"Know Your Enemy" Ephesians 6:10-12
- This message was preached by Senior Pastor, Robert Dennison, on June 25, 2023.
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Audio Transcript
Thank you for all those songs on victory today. We appreciate that. If you’ll take your Bibles now and turn to Ephesians chapter 6, verses 10 through 12, we’re going to be starting a short series on spiritual warfare. And today the topic is know your enemy. Any country that’s going into battle needs to know who their enemy is.
Anyone going into the boxing ring benefits from knowing the who their opponent is. And so it is in spiritual warfare that we need to know who our enemy is. That enemy is Satan, and that is who we are going to be looking at today. I begin reading Ephesians 6:10. Finally, be strengthened by the Lord and by his vast strength.
Put on the full armor of God so that you can stand against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this darkness, against evil spiritual forces in the heavens. May we pray? Heavenly Father, as we look at your word today, we thank you that you assure us that we have victory over all the schemes and the desires of Satan. Help us to understand him better, Father, that we might resist him, but also to take comfort in knowing that ultimately you will have victory over him.
In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Finally, be strengthened by the Lord and by his vast strength. Put on the full armor of God so that you can stand against the schemes of the devil. As believers, we are at war with an opponent.
It’s very simple to come to know the Lord, to come to faith, but it’s not easy to follow him. The simplicity of coming to know Jesus Christ and Lord and Savior is that he said that to those who received him, to those that believed in his name, he gave the right to become sons of God. And so it was. We had a difficult problem in our life. We had sin in our life.
And sin cannot approach a holy God. So Jesus Christ came and died on the cross to pay the penalty for that sin. But praise the Lord, he not only died, but he was buried. And he rose the third day so that we might have eternal life. And scripture says it’s as simple as believing in our heart that he died on the cross for our sins.
He rose from the dead. But we also have to be willing at some point to confess with our mouth. And now he is my Lord and Savior. He is the Master. He is the one that is in charge of this whole army, this war that we are fighting today.
Coming to know Jesus Christ is simple, but we are at war in the Christian life. And whenever there’s war, there are injuries and there are casualties. We see this throughout Scripture, that it’s not an easy path to follow. The Lord, the Israelites were saved. They were redeemed from Egypt.
It’s a picture of our salvation. They went through the sea. It was a picture of their baptism. But when they went into holy land, everything wasn’t wonderful. For the rest of their life, they had to fight, they had to take over the land.
And there were casualties in that. Another picture also in the Book of Job. He was a great man and he was righteous, but he still had problems in his life, in his war against Satan. In the New Testament and to our day, many people have died. We call them martyrs because of their faith.
And even in other countries today, it’s a death sentence. If you make profession that Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior, or even less than that, you’re going to be cast into prison. So it’s simple to come to faith, but following the Lord is a difficult thing. But we find here in Ephesians 6 that we have a great source of strength to fight this battle that we are in. And that battle is, it tells us by the Lord, by his vast strength.
And the armor that we have to resist Satan and to fight against him is the armor of God. As we heard in the Scripture passage earlier, and I’ll mention it again, if we trust in horses, if we trust in chariots, in other words, if we trust in our own resources, we will not win this battle. We have to do it by the Lord, by his strength and with his armor. There’s a familiar verse in Zechariah 4. 6.
It says, this is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel. Not by strength or by might, but, but by my spirit, says the Lord of armies. Zerubbabel was the governor of Judah when the Jews were returning under Darius to the land. And God directed him to rebuild the temple. But it was going to be a daunting task because many in the land were against him.
They were trying to discredit him, as they were in the building of the wall and the rebuilding of the city. But he was given this promise by Zechariah. It’s not by your strength, it’s not by your might, it’s not by your resources, but by my spirit, meaning God himself was going to be the strength and what was necessary, says the Lord of armies. We go Back to Psalm 20 again. We’ll read the verses that you heard earlier.
Now I know that the Lord gives victory. It’s not us he gives victory to His Anointed. He will answer him from his holy Heaven with mighty victories from his right hand. Some meaning others take pride in their chariots. Others take pride in their horses.
But the believer is to take pride in the name of the Lord our God. They will collapse and fall, but we rise and stand firm. This is especially true in spiritual warfare. We can’t even see our opponent, much less use our strength or our resources that we have. It has to be a spiritual battle that God is warning us about here.
So today, in line of spiritual battle, I want us to look at three things about knowing your enemy. Know your enemy. If I’m going to war with somebody, if I’m going to have a fight with someone, I want to know what their strengths are and their weaknesses. And that’s what we want to find out today. What was Satan’s origin?
What is his desire? And what are the tactics that he uses in regard to his origins? Let’s go to Colossians, chapter one, verses 15 through 16. And what we find here is that sat Satan was a created being. He was created by Jesus Christ.
He is not eternal. It tells us here, speaking of Jesus, he is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For everything was created by him in heaven and on earth. The visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authors, authorities, all things have been created through him. And for him.
We have the creation in Genesis, where everything visible we find out, was created by Jesus Christ. But here we learn that not only were things created in heaven, on earth, but things were created in heaven. The angels there, the things that were visible on earth were created. But even the things that we can’t see, the invisible, the angels, were created by Jesus Christ. All things have been created through him and for him.
There are some other religions out there that say Jesus and Satan are brothers. That is not true. Satan came after Jesus Christ and was created by him. First thing, Satan was created by Jesus Christ. The second thing I want us to see in Genesis 1:31 is that Satan was created good.
God did not make him an evil being. Because we read here about all that God made. God saw all that he had made in heaven and on earth, and it was very good indeed. God is very clear here. He did not insert evil into the world.
He did not make any of his creatures to be evil. He created them all to be good, but he gave them a choice that they could choose to serve and worship him or not. We find In Isaiah, chapter 14, verses 12 through 14, a prophecy about the king of Babylon. But we also believe that this is a description of what happened to Satan in his turning away from God and turning to evil. And it’s not unusual for Hebrew prophecy to have a.
A dual meaning. And so there could be this meaning about the king of Babylon, but also of Satan. And this is what we read. Satan is described here as Lucifer, the shining morning star. He was bright, he was beautiful.
That’s how God made him. But God said, how? You have fallen from the heavens, you destroyer of nations. You have been cut down to the ground. And this is the reason you said to yourself, I will ascend to the heavens.
I will set up my throne above the stars of God. I will sit on the mount of God’s assembly in the remotest parts of the north. I will ascend above the highest clouds. And lastly I will make myself like the most high. You see it there in the repetition.
What are the two words? I will. It wasn’t about God’s will. It was what Satan wanted that was so wrong. And here we find that he was prideful and covetous.
I will. Thinking that he could come up against God was a very prideful stance for him to take. But he was also very covetous of what God had. There’s a familiar verse in Proverbs 16:18. It says, Pride comes before what?
A downfall and an arrogant spirit also before fall. The same tendency we have to be prideful and covetous creates a downfall in us because it goes back to the origination of sin in the heart of Satan. The origin. The next thing I want us to see is that Satan then led some angels in a rebellion against go God. You want to know where demons come from?
They were originally angels like Satan, but he led them astray. We’re going to talk later on about how deceptive he is. And it’s just amazing. The angels that were in God’s presence, that saw him, that saw him create the world, that even Satan is so powerful in his deception he was able to fool some of them. This is what we read in Revelation 12.
Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon and his angels also fought, but he could not prevail. And there was no place for them in heaven any longer. So the great dragon was thrown out, the ancient serpent who is called the devil, and Satan, the one who deceives the whole world, he was thrown to earth and his angels with him.
Satan was created by Jesus Christ. Satan was created good. Satan was prideful and covetous and now we find that he was able to lead some angels in a rebellion against God. Therefore, because of all this, we know that our enemy is who? Satan.
If you’re having a struggle with another believer, the real enemy is Satan. If there’s a problem in your family, the real enemy is Satan. He is pitting us against one another. And so it is with countries throughout the world. Satan is the one behind all evil, behind all destruction.
We find him introduced in Genesis chapter three, verse one, where we find him as the enemy when he comes. And it tells us that now, the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the Lord God had made. And he came there to Eve and he deceived her into eating of the fruit. And so she fell into sin. And Adam, knowing what he was doing, also followed in her footsteps.
And from that point on, in Genesis 3:15, we learn that Satan is going to be the continual enemy. God speaks to the serpent. He speaks to Satan and says, I will put hostility between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head and you will strike his heel. Now, most women don’t like snakes.
That’s part of this here. But the spiritual thing is that there is going to be this ongoing battle between the enemy and that ancient serpent, the dragon, Satan, and the offspring of the woman. And what we find here is that that struggle is mainly not with all of her offspring, but it’s a singular pronoun because it says that he, not they, will strike your head. In other words, God is promising to them the Savior here, that one day there will be one offspring of the woman, the he in this verse, the that is going to strike the head of the serpent to kill him. And in the process, the serpent is going to strike not all of them, but his heel.
So it was when Jesus Christ died on the cross. Yes, he was bruised, he was beaten, he was killed. Satan had a very small victory in just injuring him. But ultimately Satan will be destroyed. Praise the Lord for the rain.
We see here that Satan is the enemy. And he shows up so early in the whole drama of Scripture. Then we learn that he was going to be the continual enemy of the woman until her seed crushes his head. So we go on now from the origin to looking at what is his desire? What is Satan’s desire?
The first desire is to blind the minds of the lost. We Read this in 2 Corinthians 4. 4. The God of this age has blinded 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. Satan is doing everything that he can to keep people from coming to Jesus Christ.
He wants to blind their minds, he wants to darken their vision. He wants to keep them from hearing the gospel. Jesus spoke about this in the parable of the sower in Matthew chapter 13. And in the explanation of that, he describes what Satan is doing in verses 18 through 19. Listen to the parable of the sower.
Jesus said, when anyone hears the word about the kingdom and doesn’t understand it, they hear the gospel. They hear the word, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. And the picture was that there were birds. They were just hovering over. And as soon as the seed of the gospel was shed, they dove down to take it out of their hearts.
This is the one sown along the path, Jesus said, and this is the one. And it shows how Satan is trying to blind them by taking away the gospel. But Satan also has another desire, and that desire is to devour believers first. Peter 5:8 says, Be sober minded. Be alert.
Your adversary, the devil is prowling around like a roaring lion, looking for anyone he can devour. Satan is a roaring lion. He doesn’t want to just hurt believers. What does it say? He wants to devour them.
And we’re supposed to be sober minded. We’re supposed to be alert. Help me out here up at Baraboo. Do they still have any lions up there in the circus? You don’t think so?
Okay, well, then we have to imagine there’s a wild cat that’s going around Lake Wisconsin, a cougar or whatever it is y’ all have in this area. And you’ve heard on the news that 2012 people have been killed by this cougar while they were jogging and fishing and watering their flowers in their garden. Okay, so you’ve got the warning, 12 people are dead. You’re going to be what? You’re going to be alert.
And God is telling us, don’t underestimate Satan because he’s doing the same thing. Be sober minded. Be alert. He is looking for ways to devour you. That’s his desire.
We looked at his origin, we looked at his two desires. Let’s look at some of the tactics that Satan used. What are some of the weapons that he has in his war chest? The first thing is that he has murder there and he has lies. Let’s look at John 8:44.
You are of your father, the devil, and you want to Carry out your father father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning. We have to go back to the story of Cain and Abel. He was the one that put into Cain’s heart that he should kill his brother Abel. He was a murderer from the beginning and he does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him.
Even when Satan quotes scripture, there’s some twist to it that there is no truth in it. I’ve known some people and it just seems like everything they say has a little twist to it. They can’t ever tell the truth. I confronted one person about this one time. He said that’s the way his family was.
Nobody ever completely told the truth. They just grew up in that situation. So it is with Satan, whatever he says, you can expect there to be a lie in it. When he tells a lie, he is speaking from his own nature because he is a liar and the father of lies, murder, physical harm that can lead to death. Even Satan is capable of that.
We see it with the case of Job that his children were allowed to be killed by Satan. We find it with the demon in the New Testament who was continually trying to throw the little boy into the fire that his parents had to watch him. Satan is capable of doing awful things, but he’s also a great liar. He does it through philosophies, false religions, false teachers, false messiahs. He does that to those that are lost.
But he also lies to us as believers. He lies to us about our position in Christ. He causes us to doubt, to doubt our salvation, to doubt the goodness of God. He causes us to feel guilty about our sins that have already been forgiven in the past. He instills fear in us and he causes confusion and dissension.
He brings all this about by telling lies to us that we hear. His tactics include murder. They include lies, but they also include deception. Revelation 12, 9 says, the ancient serpent who is called the devil and Satan, the one who deceives the whole world. Remember I mentioned about he was able to deceive the angels in heaven who stood in the very presence of God.
But here in the end times, it says that he’s going to be able to deceive the entire world. There have been many evil world leaders and there have been many God good world leaders, but none of them have been able to do this where the whole world will come other under them and believe what they say. In this we know that he can appear as an angel of light. He can be beautiful and stunning, but eventually he’s going to deceive the whole world. Another tactic that he has is discrediting God.
Discrediting God. We go back to Genesis chapter three when he was talking to Eve and in this discussion he has three different ways that he’s trying to discredit God. First he said to the woman, did God really say you can’t eat from any tree in the garden here? He’s lying because God has said only do not eat from the one tree in the middle of garden, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. I think what Satan was saying here, he was saying, you know, you should really doubt what God is saying.
Sometimes he’s hard to understand. Sometimes it’s not really clear what he means. But we know that God is the truth. God is truthful. There should be no doubt in our mind that what he says is accurate.
But Satan also might say, well, you know, it’s says in the Bible that you shouldn’t do a certain sin, but maybe you don’t understand it the way God really meant because God is hard to understand. People will say that about reading the Bible, especially reading the letters of Paul. Well, he writes such difficult long sentences. It’s very hard to understand that that is only Satan speaking a lie to you because you can’t understand it’s exactly word for word what, what God wanted you to hear. Then Satan says, no, you will certainly not die.
It’s an outright lie because God had told them that they would. What he’s saying here is you should distrust God because not only is he difficult to understand, but God is just not truthful. God is the liar in this situation. And it’s interesting as a pastor so much. I’ve had people come in and say, well, this person is doing this and this person’s doing that.
And I’m sitting there thinking the whole time you’re just as guilty as they are because that’s what you do. We tend to point out problems in other people and their sins and their wrongs that are the things that we’re doing ourself. It goes back to what Satan was doing. He was the liar here, but he was accusing the one that is ultimately truthful about everything as being the liar. Then in verse 5 he said, in fact, God knows that when you eat it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God.
Who was it that wanted to be like God? Before this it was Satan and now he’s tempting Eve. You can be like God. You’ll know good from evil. What Satan was saying is, you know, don’t leave your decisions up to God.
You can make your own decisions. And actually he’s saying here, God is not good because God is withholding something from you that you’re going to enjoy. God is withholding something from you that is going to make you have as much knowledge as he does. And so it is with all sin in the world. Satan promises us that, you know, God says it’s wrong, but he’s withholding it from you because you’re going to enjoy that sin.
And you may enjoy it for a while, but it’s going to leave bitterness in your mouth. You should doubt God. He’s difficult to understand. You should distrust God. He’s not truthful and God isn’t really good.
He doesn’t have your best interest in mind. He’s only thinking for himself. All of these were ways that Satan was trying to lead Eve astray. I want to add through all this that you know, Satan, he couldn’t read Eve’s mind. He can’t read our mind, but he does watch us.
He saw what Eve was looking at. What was she looking at? She was looking at the tree that she wasn’t supposed to have anything to do with it. And Satan noticed that. And when he saw her looking at it, it gave him a chance to move in.
He also watches our hands, what we do with our hands. Do we reach for things that we shouldn’t reach for? He watches our feet. He sees where we go. Do we go to places that could lead us into temptation?
And he listens to our words. He can’t read our mind, but he’s very adept at watching us and having his demons to watch us, to know what is likely to tempt us. And those are the things that that he will use against us. And so it was here with Eve, what she was looking at, that was sin for her to partake of, was his opportunity to step in. She should have stayed completely away from what that tree and never gone near it.
Job, chapter 16 12. We come to some comforting truths when we think about our enemy. The first truth is that we have victory in God. And the second one is that Satan has limited power. We have victory in God.
Satan has limited power. We go back to the story of job, job 16 12, where we read, one day the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord. These were all the angels, but Satan also came with them into the presence of God. Verse 7. The Lord asked Satan, where have you come from?
Satan answered, from roaming through the earth and walking around on it. Then the Lord said to Satan, have you considered my servant Job? No one else on earth is like him. A man of perfect integrity who fears God and turns away from evil. Satan answered back to the Lord.
Does Job fear God for nothing? Haven’t you placed a hedge around him, his household and everything he owns? You have blessed the work of his hands and his possessions have increased in the land. But stretch out your hand and strike everything he owns and he will surely curse you to your face. In other words, God is saying that Job is a perfect man, perfect integrity, because God knows what his heart is.
But Satan is looking at him externally saying, well, the only reason why Job is acting that way is because you’ve given him everything. And he said, if you take all the blessings away that you’ve given him, then Job will curse your face. Now, God knew that was not going to happen. But God wanted to make a point or an object lesson here. And he says in verse 12, very well, the Lord told Satan everything he owns is in your power.
However, do not lay a hand on Job himself. Job suffered terribly. He lost all of his kids, he lost all of his wealth, he lost all of his friends, basically. And even his wife was telling him to curse the Lord. But he still, still hung on to his faith.
And God knew that that was going to be the turnout for this. He knew that Satan would not have the victory, but the power that Satan did have. In this case, God allowed it for Satan to do that. We believe that Job’s children, they immediately went to be with the presence of the Lord. So it wasn’t so awful for them to die in the long run, but it also shows us in our war against Satan once again.
There are casualties, there are injuries, but ultimately we will have victory in God. We also find comfort in the truth that Satan has an ultimate destiny that is determined. Satan’s ultimate destiny is determined and it comes in two steps when we go to the end of the Bible in Revelation 20. Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven holding the key to the abyss and a great chain in his hand. He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent who is the devil, and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years.
He threw him into the abyss, closed it and put a seal on it so that he would no longer deceive the nations until the thousand years were completed. Because after that he must be released for a short time. So the first step in his demise, we find here, after Jesus Christ returns at the second coming, that he is going to take charge. He’s going to destroy the evil that is in the world. And Satan is going to be cast into hell.
But it’s only for a thousand year period. And that’s where we learn of the thousand year reign of Christ. There’s going to be a reign of righteousness that he will have true judgment. There won’t be any lack of food, there won’t be any lack of wisdom. There won’t be any war.
Everything will be perfect. But because of man’s sinfulness, people that are born during that time once again are going to turn from following their Lord and King, Jesus Christ. And Satan is going to find in them some that will turn against the Lord. We go on to read in verse seven, when the thousand years are completed, Satan will be released from his prison and will go out to deceive the nations at the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle. Their number is like the sand of the sea.
They came up across the breadth of the earth and surrounded the encampment of the saints, the beloved city. Then fire came down from heaven and consumed them. The devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet are. And they will be tormented day and night forever and ever. Satan’s ultimate destiny is determined at the end of the thousand years.
He will be cast into hell forever and forever. Never again to give trouble to mankind. That is a comforting truth to us. There are some mistakes to avoid in regard to Satan that I want to close with today. And there are four of them.
Mistakes to avoid regarding Satan. The first one is being fearful of him. There’s no need to be afraid of Satan. We have God on our side. We have God’s power and strength.
If we didn’t have that, we would have a right to be fearful of him. But because God has provided us with what we need, we should not be fearful of Satan. But the second mistake to avoid is discrediting his power on the other side. People, they’re not fearful of him, but they also don’t respect his power. He’s an enemy out there that could attack at any time.
And for us to just think, oh, don’t have to worry about him, to discredit his power, to think that oh, he can’t do anything to me is not true, because he can, but he’s ultimately not going to win. But we should not discredit his power. The third way is to just make light of him, to laugh about him, to draw silly pictures of him. Halloween has done this for many. Oh Satan, there’s nothing there.
It’s just something to laugh about. And even Satanist will say well Satan doesn’t really exist. It’s just the idea of him that we are worshiping. We shouldn’t make light of Satan. And the third thing is fourth thing is some people just outright deny his existence.
There is no Satan. I don’t have to worry about him. He can’t do anything to harm me. That’s also a wrong mistake to have. It would be like America not recognizing that we have enemies out outside of our country that are trying continually to make us fall.
We don’t have to be fearful of Satan, but we do need to respect him. We don’t want to discredit his power. We have to realize how ominous he is. We shouldn’t make fun of him and we definitely should not deny his existence because it’s important that we understand who our enemy is in order to fight the spiritual battle that is ahead of us. Would you bow with me in prayer?
Heavenly Father, we don’t like the fact that we have an enemy that’s against us. But we do thank you that we know his ultimate destiny. As we continue in this chapter of your word Father, we’re going to learn how you have equipped us so that we might stand against him in every way. That we might live righteously for you and bring glory to you through our victory that comes through you. In Jesus name we pray.
Amen.