Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Is the Devil Real? | New Testament | Ephesians 6

Episode Date: August 30, 2023

Have you seen any evidence of the Devil recently? What is he up to in today's age? How should you respond to him? In today's episode, Keith uses Ephesians 6 to discuss Satan, what he's doing and how to battle against him. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Join the TMBT community in reading the entire New Testament in one year. Get your FREE reading plan here. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter@TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Ephesians 6

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. The late Justice Antonine Scalia did an interview with New York Magazine back in 2013. It got a lot of attention, partly because Supreme Court justices don't do many interviews, but also because this interview covered a lot of ground, and the justice didn't hold back. The interview got into faith, and Scalia said that he believed in the Bible and heaven. in hell, and he even said, I believe in the devil. And the interviewer with the magazine is like,

you do? And Scalia says, well, of course, he's a real person. And then the magazine interviewer asked, have you seen evidence of the devil lately? And Justice Scalia says, well, you know, it is curious. In the gospels, the devil is doing all sorts of things. He's making pigs run off cliffs. He's possessing people and whatnot. And that doesn't happen very much anymore. It's because he's smart. The interviewer asked, so what's he doing now? And Justice Scalia says, what's he doing now is he's getting a lot of people to not believe in him or in God? He's much more successful that way. I mean, come on, that's the explanation for why there's not demonic possession all over the place.

That always puzzled me, said the justice. What happened to the devil, you know? He used to be all over the place. He used to be all over the New Testament. What happened to him? He got wier. Isn't that something you've noticed? The devil seems more active in the Bible than he does in our day.

Or maybe his actions in the Bible are just more obvious. Maybe it's as Justice Scalia said, he's gotten whittier. He's just as active now, but we call it something different. Well, back to the interview. The interviewer asks, isn't it terribly frightening to believe in the devil? And Justice Scalia says, You're looking at me as though I'm weird. My God, are you so out of touch with most of America, most of which believes in the devil?

I mean, Jesus Christ believed in the devil. It's in the Gospels. You travel in circles that you are so removed from mainstream America that you are appalled that anybody would believe in the devil. Most of mankind has believed in the devil for all of history. Many more intelligent people than you or me have believed in the devil. Well, Justice Scalia is certainly correct. saying that Jesus believed that the devil was real. And he was also correct when he said that most Christians around the world believe the same thing. But my question is, do you believe in the devil?

I mean, you're not smarter or more sophisticated than Jesus, are you? If you do believe in the devil, what do you think he's like? How would you describe him? What's he up to in the world? And how should you respond to him? Those are some of the questions that we wrestle with in Ephesians chapter 6. Who is the devil? The devil is a devil. a spiritual being created by God who rebelled against God. It's important to know that the devil is a created being. We don't want to overestimate or underestimate his power. The devil is a powerful spiritual being, but he's not God. He's not omniscient. He's not omnipresent or omnipotent. In other words, he's not all-knowing. He can't be everywhere at the same time, and he's not all-powerful. But the

devil does rule over many other spiritual beings like him who also rebelled against God. So just like Adam and Eve were created to worship and serve God but rebelled against him, so the same thing happened in the spirit world. God created spiritual beings to worship him, but some of them rebelled and used their powers to oppose God. So when we refer to Satan or the devil, we need to remember that he is one of many dark spiritual beings called demons. What's the devil up to these days? Well, let's look at a few verses in the New Testament. Here's John chapter 8. You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him.

When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. Or here's John 1010. The thief, that's referring to the devil, comes only to steal and kill and destroy. Here's 1st Peter 5.8. Be alert and of sober mind. your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour so from these verses you begin to see that the devil is a dark spiritual power working to pull individuals families institutions government creation everything trying to pull them away from god so paul writes at the end of ephusion six finally be strong in the lord and in his mighty power put on the full armor of god so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For 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 are the devil's schemes? What's his strategy, his plan? Did you know that the devil has a game plan for you? Do you know what his game plan is? Do you know how the devil plans to attack your weaknesses? Every good football coach has a game plan against their opponent, but that coach also knows how that opponent is trying to game plan his team. In other words, he doesn't just know his opponent's weaknesses. He knows his own team's weaknesses. Do you know your spiritual weaknesses where you are spiritually vulnerable, how the devil is probably trying to attack you? In the Civil War, the Union Army was led by General George McClellan. and he was a very average general.

But in the Battle of Antietam, he was able to hold off the very brilliant Confederate general, Robert E. Lee, even forced Lee to abandon his march to Washington. The Battle of Antietam lasted 12 hours. It was one of the bloodiest of the Civil War. So how did the mediocre McClellan defeat the brilliant General Lee? Well, a couple days before the battle, two union soldiers were out on patrol, and they found a copy of General Lee's battle plans and gave them to the Union General.

A general is much better when he has his opponent's plans before the battle has even started. The devil is smarter, more powerful, and more committed than we are. But his plans and his strategies and his schemes have fallen into our hands. God has given us the devil's playbook. So we can open the Bible and look at it. And like we already saw from John chapter 8, the devil's primary strategy is to lie to us, to lie to us about who God is, to lie to us about where the good life is found. But not only does the devil lie to us, he also tries to blind us so that we can't see spiritual truth.

Here's 2 Corinthians 4, the God of this age, and that's just another word for the devil, the God of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. So one of Satan's strategies is to blind us so that we won't be able to see the beauty and the glory and the love and the mercy and the grace and the goodness that is found in Jesus. Another one of the devil's strategies is to keep us from the Bible. Listen to this in Mark 4. It's part of a parable that Jesus is teaching.

And he says, the farmer sows the word. Some people are like seed along the path where the word is sown. As soon as they hear it, Satan comes and takes away the word that was sewn in them. So one of the strategies of Satan is to keep you out of the Bible, to keep you distracted on a social media app, or to keep you sleeping in, or whatever he can use to keep you from reading the Bible. He always wants to take away that way. word from your heart because he knows that it's in the Bible that you learn about the goodness and

mercy of Jesus. He knows that it's in the Bible that you get the power to live out the Christian life. Another one of Satan's strategies is to thwart the plans that church leaders have. Listen to 1st Thessalonians 2. For we wanted to come to you. Certainly I Paul did again and again, but Satan blocked our way. See, the way that Satan was trying to prevent God's plans. from unfolding was to keep Paul from meeting with these Thessalonian Christians. Maybe one of Satan's strategies to keep you from growing in your faith is to keep you from meeting with your church, to keep you distracted with a thousand other things that keep you busy on Sunday morning so you're not there worshiping together.

Or maybe it's not just church he's trying to keep you from. Maybe he's trying to keep your kids from student ministry. Or maybe he's trying to keep you from being involved in a small group. wouldn't you see all the activities that you're busy running around doing all the busyness in your life differently if you saw it as potentially part of Satan's plan to keep you from growing in your faith by keeping you from meeting with other Christians but the good news is that Satan can have all the strategies you want but god defeated satan on the cross and in the resurrection first john three eight says the reason the son of god appeared was to destroy the devil's work and colostians two 15 says that Jesus disarmed the powers and authorities. He made a public spectacle of them,

triumphing over them by the cross. But of course that makes us ask, if the devil has been defeated, then how can he be prowling around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour? How can he be at work pulling people away from Jesus? Well, the right way to think about it is the difference between D-Day and V-E-Day or Victory in Europe Day. You know that on D-Day, the Allied forces landed in France. It was June 6, 1944, and that was the day that victory was insured in World War II. Now, the Allied troops, they had to keep fighting Germans all the way to Berlin until Germany finally surrendered on the 5th of May in 1945, almost a year after D-Day happened. So in between D-Day and V-E-Day, the battle was fierce.

But ultimate victory was no longer really in doubt. Everyone knew the Allies were going to win. It just had to play itself out. Well, likewise, Jesus decisively defeated Satan on the cross. That was D-Day. But Jesus will not fully destroy Satan until he fully returns in judgment. That's like V-E-Day. Until then, our strong.

struggle with Satan's forces will remain fierce, but our ultimate victory is never in doubt because Jesus defeated Satan on the cross. So how do I live between D-Day and V-E-Day? How do I live between the day of the cross and the day that Jesus returns in final judgment? Well, Paul tells us in Ephesians 6, to put on the full armor of God. So when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground and after you've done everything to stand stand firm then with a belt of truth buckled around your waist with a breastplate of righteousness in place and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace in addition to all this take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one take the helmet of salvation

and the sword of the spirit which is the word of god so paul tells them to be strong in the Lord to put on the armor of God. And realize that when Paul is writing this, he is most likely chained to a Roman soldier. So he's looking at all the armor this Roman soldier has on. And he says, look, we have spiritual armor, armor of truth and righteousness and faith and salvation. We have the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God.

Paul tells us in Romans 13, put on the Lord Jesus Christ. because when you put on Jesus, you're putting on the armor of God. You're putting on the truth because Jesus says, I am the truth. You're putting on the breastplate of righteousness because Jesus is our righteousness. You're putting on the sandals of peace because Jesus promised to give us peace. He is the author and finisher of our salvation. Jesus is the Word. Jesus is the Word, which is the sword of the Spirit.

So if you don't remember all the pieces of armor that you were to put on, you can't remember this. Put on Jesus. Because when you put on Jesus, you put on the armor of God. That's how you overcome Satan. 1 John 44 says, The one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. You have many enemies in this world, but none compared to Jesus. The one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.

Satan reports to Jesus. Satan fears Jesus. Satan flees from the presence of Jesus's love and grace. Put on Jesus. Amen.