Knowing Your Enemy
Notes
Transcript
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Let’s Dive into today’s Message.
Last Week we studied Jesus’ Baptism
John was the only person to hear God say This is my Son in whom I am well pleased
But another entity Heard The Father’s Words.
That Someone has been waiting since the Garden
His Name is Lucifer
Satan first appears in the third chapter of the Bible, when he confronts Woman in the Garden and ultimately tempts her and Man into sin
Today I want us to take a look at our enemy. To know our enemy is the only true way to overcome his attacks.
So let’s first look at who he was.
12 “Son of man, raise a lamentation over the king of Tyre, and say to him, Thus says the Lord God: “You were the signet of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.
13 You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was your covering, sardius, topaz, and diamond, beryl, onyx, and jasper, sapphire, emerald, and carbuncle; and crafted in gold were your settings and your engravings. On the day that you were created they were prepared.
14 You were an anointed guardian cherub. I placed you; you were on the holy mountain of God; in the midst of the stones of fire you walked.
15 You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created, till unrighteousness was found in you.
16 In the abundance of your trade you were filled with violence in your midst, and you sinned; so I cast you as a profane thing from the mountain of God, and I destroyed you, O guardian cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.
17 Your heart was proud because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor. I cast you to the ground; I exposed you before kings, to feast their eyes on you.
18 By the multitude of your iniquities, in the unrighteousness of your trade you profaned your sanctuaries; so I brought fire out from your midst; it consumed you, and I turned you to ashes on the earth in the sight of all who saw you.
19 All who know you among the peoples are appalled at you; you have come to a dreadful end and shall be no more forever.”
This passage describes Satan, called the “King of Tyre,” falling from a place of honor to become who we know him to be today
Ezekiel says Satan was created full of wisdom and perfect in beauty
That means that no created thing possessed greater wisdom or was more beautiful than Satan
Furthermore, the Lord testifies in v.15 that Satan was blameless in his ways from the day of his creation
Secondly, in v.14, notice what job God assigned Satan as his service in Heaven
The text says Satan was the "covering cherub”
Cherubim are the highest order of heavenly beings, and Satan was the wisest and most beautiful of these angelic creatures
Scripture says Satan is one of these creatures
Moreover, Satan held the most coveted position in Creation, serving God as the covering cherub
That phrase may ring a bell for you, because it comes from the instructions given to Moses on how to build the tabernacle
Specifically, cherubim were part of the design of the Ark of the Covenant, which we hear about in Exodus
6 And he made a mercy seat of pure gold. Two cubits and a half was its length, and a cubit and a half its breadth.
7 And he made two cherubim of gold. He made them of hammered work on the two ends of the mercy seat,
8 one cherub on the one end, and one cherub on the other end. Of one piece with the mercy seat he made the cherubim on its two ends.
9 The cherubim spread out their wings above, overshadowing the mercy seat with their wings, with their faces one to another; toward the mercy seat were the faces of the cherubim.
We need to understand that everything in the earthly tabenacle represented the Heavenly tabernacle.
Ezekiel 28:16-18, the Lord describes the moment of Satan’s fall into sin
16 In the abundance of your trade you were filled with violence in your midst, and you sinned; so I cast you as a profane thing from the mountain of God, and I destroyed you, O guardian cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.
17 Your heart was proud because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor. I cast you to the ground; I exposed you before kings, to feast their eyes on you.
18 By the multitude of your iniquities, in the unrighteousness of your trade you profaned your sanctuaries; so I brought fire out from your midst; it consumed you, and I turned you to ashes on the earth in the sight of all who saw you.
Notice verse 19
19 All who know you among the peoples are appalled at you; you have come to a dreadful end and shall be no more forever.”
Judgement is coming for our enemy.
So there are a couple of things we need to understand.
Our enemy is here on Earth not the King of Hell.
Satan goes on the prowl over the whole earth like a lion, full of pride and violence, opposing God and God’s people.
He wants to take God’s Place in ever Facet of the universe.
This is where we pick up in Matthew
Satan has been waiting since the Garden for an opportunity to destroy the Son of God.
Now is his chance Because Jesus has come but not in all of God’s power. He is a mere Man.
For thirty years Jesus has lived without God’s power as mere man.
Nobody knew who he was except Mary and Joseph
That’s what we’re going to study in Chapter 4, the effort Satan made to compromise Jesus so that he could nullify Jesus’ mission
But now, you also know why it’s important to understand the nature of the incarnation, of God taking the form of man as Jesus did
If you enter into the story of Jesus’ temptations thinking that Jesus retained His omnipotent powers, then the temptations seem a bit silly
Like a child trying to sink a naval battleship by throwing pebbles at its side
It hardly seems like a fair fight, and we certainly don’t perceive Jesus as having been in jeopardy
For that matter, even Jesus’ long period of fasting might seem like much ado about nothing since God has infinite power
But that’s not how to approach Chapter 4 of Matthew
As I mentioned last week, in His identity Jesus was fully God, no less deity than He was while in Heaven
But as Paul taught us, Jesus emptied Himself, not counting His equality with God the Father something he had to keep
Instead, he voluntarily relinquished His form and position, the things that made Him equal with the Father
And instead, our God took the form of man, full man, sharing all the same physical, mental and emotional limitations we know
Including the ability to experience temptation
Remember, Scripture says this about God:
13 Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.
God in His heavenly form, His full and true form, cannot be tempted by evil
So had Satan come before Jesus in His full form as God, Jesus could never have been tempted
Hebrews tells us
17 Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.
18 For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.
Jesus was just like us so that he could truly save us
15 For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.
So if God in His eternal form cannot be tempted, yet Jesus in His human form was tempted, then clearly Jesus was not a Marvel Character, He was just man. His identity was God, but his form was man
He did not have superpowers, which is why the Holy Spirit came upon Him at His baptism.
Let’s look at Chapter 4.
1 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
2 And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry.
Soon after his Baptism the Holy Spirit leads Jesus into the wilderness.
This shows us that the Holy Spirit is Jesus’ guide from the Father. To show him the Will of the Father.
Ultimately The Holy Spirit is leading Jesus to a place where he can be tempted By Satan.
Satan tempted The First Adam
Satan gets the opportunity to Tempt the Second Adam.
But this time the temptation is different Because Adam wasn’t Hungry.
Jesus has been fasting food for 40 days.
The body has a fascinating response to long-term fasts of this type.
Evidently you stop hungering only to come back to hunger with an unbearable urge.
Next Week we are going to look at the Temptation of Jesus but today I want to end by helping us understand how Our Enemy Chooses to attack us.
I want us to understand something about Satan He uses the same tactics over and over again.
16 For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world.
Every temptation we can name fits into one of these three categories, and Jesus will be tempted by all three methods
1. Tempted to give in to His body’s demand for food
2. Tempted by a vision of what He could gain without the need to experience the suffering of the cross
3. Tempted by His pride to defend His honor and reputation as the Son of God