Unmasking Satan (1)

Unmasking Satan

He thinks he’s slick

Good morning CHURCH!

Are you ready to be equipped today?

Let me see your Bibles.

Let’s go to the book of 2 Corinthians for this week’s wisdom Vaccination.

This Week’s Wisdom Vaccination

2 Corinthians 11:14-15 ESV

And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. 15 So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds.

Our new series title is:

Unmasking Satan

I don’t know if any of you remember or have seen the movie Exit Wounds. It starred Steven Segal, DMX, Anthony Anderson and Michael Jai White. It had some serious inside police corruption going on.

The mastermind of the police operation used a line in which he said, “The greatest trick Satan ever performed was making you think he doesn’t exist.”

Today’s message title is:

He thinks he’s slick

I’ve not met anyone that I can think of who doesn’t want to live a life of victory.

As a believer victory is available to us, but there is someone who is against us.

Just think for a moment of how many areas in your life you would like to be victorious in.

(Faith, finances, marriage, family, health, thought life, career etc.)

There are only 3 who can stop us from getting to that place of victory. (God, Satan and self)

We know that God is not out to stop us.

And though we do stop ourselves at times, some of the ways in which we stop ourselves have been initiated from Satan and how he has caused society to be so broken and so anti-God.

Today we are going to talk about the first steps to defeating the enemy and we will continue over the next few weeks unmasking Satan.

Point #1

Know your enemies’ strengths

Satan, also known as the Devil or Lucifer, is the head of the demons and led their rebellion against God.

And he now leads them in promoting evil in the world.

According to scripture, Satan was a particularly powerful and high-ranking angel who led one third of the angelic host to rebel against God.

Revelations 12:7-10 ESV

Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back,

8 but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven.

9 And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.

10 And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God.

So we see he has been kicked out of heaven, but now what does that mean for earth.

Revelations 12:12 ESV

Therefore, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows that his time is short!”

Heaven is a better place because Satan and the angels that followed him were kicked out, but the earth is the place where Satan is now spewing his wrath.

He’s mad at God so he wants to take it out on God’s creation, mankind.

Satan is a fallen angel who along with his demonic army have been here since before the beginning of mankind’s existence and he knows the tendencies of man.

Satan has been given the authority by God to operate in the earth as an opposing choice to God.

Satan is a Hebrew word that means “adversary.”

When you look at the origin of the word it is not only in opposition to God but also a direct contrast to Holy Spirit.

(Holy Spirit is one who comes along side of us to help us to know God and follow God. Satan is one who comes against us in opposition to God.)

Ephesians 2:1-2 ESV

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience

He’s referred to here as the prince of the power of the air.

He is also referred to as the god of this world. (Little g.)

2 Corinthians 4:4 ESV

In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

He has the authority to trick, deceive and if you allow him to, defeat mankind in the earth.

Like the other angels and demons, Satan is an invisible being who is highly intelligent which makes him very powerful.

Since his initial rebellion, Satan has continued to work against God’s righteous and saving purposes in the world.

Satan is like a person who wants to catch a possum. He sets a trap of something that the possum desires. When the possum comes for what he desires the trap will be released and a cage will fall on him that traps him or ensnares him.

Point #2

Know your enemies’ weaknesses

As a created being, Satan, though powerful, is not equal with God.

Instead, like the other demons, he is wholly subject to God’s sovereign will.

We saw an example of this in Job 1:6–12; 2:1–10, where Satan was accusing mankind before God and where God had to grant him permission effect Job.

Christians are not to fear the devil.

We are to know how to overcome the devil’s tricks and schemes that he uses against us.

We see the best example of this in the gospel of Matthew 4:1-11.

Matthew 4:1-4 ESV

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”

4 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

There were two more temptations by Satan following this one but Jesus each time knew the scriptures in context and didn’t fall for Satan’s devices.

The apostle Paul noted that we are not ignorant of Satan’s “devices.”

2 Corinthians 2:10-11 ESV

Anyone whom you forgive, I also forgive. Indeed, what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, has been for your sake in the presence of Christ, 11 so that we would not be outwitted by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his designs.

So the point is that Christians know, or should know, about Satan’s tricks for seeking to blind people’s minds and secure them for himself.

Satan wants you to be like the possum and only see what you desire and totally miss the trap that surrounds your desires.

Point #3

Know who’s greater than your enemy

There was a 1980’s movie called My Bodyguard.

It starred Matt Dillon, Jennifer Beals and Joan Cusack.

Moody was the school bully. Clifford was always picked on.

Clifford found Linderman a bigger kid to keep moody off his back.

Satan is a created being and as a created being he doesn’t possess omni-powers as does our God.

Psalm 139:7-10 ESV

Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? 8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! 9 If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, 10 even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.

This is referring to God.

Jeremiah 23:24 ESV

Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? declares the Lord. Do I not fill heaven and earth? declares the Lord.

Psalm 33:13-14 ESV

The Lord looks down from heaven; he sees all the children of man; 14 from where he sits enthroned, he looks out on all the inhabitants of the earth,

And as our all powerful all knowing and all present God Psalm 46:1 says God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

And then:

2 Thessalonians 3:3 ESV

But the Lord is faithful. He will establish you and guard you against the evil one.

All we have to do is:

James 4:7 ESV

Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

How can we do this?

By understanding that Satan is out to deceive you so that he can accuse you before God.

2 Corinthians 10:4-5 ESV

For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds.

5 We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,

Satan attempts to get strongholds to operate in your life because of what happened to you or how you processed what happened.

You believe something else about yourself or situation contrary to what God says is the real truth.

Satan is like a burglar that comes to rob you with a fake gun, but you think the gun is real.

If you’re watching online or here in the room, I have a very important question to ask you.

What is Holy Spirit saying to you right now?