Messianic Perspectives

Liz Ayelo: We often hear prophetic teaching about God's plan for end times, but did you know Satan also has a plan? Stay tuned as Dr. Gary Hedrick discusses Satan's plan for the end times right here on Messianic Perspectives.

Shalom and welcome to Messianic Perspectives, a daily program where we look into the scriptures from a distinctive first-century Jewish point of view. This is Liz Ayelo. Our Bible teacher is Dr. Gary Hedrick, president of CJF Ministries in San Antonio, Texas. You can reach our offices by dialing 1-800-926-5397.

Gary's subject today is Satan's plan for the end times. I'll be back a little later with information about a special offer, so have your pencil and paper ready. Now with today's study, here is Dr. Gary Hedrick.

Dr. Gary Hedrick: All right, thank you, and welcome Chaverim. Welcome friends to another edition of Messianic Perspectives. Whoever you are and wherever you are, it's good to have you with us today as we continue this series of studies on Satan's plan for the end times.

And we've been talking about the fact that God isn't the only one with a plan for the end times. The enemy also has a plan for the end times. And on the last program, we saw that our enemy, Satan, is a real, living, thinking entity. When the scriptures talk about Satan or the devil, it's not just using a metaphor for evil. He's not just a symbol or a force or a figure of speech. He is very real. In fact, he is just as real as God is.

It always puzzles me when the liberal theologians say there's a literal God but there's no literal devil, or when they say there is a literal heaven, a place where the righteous go when they die, but then they say there's no such thing as a literal hell where the wicked go when they die. But you see, how can you have one without the other? What do we think the Bible is, some sort of smorgasbord where we just pick out whatever we want to believe and then we forget about the rest of it?

No, my friend, the Bible teaches the reality of both places, heaven and hell. There's a heaven, there's a hell, one is just as real as the other, and it also teaches the reality of both personages, God and Satan. And by the way, this is not the same as pagan dualism. Have you ever heard that term dualism? In secular philosophy, dualism is where the world is made up of good and bad, black and white, yin and yang. You see, everything is in twos, these equal and opposing forces, good and bad, yes and no, black and white, A or B. That's dualism.

But that's not what the Bible teaches. In the Bible, God and Satan are not equal and opposing forces. God has no equal. So even though Satan is God's adversary, he is not God's equal. Satan was a cherub in heaven before he fell into sin. So if you want to find an equal for Satan, you would have to look at another cherub, one of the cherubim who guard the throne of God in heaven. But Satan is not God's equal. God has no equal.

You say, "Well Gary, if that's true, then why did Satan ever think he could defeat God? If he's not even God's equal, then surely he must have known that he never had a chance." Remember we talked about that. You see, the truth is that Satan never thought he was God's equal. He knew he wasn't. In fact, that was his sin. He said, "I will be like the most high." He knew he wasn't God's equal, but he thought he could become like God.

And remember we explained in detail why Satan thought he could defeat God. And in fact, Satan's whole strategy was based on the supposition that God was more powerful than he was, because he was using a strategy that actually turns an opponent's strength against him. So the stronger your opponent is, the more of an advantage you have. We don't have time to go into that again, so if you weren't with us when we talked about that, you'll need to get the tape so you can hear it.

The important thing that you and I need to understand is that first of all, Satan is real. That's the first thing. Secondly, he is a very clever opponent. He is cunning. Remember we showed you how the derivation of his name, Satan, HaSatan, means that he literally sneaks up behind you. That's what he does. He sneaks and he deceives. He's not going to walk right up to you and say, "Hi, I'm the devil, and I'm here to do everything in my power to make sure you spend eternity with me. Because that's what I'm about. I want you to be with me forever."

You see, if Satan operated that way, he'd make very little headway. That's why he doesn't do it that way. Instead, he deceives, he tricks, and he counterfeits. And he masquerades and he beguiles, like he did Eve in the Garden of Eden. That's his modus operandi. That's how he operates. Now let me show you something about how clever he really is. If you have a Bible handy, turn with me to Matthew chapter four.

This is sort of the biblical equivalent of the showdown at the OK Corral. Did you ever see that old western? Well, this is the same thing because here in Matthew chapter four, we have the main characters in the drama of redemption. And it's not the first time they've ever met because we know from Luke 10:18 that Yeshua the Messiah was in heaven when Satan was expelled and when he fell to earth like lightning. So we know they've met before.

But the confrontation here in Matthew four is different because this was not Yeshua in his glory as it had been in heaven when they were together before, but now this is Yeshua in his humiliation. He has emptied himself like Paul says in Philippians chapter two. He has emptied himself of certain aspects of his divinity. In other words, when he was here on this earth 2,000 years ago, he didn't have the same glory, the same transcendence that he had with the Godhead in heaven.

That's why the disciples were so amazed there on the Mount of Transfiguration when they saw him in all of his glory there in Matthew 17. It says the disciples were so terrified they fell on their faces like they were dead. That's what happened when they saw Jesus in his glorified state. But in Matthew chapter four, Jesus is not in his glorified state. He is in his human state, a state of humiliation, a state of having emptied himself of certain aspects of his divinity. So the devil evidently saw him as vulnerable when he was in this condition.

So he came to Jesus out there in the wilderness to tempt him. And by the way, this passage in Matthew chapter four is yet another example of a passage that cannot be properly understood unless you look at it from a Messianic perspective. Now why do I say that? Because when you look at how the devil approaches Jesus here in Matthew chapter four, you find that what he's trying to do here is he's trying to dissuade the Lord from his real mission as the Messiah.

Each of these three temptations zeroes in on a specific aspect of our Lord's Messianic mission. Because what he's trying to do here is, what Satan's trying to do here is, he's trying to get Jesus to become a political Messiah. He wants Jesus to use supernatural power to get what he wants. He wants Jesus to begin operating in the realm of political power and worldly influence rather than in the realm of the spirit.

And by the way, this goes to the whole issue of why the Jewish religious establishment rejected Jesus as the Messiah. It was because he didn't do what they wanted him to do. And guess what? Even today, 2,000 years later, if you ask an Orthodox rabbi why he doesn't believe Jesus is the Messiah, do you know what he'll tell you? He'll say, "Gary, I would love to believe Jesus is the Messiah. I just have a few little problems."

So you say, "What are the problems?" "Well, for one thing, we don't have world peace. And the Bible says when the Messiah comes, we will have world peace. So if Jesus had been the Messiah, we would have had world peace for the past 2,000 years instead of one war after another after another. So that tells me Jesus is not the Messiah." You see, that's what they say. That's the rabbinic view of Jesus even today. In 2,000 years, things have not changed all that much.

So as we look into this passage in Matthew chapter four, we're going to see that Satan has an uncanny comprehension of what Jesus' mission on earth was supposed to be. He is clever. He is a schemer. And nowhere do we see this more clearly than here in Matthew chapter four because here he is scheming to try to dissuade our Lord Yeshua the Messiah from his redemptive mission. Because you see, he didn't come the first time as a conquering king or political ruler. He came the first time as a redeemer, the suffering servant of Isaiah 53. And this is the mission Satan is trying to divert him from.

Now look with me at verse one. It says then Jesus was led up by the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Now notice first of all who led the Lord into the wilderness. It wasn't the devil luring him out there into the desert. It was the spirit of God. He was led up by the spirit into the wilderness, it says. In other words, it was God's will for Jesus to have this confrontation with the devil.

And this is important because there are preachers and teachers today who will tell you, they'll say, "Just come to Jesus and all your problems will be over." And they paint this rosy picture of the Christian life like you've never, you're never going to have any problems, never going to be sick. They'll tell you that God wants you to be healthy, wealthy, and prosperous. They'll say that if you're sick, you're out of God's will. If you're in debt, you're out of God's will. If you're suffering adversity, you're out of God's will. If you prayed for your healing and it didn't happen, then that means you didn't have enough faith.

But you know what? That's a lot of nonsense because sometimes it is God's will for us to experience adversity. Sometimes it is God's will for us to suffer. And here in Matthew chapter four, we have the spirit of God leading the Son of God out into the wilderness so he could be tempted by the devil. Now it's true, sometimes we suffer because of our own sins or because of our own disobedience. Sometimes we bring it on ourselves. And in those cases, it's not God's will for us to suffer. But there are times when it is God's will for his people to endure suffering for a season.

And we'll talk more about this passage in Matthew chapter four in the next program, but for now we're out of time. So until the next program, this is your friend Gary Hedrick saying God bless you, take care, bye-bye.

Liz Ayelo: Thank you, Gary. And thank you listening friend for tuning in today. We've been listening to Dr. Gary Hedrick talk about Satan's Plan for the End Times. If you are interested in Bible prophecy, you'll be glad to know that our special offer this week is the CD of this current series of studies on Satan's Plan for the End Times by our Bible teacher, Dr. Gary Hedrick. It's available for a suggested contribution of just $6 or more.

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I'm Liz Ayelo. Join us next time, won't you, as Dr. Gary Hedrick continues our series of studies on Satan's Plan for the End Times right here on Messianic Perspectives.