Is the Devil Real? Part 2

The Devil is real and he is as close to pure evil as one can get. We saw last time that he is a spiritual being that operates in the spiritual realm. He desired to be like God and for his pride he was cast down. He now spends his time hindering God's plans for the redemption of a people thereby overturning the rebellion started by Satan in the Garden of Eden. How does he try to hinder the redemption of God's people?

The Devil accuses God's children before the throne of God.

Not only does the Devil oppose God's plan for redeeming men but he also opposes God's right to redeem those whom He has already saved. The Devil constantly brings before the throne of God the sins of His people and trying to undermine our relationship with our heavenly Father.

Revelation 12:10 Then 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 brethren has been thrown down, he who accuses them before our God day and night.

How is it that the Devil is able to bring accusations concerning us before our Father? Let's face it none of us are without sin even after becoming a Christian. The Devil is actively involved in our lives to undermine God's plan of sanctification. Sanctification is the process by which God make us more like Jesus. God's plan in a Christian's life is to make him into the image of His Son. We are being transformed from what we are to a perfectly righteous us. This sanctification is not ultimately completed in this life but when we are brought into the presence of the Lord.

1 John 3:2 Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.

The Devil is a Christian's adversary.

Throughout the Bible the Devil is seen as an agent of darkness ruling over a realm of darkness in a cruel manner waiting to destroy the lives and testimony of God's children.

1 Peter 5:8 Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

This should give us pause to consider the path we are currently going down as Christians. Is your path one of righteousness or one of sin? Have you allowed the Devil or your flesh to get the upper hand? Are you indulging in sins that allows the Devil to bring an accusation concerning you before the throne of God? We should be resisting the devil and not helping him in his cause. Jesus came to destroy the works of the Devil and we can join in that cause.

1 John 3:8 the one who practices sin is of the devil; for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the devil.

James 4:7 Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.

The choice is ours. The Devil is a powerful evil being, but he is powerless when he is resisted. The choice is ours.

Is the Devil Real?

Is the Devil still alive and well? Does he even exist?

 In most churches the topic of the Devil either never comes up or it comes up far too often (Think of Flip Wilsons the “devil made me do it”). But is there a real Devil and if there is does he have an impact on our lives? I will spend a couple blog postings working out these questions.

 Is there a real Devil? Well just asking the question puts one into the Judeo-Christian realm. Sure other religions have “baddies” but the name Devil or Satan is distinctly Judeo-Christian. The Bible informs us about many persons, some of which are God the Father, Jesus, the Holy Spirit and yes, even the Devil. If the Bible is true and it is, then they all exist. The Bible tells us quite a bit about each. We learn what each one is like and what our relationship to them is. The problem is that most of them are not beings like us with bodies that can be seen so it is hard to believe in their existence not to mention our sinful proclivity to want to deny the existence of the God of the Bible and therefore the other spirit persons the Bible tells us about. The Bible does not try to prove their existence only to inform us that they do exist and what they are like. Does the Devil exist? If the Bible is the Word of our Creator about Himself, our world, and us, and it is, then yes he exists. What then is he like?

 The Devil is a spirit being.

Paul in his letter to the Ephesians says that the Devil and his minions are spiritual forces.

•  Ephesians 6:12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.

 The Devil and his demons are spiritual beings that occupy the spiritual realm. The reason then that the Devil is not normally seen is that he and his demons are spirits and that is the realm in which he normally works.

 The Devil is an evil being.

What do I mean by evil? Jesus said that the Devil was the father of all lies and a murderer from the beginning.

•  John 8:44 “You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

 How did the Devil become so evil? As Lucifer, which is the Latin translation of the Hebrew word for “star of the morning”, one of God’s angels, the Devil sought to elevate himself above God and was therefore cast out.

•  Isaiah 14:12-14 “How you have fallen from heaven, O star of the morning (Latin: Lucifer), son of the dawn! You have been cut down to the earth, You who have weakened the nations! 13 “But you said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God, And I will sit on the mount of assembly In the recesses of the north. 14 ‘I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’

Since his prideful fall the Devil has ruled over a kingdom of darkness.

•  Ephesians 6:12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.

 The kingdom of darkness that the Devil rules over is seen over and against God’s kingdom of light manifested in the redemption His Son Jesus brings.

• Colossians 1:13-14 For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

 The Devil works against God and His plans.

 Consumed by pride the Devil is constantly trying to thwart God and hinder His people. One of God’s plans is to save souls. The Devil is actively at work to hinder that plan.

 The Devil opposes God’s plan of redemption.

•  2 Corinthians 4:3-4 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, 4 in whose case the god of this world (the Devil) has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

 While it is true that the Devil blinds the eyes of the lost so that they cannot see, the power of the gospel is in the opening of eyes that have been blinded. The Devil tries to thwart God and His plans, but God is greater.

•  Acts 26:18 to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in Me.’

 The Devil also opposes the saving of souls by creating false religions and doctrines to muddy the water and make the truth harder to find. The Apostle Paul in speaking about false teachers said this,

• 2 Corinthians 11:13-15 For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. 14 No wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. 15 Therefore it is not surprising if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness, whose end will be according to their deeds.

 In his opposition to God, the Devil disguises himself as an angel of light (which he used to be) to bring false teaching or another gospel entirely or even another religion to try to deceive the lost and keep them from the truth and therefore from God. He did this type of work with Adam and Even in the garden when he was able to deceive Eve into questioning the commandment that God gave Adam concerning the fruit.

•  Genesis 3:1-5 Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?” 2 The woman said to the serpent, “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; 3 but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.’ ” 4 The serpent said to the woman, “You surely will not die! 5 “For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

 We can see from this passage that the Devil not only got Eve to question what God said but even God’s motive for saying it. The Devil has not deviated from these tactics even to this day. The Devil is very good at what he does and he has no remorse or any other redeeming feature. Next time we will see how the Devil interacts with God’s people.

Joy Discovered

Joy for the Christian can no longer be found in the things of the world. He understands that the world is passing away.

1 John 2:17 The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.

 And so he understands that there is more to this life than indulging the flesh looking for joy. When he tries to find joy like his neighbor does, with the things of this world, he finds them to be only temporary and hollow. He has become a new creation and there is no going back.

 2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.

 A Christian's joy now consists in following Jesus. He finds joy in trying to be in this world what Jesus was. A Christian finds joy in what Jesus found joy in. Jesus found His joy not in immersing himself in the things the world had to offer but in setting himself apart (sanctification) for God and His will. In His prayer toward the end of His earthly ministry Jesus prayed these words.

John 17:13-21 "But now I come to You; and these things I speak in the world so that they may have My joy made full in themselves. ¹⁴ "I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. ¹⁵ "I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one.  ¹⁶ "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. ¹⁷ "Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.¹⁸ "As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. ¹⁹ "For their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth. ²⁰ "I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; ²¹ that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me.

In this prayer there are a couple of points that speak directly to the issue of joy that we are dealing with. The first is that Christians are a different breed of person. Christians are, in Jesus' words, "not of the world." Christians do not live in the world like those who are "of the world." The second is that there is a sanctification or a setting apart that happened at the time of conversion through the Word of God and that continues to progress as the Christian lives his life. Jesus said, "Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth," and also "For their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth." These things Jesus spoke in the world so that our joy made be made full in each and every Christian.

So how do we experience joy? We do so by immersing ourselves in the life of Jesus. We do so by loving what He loved, by doing the will of the Father. Most of us find doing the will of God difficult and so we don't try. We are then forced to try to find joy in the world like our unsaved friends and we are surprised when this kind of compromise is ultimately unsatisfying. Paul boiled his life down like this,

Galatians 2:20 "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.

This is nothing new, but it is a type of death. The Christian has to be willing to pick up his cross and follow Jesus, which means to die to self and begin to live first and foremost for God. It is a leap of faith as well, to lay aside the things the world says brings joy and take up a life that the world laughs at and scorns. To follow Jesus, to talk about Jesus, to exhort and admonish others to live the crucified life, to be willing to die if necessary seems almost too much to ask. The issue is a matter of faith. Is this so surprising? The world tells us that living for our flesh is the source of joy and God says that joy comes from living for Him and for our neighbors.

1 Peter 5:6-7 Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, ⁷ casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.

Who will you listen to? Who will you place your faith or trust in? As for me and my house… Who cares for you? The choice is before you now. What kind of joy do you want? Do you want a lasting deep joy or a shallow fleeting joy? May the Lord guide and strengthen you as you determine to live for Him.