From His Heart

Larry Nobles: Today on From His Heart, with Pastor Jeff Schreve, we will rip the mask off the devil's schemes.

Dr. Jeff Schreve: Listen, the devil wants to keep you from all that God wants to do in your life. He wants you to believe lies. He's the liar and the father of lies. He opposes all the truths of God. He opposes the gospel and the work of Christ, the person of Christ, how you come to know Christ. He opposes all that. The devil wants to pervert the simplicity of the gospel. He makes crooked the straight paths of the Lord.

Larry Nobles: The way the devil does his work is chiefly through deception. He's a liar, and as Pastor Jeff has said, he never comes on the scene unless he's wearing a disguise. So, in today's message, we want to unmask the devil, to put away the sheet, so to speak, to the enemy of our souls and be able to recognize when he's at work. This is From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Schreve. Thank you for joining us today for part two of this critically important lesson about how to reveal the methods of the devil's schemes. It's from Pastor Jeff's new six-lesson series, This Is War, overcoming the world, the flesh, and the devil.

This series is also our gift of thanks to you for your support this month of any amount. I'll tell you more later. Now, though, open your Bible to the book of Acts and turn to chapter 13. Here again is Pastor Jeff with the message, The Devil Unmasked.

Dr. Jeff Schreve: Now, I want you to notice with me three insights that will help us to understand how the devil works and how he works through his false teachers. Insight number one, the devil will appear to be a trustworthy voice. In the first missionary journey, the Holy Spirit called out Barnabas and Saul, and they go through the island of Cyprus to Paphos, and that's where they have this encounter with a man named Sergius Paulus. And he's got this guy that's an advisor to him named Bar-Jesus. He's a false prophet, a Jewish false prophet. But here's the point.

That guy that is going to be opposing Paul and Barnabas, he's not a dummy. He's an educated guy. And so, the devil works through trustworthy voices, somebody who is intelligent, and he likes to have the educated and the intelligent as his spokespeople. And they'll claim to be spokesmen for salvation. See, Bar-Jesus, as I said, Bar means son, Jesus means Jehovah saves, Yahweh is salvation. His name was the son of salvation. And supposedly, he can tell you about salvation. But he's a liar. He's a false prophet. He presents himself as a servant of righteousness, but he's a servant of the devil.

That's why it's so incumbent upon Christians. Solid food, Hebrews 5:14 says, solid food is for the mature who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil. It's frightening and sad that so many true Christians can be so easily led astray by a false teacher because they don't know the Bible. So, that's the first insight. The devil will appear to be a trustworthy voice. Second insight, the devil will oppose the truth of the gospel. So, Sergius Paulus hears about Barnabas and Saul, and he he summons them. He wants to hear the word of God.

But Elymas, the magician, for so his name is translated, he was opposing them. That means to stand against them. He he's trying to plot. He's endeavoring to turn them away, to distort, corrupt, and pervert the message that Paul and Barnabas are giving. The devil will always oppose the truth of the gospel because the Jesus said, you shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free. So, he doesn't want you to be set free. He wants to pump you with lies and get you to believe the lies. And so, when we think about his opposition, the four main areas in the gospel that he is going to oppose.

Number one, he will oppose the person of Jesus Christ, the person of Jesus Christ. Now, we know from scripture that Jesus is both God and man. He's the only begotten son of God. Now, he is not a man who's pretending to be God or a man who's like kind of subpar, kind of demi-god. He's not all man and some God. He's not all God and some man. He is very God of very God, very man of very man. He's 100% human and he's 100% divine. You say, how do you have that? That's 200% that you have that in the Lord Jesus Christ.

He is the God man. And it's very important that you understand that because every false religion, every cult will deny the person of Jesus Christ. They're going to either attack his deity or they're going to attack his humanity. And so, the opposition comes from the enemy. He's going to attack the person of Christ. Secondly, he is going to oppose and attack the work of Christ. Well, what's the work of Christ? It's what he did on the cross. It's the reason that he came. And the attack and the opposition comes against the work of Jesus Christ, saying that it 's not sufficient.

It's not sufficient unless you add your works to it. The world's most believed lie is that you're saved by your works. He piles all your good works on one side, all your bad works on the other side, and then you wait to see, what is it going to be? Do my good works outweigh my bad works or do my bad works outweigh my good works? And how do I get to heaven? If my good works outweigh my bad works, then I get to heaven. But if my bad works outweigh my good works, then I don't make it.

Let me tell you, if God had a scale like that and that's how you got to heaven, nobody would go to heaven. All of us would go to hell. There's none righteous, not even one. So, it's not about works, and the Bible makes it clear. For by grace you've been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not as a result of works, lest any man should boast. And that's kind of like you have an apple tree and you plant an apple tree. And how do you know it's an apple tree?

You get apples. That's how you know it's an apple tree. What if you just have a tree and you go to the store and buy apples and tape them on there? There's my apple tree. That's not an apple tree. You've just taped apples on there. There's a big difference between an apple tree and a tree that you tape fruit onto. That's what a lot of people have because they don't understand. They bought into the devil's lie concerning the work of Christ. Thirdly, he opposes the messengers of Christ. So, he's opposing verse eight. Elymas the magician was opposing them.

Who are the them? Barnabas and Saul. He's opposing the messengers, those who come with the message. He He comes against them. He tries to discredit them. He tries to make them look foolish. Did you know, you know, the apostle Paul his whole life and ministry, he had people dogging his steps, the Judaizers who had a perverted gospel. They would come after him. Every time he was in a city, they'd come after him to try and lead people astray. He dealt with false teachers and false prophets all the time in his ministry. But see, if you're Elymas the magician, you don't want to see the truth told.

You don't want to see people come out of the darkness to the to the light. You definitely don't want to see your boss Sergius Paulus come to Christ. So, he opposes the work of Christ, the person of Christ, the messengers of Christ. And then he'll oppose the urgency of Christ, the urgency of the message. What's the urgency? When you hear the truth, you need to respond to the truth. It's not something you can say, yeah, that's kind of nice. I'll think about that later. And you know, maybe next week, maybe next month. I got a lot going on right now.

Maybe talk to me about Jesus in in another couple of years. You know, I'm I 'm single right now and I want to sow my wild oats, and then after I sow my wild oats and and find a spouse, and then I then I'll kind of settle down, and then I'll hear about Jesus. Well, listen, you don't have the promise of tomorrow. All you have is today. That 's why the Bible says today if you hear his voice, harden not your heart. Second Corinthians chapter six says, now is the acceptable time. Now is the time of salvation.

Who knows what's going to happen tomorrow? All you have is right now. If you hear the Lord's voice, don't harden your heart against it. Yield yourself to it. You know, I had mentioned blind Bartimaeus, one of my favorite men in scripture. He was a beggar on right in front of the gate of Jericho. And when he was begging one day, he heard a big commotion. And he he began to ask people. He's blind. He doesn't know what's going on. He began to ask people, what I hear all these people, what is going on? What is taking place?

And they said these words to him, Jesus of Nazareth is passing by. Now, I believe that Jesus of Nazareth passes by every life. Don't miss him. Blind Bartimaeus didn't miss him. He cried out, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. And he cried out louder and louder and louder until finally they had to tell him to shut up. He wouldn't shut up, and finally Jesus stopped. And he stopped for a poor blind beggar. And he brought Bartimaeus to himself and said, what do you want me to do for you? And he said, Lord, I want to regain my sight.

And not only did Jesus Jesus heal him physically, but he healed him and cleansed him spiritually, and he was saved. You know what's so interesting about blind Bartimaeus? When they said Jesus Christ is passing by, if he had waited, if he had said, well, I'll wait and catch him on the flippity-flip to quote Michael Scott of the office. I'll I'll just wait till he comes back around. Jesus never went to Jericho again. Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. He was on his way to the cross. This was the opportunity for him, and he took advantage of it.

Oh, the devil will oppose the urgency of the hour. Do it later. Do it tomorrow, next month, next week, next year, five years from now. No, all you have is today. Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow may not come. You have to respond today. So, he opposed through this man Elymas. He opposed Saul and Barnabas. And then insight number three, the devil will be exposed by the Lord. So, as he's opposing Barnabas and Saul, if you read in scripture up to this point, it's Barnabas and Saul. Barnabas is kind of the the lead guy. Saul is the second in command, he's second chair.

All of a sudden, Saul, who is now called Paul, he takes over. And from that moment on, it's always Paul and Barnabas and then Paul and Silas. And so, this is a huge breakout moment for the apostle Paul. But Saul, verse nine, who was also known as Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit. Everything he says is coming directly from God because he is filled with the Holy Spirit. Fixed his gaze on this man Elymas and said, you who are full of all deceit and fraud, you, son of the devil, you, enemy of all righteousness, will you not cease to make crooked the straight ways of the Lord?

Now, we hear a lot today about people saying, you know, you Christians, you need to be very nuanced in your approach. And when you talk to people that aren't Christians, you just need to be very soft and and just easy going and just kind of ease into it. And well, now, you know, we might disagree on this. Let's find some common ground. Paul wasn't looking for common ground with Elymas, the false Jewish prophet. He just calls him out. He's filled with the Holy Spirit, and he calls him out. And he tells this guy, you're full of deceit and fraud, full of deceit and fraud.

That means replete. You're You're to the brim. Think of Elymas as a as a cup, some kind of container. It's all the way to the top. What's it filled with? Deceit and fraud. Cuz the devil is a liar and the father of lies. And whenever he speaks, Jesus said, he speaks a lie. He speaks from his own nature. And you can't trust anything he says. Elymas was the same way. You couldn't trust anything he said because he was full of deceit and fraud. Deceit means craft, guile, subtlety. The root for the word deceit is in James chapter one where it says, but each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust.

The word for enticed is a term that means to bait a hook. He's full of deceit. He's like the fisherman that baits a hook. He's going to try and deceive you. He 's going to try and throw that out there and you think it's food, but it's not food. It It might have some food in it or it might be artificial bait, but what it definitely has in it is a hook. And so, he's going to try and trap you and deceive you into thinking something is good when it's not good at all. He's full of deceit and fraud.

Fraud is recklessness. It's cunning. It It's ease. It That word means ease in doing something. And it's very easy for the devil's false teachers to operate in this manner, full of deceit and fraud. You son of the devil, interesting, because his name Bar-Jesus means son of salvation, son of the Lord is salvation. But Paul flips it and says, no, no, no, you're not a son of Jesus. You're a son of Diabolos. You're a son of the devil who's a false accuser, who's a liar and a false accuser. Secondly, he's the enemy of all righteousness. And he tells him that to his face, you who are full of all deceit and fraud, you son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness.

Can you imagine if that's your moniker? Hey, what what do you do? Well, I'm the enemy of all righteousness. That's pretty terrible. He would never tell anybody that he was the enemy of all righteousness. Why? Cuz his mask says I'm an angel of light, and my servants are servants of righteousness. But he's not a servant of righteousness. He's an enemy of all righteousness. And he's an enemy of people hearing how to get right with God. And it says in Romans, even so they did not fit to retain God in their knowledge. They don't want to acknowledge God at all.

God gave them over to a reprobate mind, being filled with all unrighteousness. And then it goes on to a long list of sins. But they they reject God, so God says, okay, I'll give you over to a reprobate mind. You have a mind that doesn't function anymore, a mind that that no longer can operate in the realm of sanity anymore. And you're filled up with all unrighteousness. That's what this guy was, the enemy of all righteousness. And then this one that is most poignant. He never ceases to pervert the gospel. Never ceases to pervert the gospel.

Will you not cease to make crooked the straight ways of the Lord? The devil never ceases to make crooked the straight ways the Lord the Lord. He never ceases to corrupt and pervert the good news of Jesus Christ, the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And one of the ways the devil works to make crooked the straight paths of the Lord, he makes the gospel complicated. He tries to make it very complicated. You study world religions, you study cults. I'm not saying you should, but if you do, you'll find out that it's a complicated system.

Why? Because the devil constantly wants to make crooked the straight paths of the Lord. You read the Bible. What does the Bible say? How does a person get saved? When the Philippian jailer said to Paul and Silas, sirs, what must I do to be saved? He didn't give him a long list of things to do. He said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll be saved. The gospel is simple, and the Lord made it that way on purpose so a young child could understand it. A young child could understand what it means to be a sinner and separated from God.

A young child could understand that Jesus died on the cross for my sins and rose again from the dead on the third day. And if I put my faith and trust in Jesus, he'll save me. I still remember Adrian Rogers when he talked about the first person he ever led to faith in Christ. He's a 17-year-old high school student. He said that he's in Palm Beach, Florida. He said that it was on a Saturday. I'm wearing cut-off shorts, no shirt, no shoes. I'm going to get some bicycle parts at the bike shop. And he said, I run across this guy.

He's a a homeless guy. And he he asked me if I wanted to buy. He opened up his his jacket. He had a bunch of trinkets and stuff. He said, kid, you want to buy some of this stuff? And he said, no, I I don't want to buy any of that stuff. And the Lord spoke to Adrian's heart and said, Adrian, you go talk to that guy about his soul. He said, Lord, I don't want to talk to that guy about his soul. I mean, he's a man. I'm a kid. I don't have a shirt on.

I don't have shoes on. I 'm not ready for that. I've never talked to anybody about their soul. So, talk to him about his soul. You promised me in that service just just a month ago that you were going to tell somebody about me. And so, Adrian said, I knew that if I didn't tell him, I was going to die. I knew if I did tell him I was going to die. I mean, I was just so filled with with fear one way or the other. So, he He just asked the guy. He said He said, sir, he said, can I ask you a question?

Have you ever been saved? The guy said, no. He said, well, if I had a Bible, I'd show you a Bible verse. And the guy just pulled out a Bible out of his pocket. He goes, I got one. He said, all right. And he found John 3:16. It was only verse he knew. And he says, John 3:16 says, for God so loved the world, that's you and that's me, that he gave his only begotten son. And Jesus died on the cross for you. And if if you'll give your life to him, whosoever believed in him should not perish but have everlasting life.

And he said, sir, if you'll believe in in that verse and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, you'll be saved. And he said the man started to cry. And Adrian was able to lead him to faith in Christ. And he said, Adrian didn't know anything more to tell him. He didn't know anything about follow-up or discipleship. He's like, okay, see you. You know, I mean, he's ready to leave. And then the guy said to him, young man, he said, come back here. He said, I want you to know I've been almost through every state in the 50 states.

And you're the only person who's ever talked to me about my soul. Thank you, young man. How cool is that? Well, listen, the the devil wants to pervert the simplicity of the gospel. He makes crooked the straight paths of the Lord. And so, after Paul hit him between the eyes, it says verse 11, now behold the hand of the Lord is upon you, and you will be blind and not see the sun for a time. It's mercy in judgment because it's not blindness for the rest of his life. It's blindness for a time. And he went about seeking those who would lead him by the hand.

We don't know what happened to that guy. Maybe he came to Christ. I don't know. Bible doesn't say, but it does say about Sergius Paulus, verse 12. Then the proconsul believed when he saw what had happened, being amazed at the teaching of the Lord. Now, he just saw a miracle before his eyes, this guy, his advisor, his learned man, the Elymas, the wise seer. He just saw him boom, get called out and struck with blindness. That would surely get your attention. But what amazed him was not the miracle. What amazed him was the word of God.

That's what amazed him. That's what he got saved. Hey, miracles are great, but miracles don't save anybody. Miracles don't save you. What saves you is putting your faith and trust in Jesus Christ. And that's what Sergius Paulus did because of the word of God. Paul said in Romans 1:16, for I'm not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

Larry Nobles: God's word is clear about how to come to him. The Bible says, repent then and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out. The times of refreshing may come from the Lord. This verse reminds us that repentance is necessary to receive forgiveness and experience spiritual renewal. Now, in faith, ask him to come in and to save you and to be the Lord of your life. If you're new to the idea of Christianity, then this can be confusing, but we invite you to go to FromHisHeart.org and find the simple answers when you click the why Jesus link.

We want to rejoice in your decision too and encourage you to make it public. God bless you as you begin your new life in Christ. If you feel like you're under attack, spiritually, emotionally, or in your family, you're not alone. We're all in this war. We're in a real war against real enemies. But praise God, we don't have to fight on our own strength. Pastor Jeff Schreve's brand new series called This Is War, Overcoming the World, the Flesh, and the Devil, will help you to understand the battle, stand firm in the truth, and walk in the victory that Jesus has already won.

This series is also our thank you gift for your support from From His Heart this month of any amount. To get the series in the format of your choice, simply call 866-40 Bible, 866-40 Bible, or go to FromHisHeart.org request This Is War. And remember, you're not just in the battle. You have Jesus with you, and you're equipped to win. Thank you for being here today on From His Heart. I'm Larry Nobles inviting you to be right back here tomorrow for the beginning of the last message in this This Is War series. It's called A Fight to the Finish.

That's on Friday when Pastor Jeff Schreve will open up God's word and share real truth, real love, and real hope from God's heart. Here on From His Heart.

Dr. Jeff Schreve: From His Heart is the listener-supported broadcast ministry of Dr. Jeff Schreve, speaking the truth in love to a lost and a hurting world. Remember, no matter what, God loves you, and he has a wonderful plan for your life. Find out about that when you go to FromHisHeart.org