Satan’s Greatest Desire

We are in the middle of a series. We're in week two of a series called Supernatural. I thought it would be fun to have a series titled Supernatural, especially with Halloween just around the corner, just a week or so away. And what are we doing?

We're thinking about supernatural things. And maybe it's just fun and games. We like to put on masks and watch scary movies. And we think more about spiritual things, particularly spiritual evil, because Halloween is usually associated with that. So it gets our minds thinking a little bit, right?

And there was a show – it still comes on, actually. It's not there was. There is a show on the CW called Supernatural. Some people love it. Yeah.

And it's these two good-looking guys. So all the women, you know, watch it. My wife was really into it for a season. And they're riding around in muscle cars from town to town solving these supernatural mysteries. And as the story goes on, it opens up to this whole reality of a demonic world and an angelic world.

And there's this battle going on. And these two guys are kind of a part of it. It's kind of interesting. The angels are like their friends. And they're fighting the evil ones.

And they're doing all this stuff. And a lot of that is fiction. Let's just say that. It's fiction. It's not necessarily theologically or biblically accurate.

But the fact is, there is a spiritual war taking place that we don't see. There's more than what is going on in this room. There's more than the air and the physical, tangible reality that we are currently experiencing. There's actually more going on in the spiritual realm. And here's how we want to think.

We are not physical beings with temporary spiritual experiences. We are spiritual beings in a temporary physical experience. And when we begin to think that way, we know that there's a lot more going on beyond where we are. Our theme verse is Ephesians 6.14.

Paul tells us this. Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. So what is he saying here? He's saying, you know, when you're angry at that person, or you have that division in your family, or you're frustrated with your pastor, let's just say that, or whatever's going on, guess what? It's not the flesh and blood.

It's not the person that you're dealing with. There's something far more sinister going on in the background. There is a battle of authorities, of powers, of dark places, and spiritual forces of evil in heavenly realms. There's things actually happening. My goal today is to try to help you understand the spiritual battle and what's happening in the spiritual battle.

From the beginning in Genesis 3 to Revelation, we see the battle taking place. We see things happening. So next week, you've got to be here next week because I'm going to talk about the good side, okay? If you want to say it like that. We're going to talk about angels and what angels really are and how they work and what it means to know about, you know, theologically how angels are a part of our being and existence and the reality we have here.

But today, I want to deal with something kind of on the other side of it, a dark thing. I want to deal with Satan and his demons. I want to about Satan and his demons. I want to give us a clear understanding of who Satan is and his demons. There's an example in Scripture.

Let me just throw out a few examples of some things that I've experienced as well as what the Bible tells us about demons. If you're looking at Mark 5, 2 and 8, and I don't think this is in your notes. If you just want to write this down, I kind of threw this in last minute. We see Jesus. When Jesus got out of the boat, a man with an evil spirit came from the tombs to meet him.

This man lived in the tombs and no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain, for he would often, this is crazy, he would often break chained hand and feet and foot, but he tore the chains apart and he broke the irons from his feet and no one was strong enough to subdue him. So you see this man, he's at, he comes out and he's, he's, he's like, supernatural strength has taken place in this guy's body and, and, and, and no one was strong enough to subdue him. And night and day among the tombs and in the hills, he would cry out and cut himself with stones and he saw Jesus from a distance. And what did he do? He ran and fell on his knees in front of him and he shouted with the, to the top of his voice, what do you want with me, Jesus, son of the most high God?

Swear to God that you won't torture me. For Jesus had said to him, come out of the man, you evil spirit. And what happened? The, the evil spirit left the man and the story goes on. He, he begs him to be put into a, a, a, a, a, something besides just being in the air and, uh, he throws him into a, a, a, a, a herd of pigs.

Thank you. herd of pigs. I was going to say swine, a swine of pigs, but that would have been repetitive, right? A herd of pigs, and the pigs leaped into the sea and drowned. And we see the very existence of evil spirits, and not only evil spirits, their effect on people.

I haven't personally experienced someone that was fully demon-possessed, but I've heard many stories. My father, for example, when he was in school, in Bible school, actually, he's a pastor, and he was working on his bachelor's degree, and he and a group of men, some of his best friend pastors, he's still friends with them today, were having a prayer meeting. And one of these men was about, you know, 250-pound, linebacker-looking guy, just big guy. And this, and as they were praying, some, some, a lady walked into the auditorium that they were praying in, and when I hear these guys. Talk about it.

It was something they had never seen before. The lady comes in and she begins to lay on the floor and slide across the floor like a snake and as she's sliding across the floor like a snake, her tone changes and she begins to curse and act out on what was going on. So these men, you know, these group of seminary students or those trained students, what are they going to do immediately? They're going to run and jump and start praying over the woman, right? Let's cast this demon out of her because it was very unusual.

And there was a supernatural strength in this woman that when they began to pray over her, the demon fought back and literally tossed the 250 pound man across the room. Just like scripture, just supernatural power came over them and as they prayed on, you know, they didn't give up. They prayed for her and they began to see her, you know, basically vomit something out. It wasn't like a physical thing, but it was something spiritual. They could sense it.

And when it happened, you could see her countenance change and she just looked like a different person. And they, to this day, talk about that like just something they had never experienced before. Pastor Craig Groeschel of Life Church, one of the, you know, largest churches in America, he shared the story of when he was in college and there was a group of them praying, a group of college students praying in their room. And they invited a guy in to the group and they got in a circle and started praying. He said, this guy was kind of odd.

And he began, you know, they held their hands and he held the boy's hand and he's praying in his head for this guy. And the guy looks over at him and says, stop praying for me. Like in this weird voice. And he said, the natural thing I would do is lie and say, I'm not praying for you, man. I'm not praying.

He went back, started praying again. And then the guy said, kind of jiggled his hand. I said, I told you to stop praying for me. And this really odd, weird voice. And then he said, you know, and then he went through that process again.

And then finally the guy just looked at him and says, I told you to stop praying for me and spit in his face. And then all of a sudden the guy started, you know, going and he pushed him off of him. And then there was a charismatic Pentecostal guy in the room that was a youth pastor in the area. He was a part of their group. And he says, in the name of Jesus, he starts coming over.

And he says he literally saw the countenance of that young man's appearance change right before him as they'd been in to pray that spirit out of him. So we see and hear, and some of you may have even experienced actual possessions that have taken place. And if not possessions, maybe oppression. Me personally, I've experienced many oppressions. In fact, it's a common thing.

As a pastor, you deal with a lot of oppression. But there's one time that I can recall while I was in seminary at Regent University. Me and Stefan, who's on the base, he was my roommate. And we had another roommate across the way. And often I would be in my room at night.

And I would wake up. A lot of times I would wake up in the middle of the night and I'd sense this oppressing spirit. Like this spirit that was in the room. Almost like it was there. And it was speaking.

I can't explain it. I can't explain it. In the spiritual realm, there was something going on in that place. And I would just immediately get up and I'd just start praying. And I'd just start praying.

God, what's going on? God, you know, get out of here in the name of Jesus, you devil. You know, and I'd just go to it. You can't. And it would just, the atmosphere would lift.

And then it would happen again and it happened again. And then I learned later. I said, what is going on? And I learned later there was a new age, if you want to call them a group or a cult or experience or whatever they call it, that met just down the way. And they were conjuring up spirits and things like that.

And somehow, whatever was going on there, they found me. And I don't know if it's because, you know, God had a calling on my life or whatever it was. And I don't know what it was. But for some reason, it oppressed me. And a lot of you have probably experienced oppression.

Maybe not that vividly, but you know there's some kind of substance there that's going on. So, what I'm trying to do here by giving you these examples is to tell you that demons are real. And they do try to affect our lives. But I want to say this. There is a God in heaven that is full of love and wants more, wants to do everything he possibly can to reach this world with his love.

But there is a devil and there is his demons that are doing everything they can. And the little God of this world that is trying everything he can to stifle what God is doing in this world. And there is a constant battle going on. So, it's important for us to understand how they work and who they are and what they really do. So, first of all, I want to start off with some misconceptions about Satan and his demons.

C.S. Lewis wrote this. He said, So, I first want to point out the misconceptions of Satan and demons are, as C.S.

Lewis says, There's a demon behind every bad thing. Some people believe there's a demon behind every bad thing. If I have bad hair that morning, then there's a demon behind it, right? And we need to pray it out. And my shoes don't match my outfit.

Man, the demon, the spirit of mix match is just, you know, I'm just going to, I got to cast it out, right? And we have people that tend to blame every bad thing that happens, whether they have a bad attitude that day when it's really just their attitude, right? They chose to have a bad attitude, so they blame it on the demon. And I'm going to pray the demon of a bad attitude out of me or out of you because, you know, you walked into work today. Let's just pray that out of you, you know?

And there are people like that. David Powson, a counselor that kind of deals and relates to spiritual warfare, he wrote this, and I thought this was real interesting. He says, Isn't that interesting? More interestingly, she and her husband, Andrew, had a remarkable... He says, Thank you.

And remarkably destructive way of arguing with each other. For the first five minutes, they warmed up with normal person-to-person bickering. But at a certain point, when the fighting turned nasty, they shifted gears and wheeled into heavier artillery. They would bind, rebuke, and attempt to cast out demons of anger, pride, self-righteousness to each other. In Cynthia's words, I saw the demon looking out of his eyes glittering and murderous.

You know, looking at her husband, could you imagine that? That demon, you know? So I said, demon of anger, I bind you in the power and the name of Jesus. Then I claimed the power of Jesus' blood as my cover from all my demonic assaults coming through my husband. The result, he said, not only did Cynthia and Andrew reinforce their hostility, they trampled the name of Christ through the mud and their superstition, hostility, fear, and confusion.

Needless to say, the real devil, who aims to dishonor God and conform us to his evil ways, could only be pleased at the personal and interpersonal wreckage he brought about in this situation. So, can you see the danger we can have when we look at a demon behind everything? But I think on the other side, as Lewis states, that, and I think this kind of builds in our culture, is that demons don't exist, that the devil doesn't exist, that evil actually doesn't exist, which is an equal error. And I think we probably deal with this more than anything. And Satan wants nothing more than you to believe that he does not exist.

And he, in fact, does. And then the third thing I want to mention is Satan, the misconception is that Satan is equal to God. You know, a lot of people think that Satan, some religions even say that Jesus and Satan are spirit brothers, and, you know, they're battling it out. And a lot of times we give Satan too much credit, because God is actually the creator of Satan, which I'm getting ready to talk to you about here in a second. And then Satan's not equal to God, he's not even equal to Jesus.

When we go back to the scripture that I just shared with you in Mark 5, what happened, the demon fell down and says, what do you want with me, son of the most high God? He knew he didn't have the ability to stand against Jesus, just by looking at him across the way. So there is no equality with demons and God. God is sovereign. God is in control of everything.

God is all-powerful. He actually created Satan and his demons. So let's look at that for a minute. Satan and his demons were actually created by God. When we look in scripture, we learn that Satan was an angel.

An angel of light. Or we get Lucifer, angel of light. He was one of the most beautiful in the heavens. But he decided he was going to put his throne above God's throne. And I don't know what all that entailed or how it even got there.

How can you even put your throne above God? But apparently, somehow, he wanted to do that. And he was expelled from heaven. He was cast out of heaven with a third of the angels, which we now call demons. And this is apparent in scripture.

If you look at Isaiah 14, 12 and 14, we get some spiritual prophetic view of actually what happened during that time. And it says, How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star, son of the dawn. You have been cast down to the earth. You who once laid low the nations. You said in your heart, I will ascend in the heavens.

I will raise my throne above the stars of God. I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds. And I will make myself like the most high. And then in Revelation 12, we see, And there was a war in heaven.

Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, which is Satan. The dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough. And they lost their place in heaven. And the great dragon was hurled down.

That ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth and his angels with him. So we see in Scripture, clearly, that he was in heaven with God. However that looks, theologically, there's a lot of different understandings of that. But really, basically, what we need to know is that Satan was once an angel of God, tried to put himself above God, and was cast out of heaven, is what his origin is.

So, with that being said, what do devils do? And with that happening, now that he is the God at this particular time, the Bible says he is the God of this world, well, how does he work? What do devils do? What do demons do? How do they work?

How do they react? How do they act? What do they do? Okay? Well, first of all, if you're following in notes, they strategize.

They're very strategic. They're smart. Genesis 3.1 says, Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord had made. He said to the woman, Did God really say you must not eat from any tree in the garden?

You know, just kind of using that smooth, soft voice, you know, that cute voice, and drawing you, you know, in. See, what Satan does, what the devils do, if you ever get an opportunity to read the Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis, I love it because it kind of gives you an idea of what's kind of going on underneath. It's not, they're not trying to put on masks and scare you.

Okay? They're going to scare you to God. They don't want to scare you to God, right? They want to scare you from God. They want to keep you from God.

And it's a great book. But what they do, they're crafty, and they study you. And they lure you through three things. And we see this throughout Scripture real quickly. And it's possessions, pleasure, and power.

Genesis 3.6 shows you that. You go back to Genesis and Genesis 3.6, and you kind of see this throughout Scripture. It says, When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it.

So we see three things there. It was good for food. It's, hmm, yeah, I like that. You know, that's, that's, that's, I want that possession. It was pleasing to the eye, pleasure.

And then was desirable for gaining wisdom. I want power. I want God. God has. And that's what Satan did.

He, he deceived. He deceived Eve into taking the fruit by saying, You know, God, you, you can be like God. God, he's holding back from you. So you see that there. So, number one.

One, they strategize. Number two, they influence leaders of nations. In the book of Daniel, we see Daniel fast and pray for 21 days and nothing happened and when on the 21st day, it took 21 days, he received a vision from an angel. An angel appeared to him in a vision and said this, he said, and this is cool because you can kind of see what was going on. You get a look into the spiritual realm by what he's telling Daniel.

He says, but the prince of the Persian kingdom resisted me 21 days, meaning the enemy, the evil one, or whatever demonic force was keeping him. And then, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to me because I was detained there with the king of Persia. So, we see the reality of an evil force taking place as Daniel's praying and trying to break through this demonic battle that's going on. There's something going on. In the realm here where the king of Persia is actually being influenced by an evil spirit.

And we can see this throughout history. We tend to like to blame, you know, the Holocaust, evil dictators, genocide of innocent people. And what's interesting when things like that happen in nations, we like to blame the good people a lot of times. But there's real sinister evil behind what's going on, you know, with Nazi Germany and what happened and all those innocent people dying. There's an evil force that was actually behind that evil dictator, that evil person.

And we need to realize that when things are happening around the world, it's not always just some political move. There is something evil and something demonic happening in the supernatural. There was something, in fact, I'm just throwing this out there as a point. You read some of the things about Adolf Hitler and people would talk about how his countenance, even as he led into certain things, when he started to speak, it's like this countenance came over him. And it was like, whoa.

We need to realize that they actually influence leaders of nations. We understand there is a force at play. Number three, they want to inflict suffering on you. They want to inflict suffering on you. They do.

In fact, there's, in Matthew, there's an example of this. Lord, where there was this young boy. I want you to think about if you have young kids or if you have people that are grandkids or a young neighbor or whatever it is, and think about a six-year-old boy. My boy turned six years old today. And I want you to think about those kids as you read this.

Lord, this man came to Jesus. He said, Lord, have mercy on my son. He said, he has seizures and he is suffering greatly. He often falls into the fire and into the water. And Jesus said, bring the boy here to me.

And Jesus rebuked the demon. And it came out of the boy. And he was healed from that moment. So, if Satan wants to hurt a six-year-old boy, he certainly wants to hurt you. And he will do it any way he can.

Whether it's through something like that, or it's through a relationship, through a marriage, or it's because through your teenagers causing, you know, just you and your teenagers. Or teenagers, it's between you and your parents. Whatever it can, however he can do it. He's crafty. He's studying it.

He is like a roaring lion. He prowls around, right? He takes time and he looks. And he observes. And then he pounces.

And the trouble is, he's usually hitting us at our most vulnerable times. That anxiety you experience, and then all the world falls out when you're angry, when you're disappointed, when you're exhausted. Whatever it might be, the devil's not going to hit you when you just come out of church on Sunday. He's going to hit you when you're really down and out and you're having a tough time. He's going to smack you.

He's going to try to take you down. He wants to harm you. He wants to make you suffer. And then the next one, they want to lure you away from God. They want to lure you away from God.

The Spirit clearly says this in 1 Timothy 4. That in later times, some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. And I can tell you, this is probably one of the biggest things we're dealing with today. Not only possession, power and pleasure, but intellectual ideas and spiritual enlightenment. I've been enlightened to the reality that I'm so smart in my teachings.

And even things like intelligent design that are scientifically accepted in the community are thrown out because of the idea that there might be something beyond. I mean, we're not even talking about God, Yahweh. We're just talking about, scientists are just talking about the possibility that something is tweaking everything that happens. Yet it's dismissed because of this idea that anything beyond ourselves cannot be. It must be bogus.

It must be false. And the fact that we can even look at the eyeball. And it's so intricately designed to every little detail. How can you even deny that fact? You can take a strand of DNA and pull so much memory out of it, it doesn't even fit a supercomputer.

We can't even invent something strong enough to hold that type of information. But we refuse to believe that there's anything beyond ourselves. Anything. Because Satan wants to lure you away from that. And lastly, they want to paralyze you with fear.

2 Timothy 1, 6 and 7 says this, For God has not given you a spirit of fear, but of power and love and a sound mind. So with understanding that, he wants to paralyze you. How do we win the battle? And I want to give you a few things on how to win the battle. First of all, if you're following your notes, don't take the enemy lightly.

Don't take them lightly. Jude 9, 10 says this, But even the archangel Michael, when he was disputing with the devil about the body of Moses, So I would like to thank you for listening. Don't take it easy, but I didn't want to go on at the cascadilla. Did not dare bring a slanderous accusation against him, but said, the Lord rebuke you. So even Michael, the angel in the spiritual realm, didn't even want to bring a false accusation with Satan because he didn't take him lightly.

In Acts 19, we see a group of people try to cast a demon out of a man. And they're like, God, we cast you out in the name of Jesus, the one Paul knows. And the demon looks back at him and says, I know Jesus, I know Paul, but who are you? Who are you? And the demon pounces off of the person they were trying to cast it out of on these people and beats them and strips them naked.

Don't take the enemy lightly. Take them seriously. Number two, don't play with darkness. Don't play with darkness, guys. Deuteronomy 18 says this, Let no one be found among you practicing divination or sorcery.

Interpret omens, engage in witchcraft, or cast spells, or who is a medium or a spiritualist who consults with the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord. He doesn't even want you to be associated with things like that. He doesn't even want you to, you know, tarot card readings and all this. I couldn't tell you how many believers I know that actually engage in this.

That they're actually trying to find answers to things other than God. There's a spiritual world beyond us that affects these things. And yeah, yeah, there's some gimmicks and there's some things like that that aren't real. You know, there's these psychics. They're not real.

They're just kind of doing their thing or whatever. But there are ones that are. And there is sinister evil, and we see it throughout scripture, that actually engages in this kind of stuff. When I was a kid, I remember us, you know, playing little games like, you know, light as a feather, you know, kind of things. You know, in the dark and stuff like that, and you thought when you were a kid it was all fun and games.

Or people, you know, playing with Ouija boards and things like that. You think it's innocent fun, but I'm telling you, you're opening up a world beyond what you're currently experiencing. And it's a very scary thing when we play around with stuff like this. Don't even have, don't even be associated with those things. Why would we need those things when we have the Holy Spirit to go to?

When we have a God that knows all things and works all things together. And why don't we just go to Him? Stay away from those things. Number three, don't fight with your own power, but God's authority. Don't fight with your own power, but God's authority.

Jesus called His disciples to Him and gave them authority to drive out evil spirits and to heal every disease and sickness. He has, He's given us authority. Luke 19 says this, I've given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the powers of the enemy. This is good news. Nothing can harm you.

He's given you the authority. Take hold of the authority He's given you. They can't win. Don't try to do it in your own power. Do it in God's power.

Do it in God's authority. Go to God. Rebuke them in the name of Jesus. And number four, remember that the victory is already won. This is the most important thing.

And this is in closing if the band wants to come up. Remember that the victory is already won. The victory is already won. Hebrews 2 verse 14 says, Since the children have flesh and bone, He too shared in their humanity. Meaning He became flesh and bone and came and lived among us.

So that by His death, He might break the power of Him who holds the power of death. That is, the devil. Now this is good news. Because if we go all the way to the final chapter, Revelation chapter 20, we learn. What do we learn?

The devil is finally judged. The battle has been won. And Satan wants to do everything he possibly can to keep you from knowing Jesus Christ. He wants to do everything to lure you away from the life that you can have in Jesus. The victory has been won, people.

Can you celebrate? The victory has been won. It is won. He has the final say. God has the final say.

So with a proper understanding of the spiritual world, we know that we can battle anything that comes at us.