Delivered to Satan, Part 1 B

Do not be surprised, beloved, if within the church of Jesus Christ there are some who, unable to find any reasons why, end up in a situation where it looks like God has totally removed His hand of protection and blessing. But God has His holy purpose, and in His grace, there will come a restoration and a time of great blessing. Satan is the enemy of Christians everywhere. He hates God. He wants nothing more than to destroy the people of God. So have you ever wondered why God gives the devil so much power over this world? And why does God allow your great enemy to attack you?

How could that ever be a good thing, an act of love? Well, the answer is surprising and encouraging. And John MacArthur looks at it today on grace to you as he continues his study titled, Spiritual Warfare. Now with the lesson, here's John. I want you to open your Bible to 1 Timothy chapter 1, verses 18 through 20.

Let me read these three verses to you, and then get into what it is that the Lord has given us for the day. 1 Timothy 1.18, this command I commit unto thee, son Timothy, according to the prophecies which pointed to thee that thou by them might war a good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience which some, having put away, have made shipwreck concerning the faith, of whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have delivered unto Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme. Now the word deliver in verse 20, paradidomy, means to hand over, to give over, to commit, or the best translation to get the sense here, to abandon, to abandon. Hands off is the idea, to remove protection and abandon someone to Satan. Now it is important to note then that for someone to be delivered over to Satan means that they are put out of the insulation and protection of that believing community. And they are given over fully to Satan, God withdrawing all of His hand of protection which they, to whatever degree, have enjoyed.

God has, listen carefully, for His own reasons, personally put people out from under the protection of the believing community and into Satan's control. God Himself has done that and I want you to see that from several biblical illustrations. Let's go back to the book of Job and this is where we begin, the book of Job. I hear all the time out of the book of Job that Job is to teach us how to deal with suffering. Job, the whole point of Job is to show the character of a godly man. And the character of a godly man is that he loves God and worships God, not because of what God has done in giving him things, but because of a pure devotion alone.

He trusted God. A true believer then can be given over to Satan to bring greater glory to God. But Satan has limits to what he can do, right? First, God said to him, you can't touch him. The second time around, you can touch him, but you can't what?

You can't kill him. There's always a restraint even when one is turned over to Satan. Do not be surprised, beloved, if within the church of Jesus Christ there are some who, unable to find any reasons why, end up in a situation where it looks like God has totally removed His hand of protection and blessing. And they are in the same quizzical confusion of a Job. They cannot understand why it happened.

They cannot humanly explain why it happened and the answer is somewhere on a divine level which may or may not become known to us. But God has His holy purposes and in His grace there will come a restoration and a time of great blessing. Now turn with me as another illustration of this to Matthew chapter 4.

And I want to show you something that is equally amazing. Matthew chapter 4. Now here we find another act by which God turns over someone to Satan and this time it's one who is even more upright than Job, one who is even more perfect than Job, one who was utterly and absolutely and totally without sin, even the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. Notice Matthew chapter 4 verse 1. Then was Jesus led up by the Spirit into the wilderness. Led up by the Spirit. Mark 1 says He was impelled by the Spirit.

For what purpose? Notice. For the purpose of being tempted or tested by the devil. Now listen to that. God not only turned Job over to the devil, He turned Christ over to him also.

That's exactly what it says. He turned Christ over to Satan. As God put Job in Satan's hands and proved the character of true salvation and proved Job's character, so God put His own beloved Son in the hands of Satan to prove His character and to show that He would not break and that He would not waver and that He would stand true as the perfect God-man. And you'll notice in verse 2, this temptation went on for forty days and forty nights. I believe that the temptation not only came at the end, but I believe if you compare all the gospel records, you will find that there was temptation through all of those times. Now a fast of forty days and forty nights is a tremendously weakening experience. Jesus is at a highly vulnerable point and at the end of those forty days and forty nights there was a great culmination to that temptation, but that is not to say that the temptation didn't come until the end. I believe He was tempted through all of that and a great culminating temptation at the end. It was a time of great weakness physically when He did not eat or drink.

It was a time of great aloneness. And I read one of the Puritans this week who said that Satan is a pirate who looks to find a vessel that sails without a fleet. Satan is a pirate who looks to find a vessel that sails without a fleet, to find some believer isolated and alone without the protection of others.

And there is Christ alone forty days and forty nights, weak in a place that George Adam Smith called the devastation of yellow limestone, a place of barrenness on the precipice overlooking the Dead Sea on the backside of the plateau of Jerusalem. And there the devil comes to Him by design from God who led Him there by His Spirit and tempts Him, and tempts Him in the areas where He had a right. First of all, tempts Him to bread and was He not the Son of God and did He not have a right to eat and did He not make everything that was made? And if He could make bread for a multitude, could He not make it for Himself? And then tempted Him to dive off the temple and thus be hailed as the Messiah and take the right that was His and was it not His?

And then to take the kingdoms of the world and were they not His by promise? He tempted Him in areas where He had a right, but Christ resisted in the midst of weakness and aloneness. All of those temptations, verse 11, then says the devil left Him and the angels came and ministered to Him. God put His own Son in the hands of Satan and then blessed Him in the end with the ministry of angels for having passed the test as He blessed Job for having passed the test.

Yes, God by His own sovereign design may choose to put one of His very own, even His own Son, into the hands of Satan to bring Himself greater glory. Second Corinthians chapter 12. Second Corinthians chapter 12. Paul says, it's not expedient or fitting for me, doubtless, to glory or to boast.

It's not right for me to boast, he says. I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord. He had had so many visions. You know, he had seen Jesus Christ risen from the dead. He had revelations. He says, referring to Himself, He says, I know a man.

He speaks a rather second-handed here because again he doesn't want to boast. This man, whether in the body I can't tell or out of the body, he can't really define it, was caught up into the third heaven. That is the dwelling place of God. He was caught up, verse 4 says, into paradise. Verse 3, he doesn't know whether it was in the body or out. He doesn't know the actual spiritual dynamics of what happened.

He just knows he was there. He heard unspeakable words which are not lawful for any man to utter. But I won't glory on such a one. I myself will not glory. The only thing I'll boast about is my infirmity. I mean, there was a great temptation in the life of Paul because of his many successes and visions and revelations to be very boastful.

But I won't do that. I would desire to boast, verse 6, but I'm not going to be a fool. So I'll say the truth, but now I forbear, I hold back, lest any man should think of me above that which he sees me to be or hears of me.

I don't want anybody having an unfair or exaggerated opinion of me, so I don't boast even though I've had these things. But I have to confess, he says in verse 7, it's not just me that's restraining. Verse 7, and lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations.

In other words, what keeps me from doing this is, watch this, there was given to me, and I believe the implication there is God has brought that. God has allowed that. This is a godly man. This is a holy man.

This is an upright man like Job was an upright man. This is a man who knows the Christian experience like perhaps no man who ever lived, other than the God-man himself. So he is not a sinful man. He deals with those areas of his life before God, and yet there is given to me a thorn in the flesh. But I want you to notice that the Lord gave him this, and yet it is called in verse 7, a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure.

Listen to this. I believe that this text tells us that the Lord turned Paul over to Satan, at least in this regard. He gave Satan the right to inflict him. I don't believe that's the work of God, I believe that's the work of Satan, but I believe God intended that Satan be allowed to do that, to keep Paul weak so that he would be dependent.

Men with great gifts need that because they tend not to be dependent. God sent Paul into Satan's arena to be buffeted. The word buffet is used in Matthew 26, 67 in describing Jesus on trial when they punched him.

It has a root word meaning knuckles, and it has to do with blows of the fist that crush the tissue and the bone. And he says, I've got this thorn in the flesh that drives its knuckles into my body. It is a messenger from Satan. You think God could have prevented it?

Sure. But God gave it to him so that he would not be proud but humble. Verse 8, I asked the Lord three times to take it away.

I asked him. Somebody will say to us, well, he didn't have enough faith. Don't give me that. That's foreign to the text. Well, he didn't claim his deliverance.

I don't buy that either because it tells you exactly what the Lord said. He said, take it away. The Lord said, no, my grace is sufficient for you. My strength is made perfect in that weakness. I'm not going to take it away because it is enough of a weakness to allow my strength to be made manifest so, Paul says, gladly, happily. I will boast in my infirmities.

Why? Because the power of Christ rests on me. I take pleasure in my infirmities, reproaches, necessities, persecutions, distresses for Christ's sake for when I'm weak, then I'm what?

Strong. Now, beloved, God gave to Job disaster. Turn him over to Satan.

Why? That Job might be living proof of the character of a godly man. That Job might learn that God was sovereign.

That Job might know God more intimately and better than he had ever, ever thought to know God because in his struggles, he was drawn to God in ways that his prosperity could never bring him. So God turned Job over to Satan for wonderful reasons and restrained Satan from ultimately destroying Job. God turned Christ over to Satan to prove his purity. God turned Paul over to Satan, at least in this one area, so that Satan could be the instrument of God to keep Paul humble so that he would know where his strength was and therefore was a more effective servant. So the Lord turns Job over to Satan to prove himself to be a godly man. The Lord turns Paul over to Satan that Paul may be a greater, more effective servant, that he may learn humility and that he may learn dependence. I want you to turn to Luke 22, Luke 22 and verse 31. In Luke 22 verse 31, listen, the Lord said, Simon, Simon, he's talking to Peter, Simon, Simon, he's calling him his old name because he sees characteristics of his old self, sin. So he chooses the old name to emphasize that, that oldness that he sees in his behavior. And he says it twice because of his compassion.

Simon, Simon, it's pathos. Behold, Satan has desired you. And I believe that is true, that is true of every believer. Satan would love to go around as a roaring lion and devour every believer and show God and show the angels. I think Satan would like the other angels to rebel. I think Satan wants to make his point. And if he could just capture the saved, if he could just have them abandon their salvation, if he could just swallow them up in his own evil kingdom, then he could win a victory over God.

Then he could checkmate God at least at one point. So Satan desires to have you, particularly did Satan desire Peter because Peter was so crucial to the development of the church, the great preacher God used in the founding years. Satan wants you and he wants to sift you like wheat. In other words, he wants to blow you away. He wants your personality to disintegrate like wheat does when it's thrown in the air and just blows away the chaff. He wants to blow away your confidence and blow away your usefulness and blow away your trust in God and blow away your security and blow away your effectiveness.

He wants you. You think the Lord could have prevented it? Of course. The same Lord who will bind Satan for a thousand years in a pit in the book of Revelation could certainly have bound him here from touching Peter, but he didn't. Look at verse 32, I've prayed for you that your faith not ultimately fail.

I've prayed for you that you're not going to ultimately lose your salvation. Just like he said you can go so far with Job and no farther. You can go so far with Paul and no farther.

You can go so far with Peter and no farther, you're not going to have ultimate failure of your faith. Then he says, but when you return, which is to say, I'm going to what? I'm going to let you, I'm going to let you go. I'm going to let you go to Satan.

And when you come back, do what? Strengthen the brother. Now what was Peter being released to Satan to learn?

To learn how to what? Strengthen others, right? He being put through this situation could then come back and strengthen others. In the case of Job, God was making a point to Satan. And God was making a point to the whole world of people who read the Bible that a true lover of God will not abandon that love and devotion though he lose everything.

A great profound lesson. In the case of Paul, he was teaching humility and dependence. In the case of Peter, he wanted someone who could tell others how it was to be in the clutches of Satan. When you've been through it and you come back, then God used you to strengthen others. It may be that the Lord in His sovereignty will take a believer who's in some way disobedient, sinful, boastful like Peter was and say, all right, I'm going to let you go.

You think you can handle it on your own? Peter says, though I'll forsake you, I'll never forsake you. Boy, I'll stand with you, I'll die with you, I'll go with you to the end.

All right, if you think you're so great, I'll just test you. And He lets you go. A boasting Christian may find himself out from under the protection of God, given over to Satan, and what he'll learn is that you can't do it on your own. And so I believe the Lord literally delivered Peter to Satan so that when he came back, he would be a source of strength to everybody else. And Peter comes back in verse 33, Lord, I'm ready to go with you to prison and to death. And of course, when he had the chance, he denied Christ three times, right?

And then in verse 62, he went out and wept bitterly and I believe he repented and I believe he got his heart right with God. The point is this, the Scripture indicates that people who are within the framework of the community of believers, whether you're talking about 1 Timothy 1, Hymenaeus and Alexander who were pastors in the church, whether you're talking about Old Testament characters like Job, whether you're talking about Jesus Christ Himself, whether you're talking about Paul or talking about Peter, these people who belong to the Lord's kingdom one way or another who are under the protection of it can for God's own purposes of remedial instruction and correction and training and illustration of great truth be brought into the dominion of Satan unprotected for God's holy purpose and glory. Some are turned over to Satan for refining. Some are like Peter was. Some are turned over to Satan for greater effectiveness like Paul was. Some for proving the validity of their faith like Job was. But in all of those, the greater glory goes to God in praising Him for the kind of salvation that holds a Job, the kind of power that humbles a Paul and that restores a Peter. And so God receives the glory in all those things.

Mark it, beloved. People within the fellowship of the church, be they believers or unbelievers, and in the cases that we've looked at today, they're all believers, can be put out for testing, for testing to prove whatever it is that God would desire be proven. Let's bow together in prayer. Our Father, we think about Job and we are reminded that his being turned over to Satan lasted for years and years, long years before he could know the recovery of all that he lost. When we think of the Lord Jesus Christ, we think of one who was turned over to Satan for a few weeks, for the Apostle Paul perhaps a few years, for Peter just a day. And, Lord, we realize that You have Your purposes and in these the purposes were for proving and refining and strengthening to Your glory that Job and Paul and Christ and Peter might be the most noble servants that they were. And so, Lord, we acknowledge that should it make us better servants, we are willing to suffer whatever the enemy might bring, knowing that he can bring nothing to ultimately cause our faith to fail because we are kept in Your grace and power. And if it can enhance and enrich that ministry to which we are called, then let us suffer whatever might be and commit our souls in faithful keeping to the One who loves us and gave Himself for us, the One who says, No man, not Satan, not anyone, shall ever pluck my sheep out of my hand. And so, Lord, if it can be for strengthening, for refining, for humbling, for greater usefulness, for the proving of the genuineness of our faith to the watching world, then do in our lives what is needful, that You might receive the glory, and we'll count it a privilege. This is Grace to You with John MacArthur.

Thanks for being with us. John is chancellor of the Master's University and Seminary in Southern California, and he's currently looking at the topic of spiritual warfare. You know, John, there are people in the visible church who think that maybe they're sovereign over Satan. They bind him or pretend to control him or command him or whatever, and there are other people, and in fact, sometimes it's the same people, who at times act as if Satan himself is sovereign, that he can harass Christians at will, he can control us, he can cause us to sin, he can cause disasters in our life. Those are two very different perspectives, but with one basic question at heart, who is in control when it comes to Satan and the believer?

Well, I think from the believer's standpoint, the ultimate answer to that question is, greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. So we know that the Holy Spirit dwells in us, and he is greater than Satan. So the power of the Holy Spirit vanquishes Satan. When we walk in the Spirit and when we don't walk in the flesh, if we walk in the flesh, we give access to Satan. If we walk in the Spirit, the Spirit gives us the power to overcome all the efforts of Satan. To add one thought to that, I would just say it's foolish for someone to think that they can deal with Satan the way Jesus did by saying, Satan, go away.

I send you away. Devil, I chase you away. That kind of foolishness is even dealt with in the book of Acts, where the sons of Sceva were going around trying to cast out demons, and the demons said, Jesus we know and Paul we know, but who are you guys? I mean, Jesus had the power.

Paul had the apostolic power to do that, delegated to him by Jesus. But just a random person can't go around chasing demons away. It is still true that the believer's protection against any kind of demonic effort against the believer is to walk in the Spirit.

If you walk in the Spirit, you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh, which are the things that Satan wants to activate, what demons want to activate. We need to be able to stand firm, and we've been mentioning this, and I want to mention it again, the book titled Stand Firm. It's a new book, 150-page hardback book that will help you understand how to stand firm. Hold your ground against the culture around you and against the God of this world who functions by using the culture as a weapon against believers, how to stand against the impact that the devil wants to bring on you by using the culture to form temptations that take advantage of your weakness. So get a copy of the book Stand Firm, 150-pages hardback available from Grace To You, and like all of our resources for a while, a 25% discount.

Yes, friend, I encourage you to take advantage of that discount. Stand Firm will show you how to live a life of holiness, humility, and love in a world hostile to God and His Word. To order Stand Firm, contact us today. Call 800-55-GRACE or go to gty.org. During the sale, Stand Firm costs $7.50 and shipping is still free. This book has chapters on prayer, the preeminence of love, and biblical truths that will sustain you during trials. To pick up Stand Firm at 25% off the normal price, call 800-55-GRACE or go to our website, gty.org. And keep in mind that 25% discount applies to nearly all of our resources, including the MacArthur Study Bible and books like The Truth War, The Gospel According to Paul, 12 Unlikely Heroes, and the systematic theology called Biblical Doctrine. To take advantage of the sale and get your Christmas shopping done early, with free shipping, visit our website, gty.org, or call us at 800-55-GRACE. That's our toll-free number. One more time 800-55-GRACE and the website gty.org. Now for John MacArthur and the entire Grace To You staff, I'm your host, Phil Johnson. Thanks for tuning in today, and make sure you're here tomorrow when John continues his look at spiritual warfare with another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth, one verse at a time, on Grace To You.