Grace Thoughts

Guest (Male): Hello friends, welcome to Grace Thoughts, the radio ministry of Grace Connection Church with Pastor Tim Kelley. Grace Thoughts has been dedicated to preaching a clear gospel of grace for over 20 years. Here is Pastor Kelley.

Tim Kelley: DL Moody said this: "I believe Satan exists for two reasons. First, because the Bible says so, and second, because I've done business with him." I thought that was good. Some of you say, "Heck, done business with him? I married him." But that's not true. That's not true, but that's what you think sometimes.

We're going to start a series called "Subversive". The word, I'll define it for you in a moment. As a Christian, we are engaged in an unseen but epic battle between heaven and hell, battlefield church. It rages on, really without our notice, on our planet, in government offices, schools, homes, elsewhere. It just rages on.

Lewis Sperry Chafer said this: "Next to the person and the work of God, next to the work of Christ, who Christ is, Christology—if you want to use theology for that term—and the study of the cross, the work of Christ, there is no more important Bible doctrine to understand than that of spiritual warfare." Now, that's quite a statement coming from a man that founded Dallas Theological Seminary, one of the great theologians in the last 200 years of church history.

I entitled this series "Subversive" because I don't think there's a single word that captures Satan's chief aim, agenda, goal, and his methodology that he has concerning the methodology of the enemy. Now, subversive simply defines itself this way: there's another definition, numerous things right here in your program too that Pastor Goeworthy put in for us. It refers to a process by which values and principles of a system in place are contradicted and reversed.

In other words, he's saying, "Look, we have certain values. We have certain things that we hang on to." As a Christian, we believe in purity. As a Christian, we believe in honesty. As a Christian, we believe in certain core values of our Christian faith. And now we have an enemy who's subversive, who wants to undermine us right where we state we believe.

Now, think about this with me: how much of what we state that we believe actually influences our life, controls our life? I think there's a difference between convictions and preferences. Many of us have a preference of what we state we believe, but as soon as that preference is challenged or squeezed a little bit, we find out it really wasn't a conviction; it's just a preference. In other words, it's something that I said was non-negotiable, but actually, it is sort of negotiable. I negotiate it all the time.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones said this, great quote: "A man who does not understand the nature of the problem he is confronting is a man already doomed to failure." Let me stop there for a moment. What's he saying? Talking about spiritual warfare. A man who does not understand the nature of the problem he is confronting is a man already doomed to failure. If you're not aware, he's saying, that we're in a warfare, we're in a struggle, we're in a battle, then you're already a victim of the warfare. You're already a casualty in that warfare.

See, many of us sort of lollygag going through our lives and we don't really think that this because we're not that important, we don't put a lot of importance on ourselves—why would Satan and his cohorts care about me? Well, hopefully, he does. Hopefully, you're doing enough in the kingdom that he would care about taking you out, because he's working on it.

We have to realize that we are called in the Christian life to a battle, not a life of ease; to a battle, to a warfare, to a wrestle, to a struggle. It is a battle without discharge. It is an unavoidable war. I spend every year in ministry spending at least three or four weeks on this, maybe even more.

Let me give you a brief overview of what the Bible says about Satan. He's got the full measure of beauty and wisdom. He's not everywhere present. Ezekiel 28:12. He was the highest created being ever. It says he weakens the nations, Isaiah 14:12. Revelation 12:9 calls him the great dragon. First Peter 5:8, the roaring lion. He's a serpent in Genesis chapter 3. A master of disguise, Second Corinthians 11:14, Second Corinthians 2:11.

A murderer and a liar from the beginning, John 8:44. A thief, robber, and destroyer, John 10:10. The sifter of men and women, Luke 22:41. A tempter of men and women, Matthew 4:4, Luke 4:4. He likes to attack us physically, Matthew 9:33, and mentally, Daniel 7:25—and I can give these verses to you later if you want them. He's always bringing up our sin, Zechariah chapter 3. He is the prince of the air surrounding planet Earth, Ephesians 2:2. We'll define that more for you later. And he's the god of this world system, Second Corinthians 4:4.

Everything that he was in creation was corrupted because of his pride. Now, think with me: thus the highest created being, Satan, Lucifer, angel of light—the highest created being that ever was had everything that God poured into him in his created being is now turned malignant and evil. The wisdom, the power, the insight, the control—all turned malignant and evil.

His war is against God. I'd venture to say he doesn't care about you very much at all. You're a nonentity to him except for the fact, simple fact, that you are loved by God and the object of His affection. And because you're loved by God and the object of His affection, he hates you because he hates God. He has nothing for you. His world system has nothing for you. There's nothing towards you but contempt, not because he thinks you're something, but because you're loved by somebody.

He's absolutely malignant. Redpath said this: "The greatest discomfiture in hell is always caused by the life of the child of God who is true to his witness. All the enemy's fire is trained upon such a man. For the testimony of such a Christian is a witness to the power of the blood of Jesus. This man, therefore, is inevitably surrounded by enemies who do their utmost to stamp out resistance, kill his testimony, silence his lips, freeze up his heart until the man to all intent and purposes is a spiritual nonentity."

You and I are living in a day of siege. Let me just look at Redpath's quote for a little bit. Because this enemy, he wants to stamp out resistance, kill my testimony. We've seen that happen in the world and Christendom, haven't we? Silence our lips, freeze up our hearts, until the man, you and I, Christians, representatives of God Almighty, become a spiritual nonentity. That's our goal: to get you so wrapped up into something you become a spiritual nonentity, to get you so distracted over here you become a spiritual nonentity.

You don't have to worry about that guy anymore; we've done what we needed to do and made him a nonentity now. He no longer threatens our kingdom. We live in a day of siege. The book of Ephesians is probably one of the most complete books for the process of spiritual transformation in all the Bible. It's a wonderful book. We've just got to take the time and teach it verse by verse coming up in the next few years here.

In chapters one through three, it talks about our position in Christ. Ephesians 1:3, we have all spiritual blessings; but God who is rich in mercy, 2:5; saved by grace, 2:8; created unto good works, 2:10; seated together with Christ in the heavenly places, 2:6. The first three chapters all talk about unto Him who can do exceedingly and abundantly above all you ever ask or think, 3:20 of Ephesians.

The first three chapters are all who we are in Christ, what Jesus Christ did for us. He's given us this dispensation of grace, 3:2. That's the foundation. Paul pours the foundation in chapters one, two, and three. Then he takes it practical in chapters four, five, and especially four and five. He brings it into body life, how Christians interact with one another.

He brings it into parents and parenting in the first part of chapter six. He brings it into marriages, Ephesians 5:22 through 32. He gets into body life, humility, meekness, treating people right, lowliness of mind. These great spiritual principles. He takes the finished work of Christ, the grace of God, and makes it practical in chapters four and five.

But he doesn't end there. He adds chapter six on there. And chapter six, he talks about, he begins it with parenting, but then he gets into spiritual warfare after that. He ends the book with spiritual warfare. Looking from an overview of the book of Ephesians, he's saying the first three chapters, "This is what Christ did for you." And he says, "This is what it looks like in your life, practically speaking." But then I don't want to leave this out: you have an enemy. It's really important you understand your enemy.

We'll pick up his discourse in verse 10: "Finally, be strong in the Lord and the strength of his might." Make His strength your own; that's what he's saying. The strength is found in our standing in Christ. Again, I go back to chapters one, two, and three. That's where my standing in Christ is. That's where I draw my strength. That's where I draw my identity from.

Make His strength your own. And then verse 11: "Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil." This is the English Standard Version. If you have a King James, it'll say "wiles" of the devil. That particular word "schemes" or "wiles", whatever your translation says, is *methodeia*, where we get our word "methods" from. It's a great translation. It can mean stratagems, methods, devices, techniques.

Put on the whole armor of God that we'll be able to stand against the schemes, the methods of the devil. Then it says this: "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood"—things on Earth—"but against the rulers, against the authorities, and against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places." The literal reading of our Greek here is "our wrestling is not against flesh and blood." It brings it out pretty good there. We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, or it says, "Our wrestling is not against flesh and blood."

Paul is saying here, we're not wrestling against each other; we're wrestling against the devil. This conflict in the church of Ephesus: two believers aren't getting together, aren't getting along. We're not wrestling with each other. We don't wrestle with flesh and blood. We wrestle with principalities and powers. Now, I'm not going to get too much into the hierarchy here, but there's a hierarchy of spirit forces that are sort of outlined here.

"Principalities" is the word *archē*, means first ones, preeminent ones. *Exousia*, powers, authorities. Talks about Kenneth Wuest believes—the Greek scholar from Moody—believes that the demons of Satan in the lower atmosphere. We'll talk about that in a moment. Then it says "the rulers of darkness in this world", *kosmokratōr*. Great name, isn't it? Sounds like a Transformer. *Kosmokratōr* and world rulers of this darkness, Satan and his demons. They're also called "the spiritual forces of perniciousness in the heavenly places". Wuest said that.

He takes rulers of darkness in this world and then spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places, makes them talk about the same entity, talking about the demonic Satan and his demonic host. The heavenly places—and this is important to understand—is not the high places inhabited by the throne of God. Heavenly places talks about this: what we're breathing, atmosphere, Earth, right around here. This is his domain.

This is where the demonic host is. This is where they hang out. This is where their work is. This is where the war is, right here. It's not out in space; it's not in the heavenlies, it's right here in our dimension. Three different words for "air" in the Greek New Testament. This particular word means the air right around planet Earth. This is where the warfare is, and we're in it.