Sermon for HCBC (9 August 2020). To listen use the audio player below or click here. Also available on your favorite podcast app (“Hunting Creek Baptist Church”).
Introduction
I want to begin a new short series on spiritual warfare. By spiritual warfare I mean the presence, activity, and plans of the devil and his demons. Now perhaps such a series isn’t fashionable, but I think it’s necessary, because we have been duped. American Christians, by and large, ignore spiritual realities. We desperately need to hear the words of Paul in Ephesians 6:12: “Our struggle is not against blood and flesh, but against rulers, against authorities, against cosmic powers of this darkness, against the spiritual beings of evil in the heavenly realms.”
Yet, American Christians have adopted a secular worldview where we talk exclusively about blood and flesh, about the physical world. I recently heard a quote that the only thing God and the devil have in common are they aren’t content to stay where you are. I think that’s incorrect. The devil is completely content to let us stay where we are—oblivious to his plans, attacks, and goals. This series intends to help us recover a Christian worldview, which means talking about the spiritual war that we are in.
Today, I want to introduce you to the devil’s defamation plan. The devil aims to rob God of his glory by telling lies. He wants us to doubt God’s commands, and he wants us to doubt God’s character. This is all part of the plan to slander and defame the living God. The devil aims to rob God of his glory by telling lies.
What’s in a Name?
Shakespeare famously asked, “What’s in a name?” The name devil literally means slanderer. Similarly, Satan may be a personal name, but its basic meaning is adversary or accuser. The devil slanders God’s name. I want to show this from Genesis 3. Before we go to the text, I do have to explain that the Christian view sees the devil as a creation. He is not an equal with God or an independent power from God.
Let’s look at Genesis 3 beginning with v. 1. “Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made.” The serpent is not identified as the devil in this passage. There are other places in the Bible that refer to the devil as the serpent.
Furthermore, this isn’t a fable about a snake. It’s clear that this is more than a snake. The Hebrew word for serpent in this case has several nuances. It can be a snake. It can also refer to a luminous or shining being. Also, it can refer to a diviner or soothsayer, someone who receives messages from the unseen world.[1] This is not an ordinary snake, which is clear when he starts talking. Look at the rest of the verse. “He said to the woman, ‘Did God actually say, “You shall not eat of any tree in the garden”?’”
Notice he casts doubt on what God has said. “Did God actually say?” How he refers to God is also significant. Everywhere else in the surrounding context, God is referred to as the LORD God or Yahweh God. Those references are relational because God is in covenant with Adam and Eve. So the serpent is even subversively casting a shadow on who God is by referring to him generically and not personally. Watch how he draws Eve into this same language.
Verses 2–3: “And the woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, “You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.”’” The serpent’s references and Eve’s references are the only times God is referred to without his name in the immediate context. It’s telling because the devil is introducing distance from God, which breeds distrust of God.
Look at v. 4: “But the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not surely die.’” Translation: God is a liar. Verse 5: “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Not only is God a liar, he is wicked. He is keeping something from you. He isn’t good. He’s trying to harm you.
Here’s the irony. They were already made in God’s image. But notice the devil’s lie. “You will be like God.” He’s calling into question what God had done in the past. So here’s what we learn about the devil. He questions God’s commands. Aren’t they just unfair restrictions? Aren’t they keeping you from the good life? And he questions God’s character. Is he really good? Is he honest? Is he faithful?
These are the basic lies we deal with every day. When you’re stressed or anxious or tired or scared, the lie may sound like this: Why pray? God isn’t going to come through. He won’t answer. He won’t do anything. Why trust God? He doesn’t really care. Who knows if he’s even there? And if he is, think about all the times he’s failed you before. The devil intends to make us doubt God’s goodness.
Jesus describes the devil’s character in John 8 in a conversation with the Pharisees. John 8:44: “You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” Notice what Jesus says about the devil. He is a murderer. We will talk more about that next week. Then Jesus says, “He does not stand in the truth.” Most modern translations mishandle the verb. It’s a past tense verb. The KJV is better with “[he] abode not in the truth.” At some point, the devil made a decision not to remain in the truth but to rebel. And Jesus says, “There is no truth in him.” His character is the opposite of truth. “When he lies, he speaks out of his own character.” Or, as the NIV has it, “he speaks his native language.” “He is a liar and the father of lies.” This is the devil’s character.
One more verse. Revelation 12:9: “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.” John describes the devil as “the deceiver of the whole world.” What do liars do? They deceive. What do deceivers do? They lie.
So here’s the takeaway: Satan’s primary tactic is lying and deception. Primarily, he is concerned with lying about God’s character. The devil aims to rob God of his glory by telling lies. Since that is the case, what we believe, what we put into our mind, matters.
Renewing the Mind
Think of Paul’s exhortation in Rom 12:2: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” Don’t be conformed to this world. Remember the devil is the deceiver of the whole world, so it follows that the patterns of the world are under the sway of the devil’s deception. Don’t be conformed to that. But be transformed. How? By the renewal of your mind.” What does it mean to have a renewed mind? It means to have a mind shaped by truth.
When Jesus describes the devil’s character in John 8, he has some interesting things to say about truth. Listen to what he says in John 8:31–32: “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Abiding in Jesus’s words is the way to freedom. It is the way to be freed from the deception.
Paul echoes the importance of truth when he describes the armor we take up against the devil in Eph 6:14. He says, “Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth.”
It is imperative that we value truth. The battle for your soul, for your heart, is a battle for truth. The devil sets out to lie to us, to tell us God is not good, that he’s not trustworthy, that he’s not safe. The devil deceives us into thinking what matters is just being a good person with a good job with a nice religion. Yes, you heard me correctly. I did not misspeak. The devil is perfectly content with good morals and religion as long as they blind us to the real God. He is perfectly content with church attendance as long as it turns us away from Christ. What he does not want is for us to see what Christ has accomplished on the cross. He does not want us to realize that we are made in God’s image and by trusting Christ and abiding in him and following him the image can be restored. Paul writes in 2 Cor 4:4 that the god of this world blinds the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. The last thing Satan wants is for us to see that in Christ, God has done for us what we could never do for ourselves.
The Overcomer
Adam and Eve failed against the devil’s lies in the garden. Later in the OT, Israel fails, believing the lie that God was not good in leading them out of Egypt. In the kingdom of Israel, the people failed because they believed other gods could save them. But there is one who goes into the wilderness who does not fail. The devil tells him that God won’t provide, God isn’t good, God will let you suffer. The devil encourages him to embrace the lies by turning stones to bread, by testing God, and by taking the easy route to a crown rather than embracing suffering. But unlike all the ones before him, Jesus, the second Adam, true Israel, does not believe the lies of the devil. He disarms the deceiver.
We cannot overcome the deceiver, but Jesus did. The point of Jesus’s temptation in the wilderness is not that we should quote more Scripture—though that is a good thing and part of believing truth. But to see our efforts as the point is precisely the opposite point. The whole point of the story is to say everyone else failed the test in the wilderness, but Jesus didn’t. And until we look to Jesus, we remained enslaved to sin, locked away in the kingdom of darkness, under the sway of the devil.
The devil aims to rob God of his glory by telling lies. He will tell you that God’s Word is a burden. He will tell you that God’s character is questionable. He will tell you that God does not love you, that you’ve done too much, that you’re too broken, that you really crossed the uncrossable line. He will tell you that you can never change. He will tell you there is no hope. But the most important response is to cling to Jesus. Here is the demonstration of God’s love for us. Not that we loved him but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins (1 Jn 4:10).
So ask yourself throughout the day: what am I believing? What am I believing about God? What am I believing about myself? Because here is the truth: God made him to be sin who knew no sin so that we might become the righteousness of God (2 Cor 5:21). Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ (Rom 5:1). The third verse of the hymn “Before the Throne of God Above” is a fitting conclusion:
When Satan tempts me to despair,
And tells me of the guilt within,
Upward I look, and see Him there
Who made an end of all my sin.[2]
For a discussion guide click here.
[1] Michael Heiser, The Unseen Realm, 87.
[2] Charitie Lees Bancroft (1863)