Satan: His Meaning, Minions, and Methods - Part B

Now, this freaks most people out. Okay, the devil is real.

He's got an army and they hate my guts. Well, that's because we focus on the wrong truth. A third of the angels fell. That leaves how many left? Two thirds. They're outnumbered. Satan's outnumbered. Two to one.

Two to one. And greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. When you're in a battle, it's important to know your opponent's strategies and tricks. Today on Connect with Skip Heitzig, Skip shares about your enemy of the devil's agenda and how you can ward off his attacks. Now we want to tell you about a resource that will help you walk in the Holy Spirit, especially in the difficult moments in life. What stands between you and a more fruitful walk with Jesus? Find out how four prominent women in the Bible faced their struggles in a new teaching series from Lenya Heitzig called Queens of the Bible. Here's Lenya on the Queen of Sheba. Hearing is the first step toward spiritual blessing.

Right now, hearing is a step toward blessing because faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Hear more from Lenya as she explores the faith and the failings of four different queens in scripture. The Queens of the Bible collection of teachings is our way of saying thank you when you give $35 or more today to support this Bible teaching ministry. Look, the cost of following Christ is to go wherever he leads. Get your copy of these unique teachings when you call 800-922-1888 or give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer.

Connectwithskip.com slash offer. Okay, we're in Isaiah chapter 14 as Skip Heitzig begins today's study. Isaiah 14. For you said in your heart. Remember what we just read in Ezekiel? You were lifted up in your heart. You were puffed up with pride in your heart. So you said in your heart, I will ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds.

I will be like the Most High. Notice five times Lucifer going, I will, I will, I will, I will, I will. That is the definition of sin. Sin begins when a person, a being says in his heart, what I want is more important than what God wants. I will exalt my will above God's will. That's sin.

That's where it all begins. Five times he uses the word I will. He goes, I will be like the Most High. Verse 15. You shall be brought down to hell. This is God's response to the lowest depths of the pit. Now, go back to what he says here in that verse. I will ascend into heaven.

Why does he say that? I mean, if he's already in heaven, why does he go, I'm going to ascend into heaven? Well, you're already there. So why are you going to ascend? For him to ascend, there's only one person left who's higher. And that's God. For the chief angel to get a promotion would make him God.

That's the problem. Something happened in his heart where he is now not satisfied with worshiping God, but now he wants to be worshiped as God. I will be like the Most High. And when that happened, Lucifer became Satan and he was cast out of heaven. I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. Verse 15. You shall be brought down to Sheol, hell, to the lowest depths of the pit. Those who see you will gaze at you and consider you saying, is this the one that made the earth tremble, who shook kingdoms?

So he says, I'm going up in life. God says, you're going down to the pit. And it's going to be fulfilled in Revelation chapter 20 when it tells us that Satan is cast into the lake of fire, he and all of his demons, cast into the lake of fire. And God has been waiting a long time for that to happen.

It still hasn't happened yet. And when it finally does, it's God's way of eternally demonstrating the absolute stupidity of defying God. You want to defy God? You want to exalt your will above God? Let me show you what that will get you, because the chief of my creation tried that and here's his end.

Now, I want to apply that with this question. What choices are you making in life? Are you making stupid choices? Are you making smart choices?

You say skip, define stupid. Okay, here's a stupid choice. Any choice that moves you away from the heart of God is stupid. Any choice that draws you closer to his heart and will is stupid.

Any choice that draws you closer to his heart and will is smart. Anybody who says, I want this, I want that, I will this, I will that is stupid if it's against the will of God. And God will demonstrate that eternally by casting the greatest creation he made into the pit.

So, a lot of surprising things. He is real, he is magnificent, but he made the stupidest choice ever. I'll give you a fourth surprising fact about the devil, and that is this. The devil is not the opposite of God. The devil is not the opposite of God, but he wants you to think he's the opposite of God. Oh, he loves it when people give the devil more credit than he's due. He loves it when people think, yeah, he's like the opposite of God. He's powerful like God.

I read a news article in the LA Times some years ago. It caught my attention, so I cut it out. Seventeen-year-old boy said, I often think of Satan as a cool dude. I'd never heard anybody talk about the devil as a cool dude, but this 17-year-old boy said, I've often thought of the devil as a cool dude since he controls one part of the supernatural wrong.

He tends to let you be on your own and do what you want, whereas God wants to put you in a jail cell. Listen, the devil wants people to think he is so awesome and so powerful that the universe is sort of like one big celestial boxing ring, and over here in the corner, ladies and gentlemen, is Jesus Christ, and over here in the other corner is the devil, and they're duking it out. Who's going to win? What round are we in?

Are you kidding? The devil was created by Jesus. He can't go one round with the champ. He is not the opposite of God. He was created.

He was created. Tertullian, one of the church fathers, had a pretty famous saying in his time. He gave it in Latin. It was diabolo chi est simia dei, which literally translated means, Satan is God's monkey. What that means is the devil tries to ape God. He wants to be like the Most High, so he does things to get the earth, people on the earth, and hopefully demons, a third, went with him to believe that he is more powerful than he is. But Jesus said, I saw Satan fall. He didn't stay in that position. He went down.

I saw it. And the 70 disciples said, the demons are subject to us in your name. That just shows that God is superior to the devil and to demons. He's not the opposite of God.

He didn't have the attributes of God. Listen, the devil is not self-existent like God is. God is self-existent. Nobody created God.

The devil is not self-existent. He was created. If he was created, it means he is contingent. If he is contingent, it means he is inferior to God, supremely so.

So he's not self-existent. Something else he's not, he's not sovereign. Yes, the devil has certain freedoms, but did you know that Satan operates only within the government of God, that he has to get permission from God to do anything? I don't know why God gives him the permission he gives him, but he has to have permission to do it. For instance, when he wanted to attack Job, he had to appear before God and make an appeal and get permission to go after Job. In the gospel account of the man who was demon-possessed and Jesus came to deliver the man who was possessed with demons, the demons had to get permission from Jesus to leave that man and go into a herd of swine. Permit us to go into the herd of swine. And unless Jesus would have said the word go, which he did, those demons would have stayed in that man.

They had to get permission. The apostle Paul talked about his thorn in the flesh, remember, in 2 Corinthians chapter 12. He said, there was given to me, which implies God gave it to me, or God allowed it to be given to me, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, listen to what he says, a messenger of Satan to buff at me. In other words, God for his own purposes can even use the malevolent design of the devil in trying to attack you for his own glory and for the good and betterment of his people.

Because Paul said, I ended up hearing God say, my grace is sufficient for you, my strength is made perfect in your weakness. So he's not self-existent, he is not sovereign, something else the devil is not, he is not omnipresent. Don't think the devil is not. The devil is not. He is not. Don't think the devil is everywhere.

He's not. He is limited spatially. He can only be in one place at one time. A demon can only be in one place at one time. The demons were in the man, and when Jesus cast them into the herd, they left the man and they went over to point B, the herd of men.

But they are limited spatially, they are not omnipresent. Another thing the devil is not, he is not omniscient. He didn't know everything.

He can't predict the future. I hear Christians sometimes get freaked out and they go, I think the devil can read minds. I think demons read my mind.

And I've heard people tell stories of, you know, before they were saved, they went to a fortune teller or a psychic and the fortune teller or psychic gave details of their life. And, you know, I don't know how he knew that, but he knew what I had for breakfast. Well, your husband knew what you had for breakfast. I mean, it's observable information. It's past history.

I'm sure there was a demon present when you were having breakfast who told it to the fortune teller. But that's different than predicting the future. That's something only God knows. So the devil is not omniscient. He doesn't know the future.

He doesn't know what you are thinking. I mean, even good angels lack information. Remember what it says in Peter that the angels desire to look into things regarding our salvation. That's because angels experientially don't know what it's like to have God's mercy, grace and forgiveness. We do. Redemption is something unique to human beings. We have that. That fascinates the angels.

They desire to look into that. So if good angels don't have all the information and know everything, certainly demons don't. So he is not the opposite of God. He's not real. He's not. He is magnificent. He is real. He is magnificent.

He's made a stupid choice and he is not the opposite of God. Let me give you a fifth surprising fact about the devil. He is highly organized, really into organization. I don't know if you read the book, The Seven Habits of Effective People. I don't know, but he's highly organized. And one would have to be to be effective in a fallen state.

You have to get organized. When Satan fell from heaven, the Bible indicates that he managed to bring other spirits, angel spirits, with him. That he staged a coup in the heavenly places, a mass rebellion of which he has been sort of a ruler of ever since. Revelation chapter 12, John said, I saw a dragon and his tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them down to the earth. We read that and go, so what? That's a vision.

What does that mean? Well, you keep reading that chapter and it tells you that the stars are fallen angels. And it says, the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old called the devil and Satan, and his angels were cast out with him.

Did you notice that? His angels. So with a third of the angelic host that rebelled with him, he has put together a highly organized network of powerful spiritual beings of which he is the chief. He said, I wanted to be like God.

That's his, that's what he's got, that network. But that is why Jesus calls him the ruler of this world. John chapter 12, John chapter 14, and John chapter 16, the ruler of this world. Paul said in Ephesians chapter 2, he's the prince of the power of the air. That's an interesting description of him. Prince of the power of the air, air meaning the atmosphere, meaning Satan's realm is the earth, the earth that has this atmosphere.

But I kind of see more in that. He's the prince of the power, not only of the air, but of the air waves. He is very interested in media.

He is highly invested in media, and he seeks to pervert that, and I think he's done a pretty good job. Luke chapter 11 verse 15, he's called the ruler of demons, the ruler of demons. So you've got this coup that was staged.

He has fallen. He has all these angelic beings that went with him who are now demons. He is like the prince of them, the ruler of them, and that system is highly organized. In fact, we have names of their rankings in Colossians 1 and Ephesians chapter 6.

Let me just read one to you. Ephesians 6, Paul said, we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but listen, against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts or armies of wickedness in the heavenly places. All of those are titles of rankings of angelic beings that are evil against you. Now this freaks most people out. Okay, the devil is real.

He's got an army, and they hate my guts. Well, that's because we focus on the wrong truth. A third of the angels fell. That leaves how many left? Two-thirds.

They're outnumbered. Satan's outnumbered. Two to one.

Two to one. And greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. Focus on the two-thirds that did not fall of whom God said he sends them out to minister to those who are heirs of salvation, Hebrews chapter 1, rather than one-third of demons. Yeah, demons are real. Yeah, demons are out to get you. But God is living in you, and his angels are surrounding you.

That's what you need to focus on. Yep, Satan is highly organized. So is God, and he's better at it.

And I'll leave you with the sixth surprising fact, maybe not so surprising to you. Satan, the devil, has an agenda. He has an agenda, a very specific agenda. It's not just to create chaos. He's not just a bull in a china closet.

Here I go. No, he has an agenda, which is this, to disrupt and destroy the work of God. To disrupt and destroy the work of God. The very name Satan means adversary, enemy. He is our enemy. He is against people. He's against certain ones. Question is, who is he against? At the very basic level, I suppose you could say, well, he's against everyone, right?

1 John chapter 5 verse 19, we know that the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one. If you've been in the military, you'll understand this. There are people who would be considered the enemy, but within the camp called the enemy, they have what is called HVTs, high value targets. High value targets. Get the high value target, and the rest will fall. I believe Satan has high value targets he has been after.

Let me give you a few of them. Target number 1, HVT number 1 on Satan's list, Jesus Christ. Ever since Genesis 3 15 announced somebody is going to be born, Satan, who's going to crush your skull, Satan has tried to attack the messianic line. That's enemy number 1 to him. Jesus and those attached to him. Number 2 for Satan, HVT, high value target, holy angels. Holy angels. You know, we're a little naive and prideful, I would even say, to imagine that the devil himself is out to get me. He's out to get me.

He has some bigger fish to fry, first of all. Even beyond the earthly realm, even beyond the political, even beyond the elections, even beyond the rulers of this world, and that is in the heavenly places Satan fights against holy angels. You want to get a little insight into that, read Daniel chapter 10, where an angel says to Daniel, look, as soon as you prayed, I came, but 21 days I fought the demon prince of Persia, and it was such a heavy fight, I had to call for a super angel, Michael, to come and help me out.

But here I am. So there's a battle going on in heavenly places far beyond the earthly. So Jesus, holy angels, number 3, HVT number 3, high value target, Israel, the nation of Israel. God has made a plan for the nation of Israel.

In the Old Testament, and in the New Testament, he made a covenant with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, that he will have a theocratic kingdom upon this earth, the likes of which has not been fulfilled yet. And that is why in Revelation chapter 12, it is Satan fallen from heaven, attacking the nation of Israel. So we have Jesus, holy angels, and Israel.

Those are high value targets. Let me throw in a fourth, unbelievers. Unbelievers. Satan and his demons attack unbelievers.

What's his purpose with unbelievers? Keep them unbelievers. Keep them deceived.

Distract them. Do anything to distract them to get them to reject God and never receive Jesus as Savior. Remember, Jesus said, the thief, Satan, comes to kill, to steal, and to destroy. Satan wants unbelievers to die in unbelief. Number 5, fifth high value target, believers.

But let me be specific about that. Believers who are making an impact for the gospel. Believers who are making an impact. If you are a serious-minded Christian, you have a target on your back. Now if you play it cool, you say, yeah, you know, I believe in Jesus and stuff, but I don't want to get like too fanatical and too serious about God. By and large, Satan's won.

He made you impotent. You're just going to sort of veg out through life and go to heaven. But if you are saying, you know what, I want to do damage to the kingdom of darkness between now and heaven.

I want to seriously promote the gospel and help people in the name of Jesus and storm the gates of hell. HVT, high value target, target on your back, and he'll use everything he can to hinder your witness, to lessen your effectiveness, because he is Satan, the adversary. So I know as we come to a closure saying, and Skip, this sermon today is not on the high number 1 to 10 encouraging list.

I put this down at the very bottom, because you just told me there's a real devil who hates my guts, who wants to destroy my witness, who sends his demons out to the earth, who sends his demons out, and he is my enemy. You're right. I told you that. And that should make you happy. And you're looking at me like you're weird. You're nuts. You're telling me that the devil is my enemy and that should make me happy?

Yes. That's what I'm telling you, because the other alternative is the devil isn't your enemy. He's your friend. That's far worse if you're going to have any relationship with the devil at all.

You want him as your enemy, not your friend, because if he's your enemy, God is your friend. That wraps up Skip Heitzig's message from the series 2020. Now here's Skip to share how you can keep this broadcast going strong, connecting you and many others to God's truths. When our lives seem to be on shaky ground, it's important to remember God is in control.

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