Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Jesus Wants to Overthrow Evil | Who Is Jesus? | Colossians 2.14-15

Episode Date: December 9, 2020

It's hard to go through heartbreak or see evil happening. How is God going to fix it? Find out from https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/staff/keith-simon/ (Pastor Keith Simon )as we continue our series on https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/podcast-series/who-is-jesus/ (Who Is Jesus?) Interested in more content like this? Check out https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/podcasts/can-christians-be-demon-possessed-questions-youre-asking-ephesians-6-10-18/ (Can Christians Be Demon-Possessed?) and https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/podcasts/what-to-believe-in/ (What to Believe In). Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. To learn more, visit our https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/ (website) and follow us on https://www.facebook.com/TenMinuteBibleTalks (Facebook), https://www.instagram.com/thecrossingcomo/ (Instagram), and https://twitter.com/thecrossingcomo (Twitter) @TheCrossingCOMO and @TenMinuteBibleTalks.  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.

Welcome to Tim Minna Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. My name is Patrick Miller. And I'm Keith Simon. Right now we're asking, who is Jesus? Do you find it's emotionally exhausting to live in a world with so much evil in it? I mean, you just can't escape it, can you? As much as you and I try, we just can't escape the evil, the horrible stories, the heartbreaking situations that we find ourselves surrounded. by or hearing on the news. Now, all of us struggle with it, but some of us really struggle with

it because we're just not created to withstand the bombardment of sad stories of evil situations that we're confronted with on a daily basis. Now, if we were going to start making a list of the heartbreaking stories, if we were going to make a list of all the evil that we see in our world, it would be endless. I mean, here are just some high-profile examples. Sandy Hook Elementary School, 20 children and six staff shot and killed. That happened in 2012. In 2015, at Emmanuel African Methodist Church, nine people shot in a Bible study, killed by a white supremacist. Add to that, child abuse, racial injustice, rape, murder, it just goes on and on.

Evil is prevalent in our world. And in the face of all that bad news, in the face of the evil, that we are constantly confronted with. Let me tell you some good news. Jesus came to defeat evil. 1 John 3.8 says it really clearly. It says the Son of God came to destroy the works of the devil. Now, throughout the Gospels and really throughout the rest of the New Testament, you'll find some times in which the Bible tells us exactly why Jesus came. And each statement kind of emphasizes a different mission that Jesus was on when he came into our world. And here in 1 John 3.8, it makes it really clear that the Son of God came to destroy the works of the devil and all the evil that he has created in our world. So there's one way in which

you can read the story of the Bible as telling us how in Jesus God defeated the evil that is the result of human sin and rebellion against God. Jesus took all that evil on himself on the cross. He bore the penalty that we deserved, and in his resurrection from the dead, he proved that he had won. That story starts, as all stories in the Bible do, in the very first pages of the Bible, when Adam and Eve are told not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good, now wait for it, and evil. Or what will happen? Well, they will surely die if they disobey God. soon Satan appears on the scene spreading his lies and tempting them to reject God's plan and live for their own plan, to reject God's authority, and to take that authority for themselves. Well, when Adam and Eve sin against God, when they disobey him, when they believe the lies of Satan, they become sinful, the garden is corrupted and the world is plunged into evil.

Now, God refuses to abandon his good creation, and he immediately promises that one day he will defeat Satan. Now, before we go any further in this story, I just want you to see that the Bible clearly teaches and Jesus clearly believes in dark spiritual forces. If you think that you're somehow beyond that, too educated for that, too modern for that, well, then you're too educated for Jesus. Guess what? I doubt that's true. See, Jesus believed that behind sin there is a dark spiritual force that we call evil and that those dark spiritual forces are led by Satan. Now, Satan isn't a name, right? John, Jill, Jane, Jimmy, and here's my friend Satan. No, that's not the way it is. See, the word Satan is a Hebrew word that is

transliterated into English. And in Hebrew, it always has the definite article in front of it. So it's always the Satan. In other words, Satan is a title more than a name. It means adversary. The Satan is God's adversary that is opposed to God's goodness, opposed to God's kingdom. One more thing before you pick back up in our story. I'm sure you've noticed that in the New Testament, the term that is used is devil, not Satan. But Satan and the devil are the same spiritual being. Devil is a Greek, Greek word that is equivalent to the Hebrew word Satan. So now back to the story. When Jesus comes, he knows that he must defeat not only sin, but also Satan, also the devil and the dark spiritual forces that lie behind sin. And one of the places we see Jesus do battle with the devil is in the

wilderness when he's tempted to rebel against God, just as Adam and Eve had done. So here we are. We're Luke chapter 3 or Matthew 4 Jesus has been baptized and the Holy Spirit leads him into the wilderness where he meets the devil. During 40 days of fasting, Satan tempts Jesus and we're told about three specific temptations, each one trying to get Jesus

to abandon God's plan and use his power for himself. Now each of the first two temptations that the devil makes, he comes to Jesus and says, first he says, if you're the son of God, turn these stones into bread, and then he comes and says, if you're the son of God, jump off this high building. The final temptation is the most obvious. Jesus has offered all the kingdoms of the world if he will only bow down and worship the devil. See, the devil's offering Jesus a shortcut. He's saying that you can have the crown without the cross. It's interesting in this whole dialogue that Jesus has with the devil that he acknowledges that the devil is the king of this world.

Or in other places in the Bible, he's called the ruler of this age or the prince of the power of the air. He's called the accuser, the tempter, the god of this age. And by the way, devil just means slanderer. That's literally what it means. So here Jesus is in the wilderness facing the same kind of temptation. that we all face. Will we do life on our own apart from God? Will we follow our plan or God's plan? Will we submit to God's authority? Or will we be an authority under ourselves? Jesus defeated the devil by submitting himself to God. In other words, Jesus did what Adam and Eve should have done, what you and I

should have done. And that is not believed the lies of the devil, but instead believed the truth of God. During Jesus's ministry, you see him battling against demonic forces, casting out demons, healing people. In Mark chapter 1, the demonic forces know who Jesus is. Listen to what they say. Jesus from Nazareth, what do you want with us? Have you come to destroy us? I know, who you are. You are God's holy one. Isn't that amazing? The demons knew exactly who Jesus was and what his

mission was. They knew that he had come to defeat them. So how is it that Jesus is going to defeat evil, that he's going to defeat sin and Satan and all the dark spiritual forces that lie behind sin?

Well, remember that time that Jesus is talking about how he is going to go to the cross and suffer. And Peter, one of the disciples, looks at Jesus and says, no way, we're not going to let that happen to you. There's no way you're going to suffer and die like that. And Jesus looks at Peter and says, get behind me, Satan. Why did he say that to Peter? Get behind me, Satan. By the way, I say that to Patrick every day when he comes into the office. Hey, get behind me, Satan. No, for real now. He says that because Peter has his mind set on things of man, not on the things of God.

Here Peter is trying to talk Jesus. Whether he knows it or not, Peter is trying to talk Jesus out of going to the cross. And Jesus says, that kind of thinking, well, that's satanic. That's demonic. That's evil thinking. And then remember back in the temptations, when the devil tempted Jesus in the wilderness, He started his first temptations by saying, if you are the son of God, the next time we hear that kind of language, it is when Jesus is on the cross. Listen to what the crowds say to him in Matthew 27.

They say, well, then, if you're the son of God, save yourself and come down from the cross. Satan's temptations are now being voiced by the crowds. They're trying to get him to come down from the cross. instead of dying on the cross. Why is that? Why is it that it seems that the demonic forces and the devil himself are always trying to keep Jesus from the cross? We saw it in the temptation of the wilderness

when the devil offered Jesus all the kingdoms of this world if he just wouldn't go to the cross. We saw it in Peter when he tried to talk Jesus out of going to the cross. We saw it now in Matthew 27 while Jesus is hanging on the cross that people are saying, look, if you're really the Son of God, save yourself, don't die up there. Why is it that the demonic forces so badly don't want Jesus to die on that cross? Well, Colossians too explains it. Listen to what it says about what Jesus did on the cross.

He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross, In this way, he disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross. See, now we see why the devil so badly wanted to keep Jesus from the cross. It's because by dying on the cross, he defeated sin and Satan. He defeated all those demonic forces. John 12 tells us that when Jesus was wasted up on that cross, he was being enthroned and Satan and all of his demonic forces were being dethroned.

Jesus defeated sin and Satan by submitting to God's plan, by laying aside his power, by giving up his life. Remember what God said the consequences of sin back in the garden were going to be? Remember he told Adam and Eve that if you eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you will surely die. Death. That is one of the main consequences of sin, and that's why Jesus had to die. When Jesus took all that sin and evil on himself,

he died on that cross. He took the penalty that Adam and Eve deserved, that you and I deserve, that every sinful person deserved. Jesus took that penalty on himself when he died on that cross. cross and then he rose from the dead and he showed that he had victory over death victory over sin and Satan. Then in the last pages of the Bible, the story about how in Jesus God defeated sin and Satan

comes to an end. Revelation 20. Then the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the fiery lake of burning sulfur joining the beast and the false prophet. There they will be tormented day and night. forever endeavor. When you're surrounded by evil, know that Jesus has come to defeat it. When your heart breaks at all the sad stories that you and I face on a daily basis, when you're confronted with all the evil in the world and you don't know how you can live in this world any longer, know that Jesus understands. He hates evil even more than you do. But in Jesus, God is defeating evil, and he one day will finally win. He will stand victorious.

Evil will be banished and no longer have a place in our life and in this world. Take heart. Jesus has defeated sin and safe. Thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed this content, please subscribe and give us a rating. That helps others find this podcast more easily. Also ask yourself who you could share this podcast with. Texting an episode to a friend or family member is a great way to help them grow spiritually.

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