wv. 6, 8) did not understand the outcome of Christ’s death, or they never would have moved people to crucify Him.
There may be some debate as to whether Paul has earthly or spiritual authorities in mind here. I'm convinced he's referring to demonic rulers. The fact is that even though Jesus was crucified at the hands of Jewish and Gentile authorities, they were demonically inspired. The plot against Him was hatched in the pit of hell. There's no doubt about this Paul's explanation proves that Satan is not all-knowing and all-powerful. He did not know that the cross meant his defeat. God displayed His wisdom "in a mystery" (v. 7, see also Ephesians 3:9), che mystery of the cross.
In light of Colossians 2 and 1 Corinthians 2, it's interesting to turn to Luke 22, a chapter that we looked at earlier in another setting Verses 52-53 make it clear that the demonic world wanted Jesus dead.
He said Himself in the garden of Gethsemane that this was the hour for "the power of darkness" to reign.
Look back at Luke 22:3. Satan himself entered Judas. The betrayal of Christ was too big a job to trust to an underling. Satan covered all of his bases ... except one. He had no control over the power of God -and God confounded the powers of hell by turning the cross into a triumph.
Here's a second question that occurs to me, and maybe to you too.
If Satan is a defeated enemy, stripped of his weapons and put on public display, why is everything such a mess? Paul provides the answer in Colossians 1:13: We have been delivered from the power of darkness-not the presence of darkness. Satan is still able to influence men and women toward evil, for a season, at least. "The whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one," John says (1 John 5:19).
So as long as we live every day in a wicked world, we will see and feel its ugly results. Satan is defeated in the lives of believers only. He's got the unsaved world in his grip. But we must keep reminding ourselves that Satan’s only power in our lives is the lie. That's all he's got to work with.
Let me ask a third question, one that's harder to answer. Why are there so many losers on the winning team? Why are so many Christians living defeated lives? I don't have a problem understanding why my unsaved neighbor lives in defeat and spiritual bondage. He doesn't know any better. But what bothers me is why so many Christians are struggling to have spiritual victory.
My desire in this book is twofold: (1) to show that moral and spiritual defeat is not inevitable for the believer, and (2) to help God's people come to complete freedom in Christ and walk in daily victory.
As someone has said, if we turn to the last chapter of Revelation, we find out how it all ends: in victory for Christ and His followers. If we're the winners in the end because we belong to Christ, why can't we live as winners today? The power is there, all the power we could ever need to make right choices.I'm not talking about the kind of "victory" some people advocate, where you ride the clouds all the time and never acknowledge any pain or problem. You can't get past the book of Job with that theology. Job was morally pure, honest, concerned about God's reputation, and he hated evil.
Some Christians think a godly man like that isn't going to get any flak from the enemy. But that's wrong. Who brought up Job to Satan?
God did! Being on the winning team doesn't mean you are excused from the battle.
Strategies of the Deceiver
Remembering two essential truths from the Scriptures can help us overcome Satan's influence in our lives. First, Satan's methods often use bondage to trip us up in our devotion to Christ. Second, Satan's methods feature deceit and lies.
Religious Bondage
The final verses of Colossians 2:13-15
13 And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses;
14 Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;
15 And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.
reveal something interesting about Satan's strategies in spiritual warfare.
After recounting Christ's total victory over the forces of darkness in verses Paul says "therefore" (v. 16), and he describes some of the implications of what he has just said. In verses 16-23, the apostle discusses various forms of religious bondage. In other words, since we've been forgiven and made alive with Christ, and our eternal destiny is secure, and since Satan was soundly defeated at the cross, he only has one tactic left to trip us up. He wants to lead us into bondage to someone or something other than Christ.
These verses remind us that Satan isn't too particular about what form that bondage takes. If he can't ensnare you sexually, emotionally, or financially or by some form of perversion, he'll ensnare you in religious bondage. The results are the same: you're rendered powerless and useless to the Lord. And results are all that the enemy cares about.
That's the danger the Colossian believers faced, and it's still a danger for us today. Isn't it typical of Paul to go straight from the heights of glorious eternal or positional truth to the nitty-gritty of daily life? He does that for a very good reason. Truth should impact and shape our lives now.
The Deceiver and Liar
Second, the Scriptures repeatedly show us a truth mentioned earlier: Because Satan is defeated, his only real power is in the lie.
He's a deceiver who wants to trap you and me in self-deception (Galatians 6:3; James 1:22; 1 John 1:8), deception by others (Ephesians 5:6; 2 Timothy 3:13; 2 John 7), and in his own work of deception
(1 Timothy 1:4
4 Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith: so do.
9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
But the operative word when it comes to Satan is defeated. He's the loser, which makes you the winner in Christ. Let's live according to that victory, in the power of our great victor, Jesus Christ.
Resting in Christ
Christ has achieved victory over Satan at the cross, and as His followers, we can have victory over Satan's influence. Here are four steps to finding rest through Christ by letting Him lead us.
1. Ask yourself how you perceive God dealing with you as His child. Do you see your relationship with God in terms of your performance?
If so, you are probably a performance-oriented person who is sometimes driven to do "religious" things, believing that if you do all of these things (usually to perfection), you will feel loved and accepted by God. If this describes you, turn to Romans 5:8 and Ephesians 1:6 and read the truth again-the truth that while you were still a sinner Christ died for you, and that you are already accepted in Him.
2. Read Psalm 23:1-2
1 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the still waters.
3 To him the porter openeth; and the sheep hear his voice: and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out.
4 And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice.
which remind us that Jesus as the Good Shepherd leads His sheep, not drives them. Recognize that the feeling of 'I just have to do more" is not of God, and ask His forgiveness for not resting in the finished work of Christ. Also, ask God to free you from trying to achieve by the works of the flesh what has already been provided by Christ on the cross.
3. Tell God you will no longer seek His love and acceptance.
Instead, because He loves and accepts you, tell Him you will serve Him.
4. Enter into the rest Christ has for you and, from that place of rest, serve Him.