When you think of Satan, what comes to your mind?
Is it a myth? Is it a man in a little red suit?
Is it some bizarre, weird, forceful power? Who
is Satan? What is he like? What does he do? And
what power does he have? If you don't know the
answer to that question, you better stick around.
God wants you to know that answer so you can
deal with him effectively. Stay with me. Thanks
for listening to this edition of Living on the
Edge with Chip Ingram. We are an international
teaching and discipleship ministry that encourages
and equips Christians to live like Christians.
Today we're continuing our series, The Invisible
War. Chip picks up where he left off last time
by unpacking the basics of spiritual warfare.
Who is Satan? How does he operate? And what's
really happening in this unseen battle around
us? He's also going to highlight the specific
tools we'll need to fight back against our enemy.
So if you have a Bible, go again to Ephesians
chapter 6 for the remainder of Chip's talk, What
is the Invisible War? Not only is there an invisible
world, not only are we in invisible battle and
cosmic conflict, but our foe is formidable and
his goal is to destroy us and discredit the cause
of Christ. Ephesians 6 .12. Here's the deal.
Satan is powerful. We're going to learn in just
a minute that he was the highest of all the angels.
The classification of a cherub. We'll learn that
he was the most brilliant, the most beautiful,
the most powerful, and that he was actually given
to govern the earth. He's the prince in the power
of the air. It's heaven over. And so you don't
want to take it lightly. Notice what... Peter
says, in the midst of persecution, he writes
to the church, 1 Peter 5 .8, be of sober spirit,
be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls
about like a roaring lion, seeking someone to
devour. He plays for keeps. He wants to destroy
you. All I want you to know is that we really
need to understand that this enemy is formidable
and powerful and deceitful and can trick us and
fool us and create a roaring lion. We had a chance
many years ago to be in Africa, and I didn't
know that much about lions. But the way they
hunt is the one, you can hear a roar like two
or three miles. And it's like scary. And then
he walks. Well, guess what? All the game goes
the other direction. And while Big Daddy's roaring
over here, there's four or five lionesses that
are all waiting over here. And just bring them
on, Daddy. Fear is one of the greatest weapons
of the enemy. In many ways, I think of him as,
I don't know, I have a friend who did this to
me, which I deeply didn't appreciate and almost
lost my hearing. But he had a gun, a very...
Big gun. And he said, oh, have you seen this?
And he put it up like this. And then, boom, boom,
boom, boom, boom. And I mean, my heart came out
of my chest and my ear almost came out. But it
had blanks in it. But it scared me like it was
real. My body responded like it was real. And
the enemy will do things in your life to give
fear at the depth of your soul that will paralyze
you and keep you from trusting God and doing
his will. With that, then, here's what I'd like
to do. And I rarely give, now you're looking
at your notes and going, if we're going to cover
all of this, I hope the guy falls out of the
window soon. Because, I mean, this guy's got
more verses and more outlines here than we'll
cover. Here's what I want you to know. We're
going to cover it, but a little bit differently.
I believe that you really learn best when you
look up things and you dig them out for yourself.
And the reason I put all those verses in there
is for those who may be a little bit more like
me who are thinking, you know, I think you're
a little over the top on talking about Satan
and demons. I don't think it's that big a deal.
I wanted you to see for yourself how big a deal
it is, okay? So let me give you an overview.
So is Satan for real? The authority of the Bible,
we find him in the very beginning, Genesis and
Chronicles in the middle, and Revelation, all
the way through. The testimony of Christ, we
have 25 references of Christ interacting with
demons. In Matthew chapter four, if you believe
the text, he had a personal encounter with Lucifer
himself, being tempted with the lust of the flesh,
lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. Memo.
He didn't pull out his I'm God card to defeat
him. He showed us how to do spiritual battle.
It is written, it is written, it is written.
We'll talk about it later. Who is Satan? He's
a created spirit according to Colossians 1 and
Job 1 .3. He's an angel of the highest classification,
a cherub. And when I say cherub, do not think
Hallmark, you know, cute little cheeks. Think
of a blazing angel that is so powerful you would
fall flat on your face. He's the highest of all
the created beings, Ezekiel 28. Where did he
come from? He was created perfect. He had a heavenly
estate. His job description was to be the guardian
of God's glory. Talk about, boy, what a job.
The occasion of his sin is power and beauty.
The nature of his sin was pride, and the cause
of his sin was his own free... personal choice.
And let me just give you what I call, they're
the five I will statements. I can't develop it,
but the two places, Ezekiel 28 and Isaiah 14,
again, often the prophets will be talking about
a geographical real situation, and then they'll
sort of go off and talk about Satan and then
come back to that. And in Isaiah 14, 13, this
is the cause of Satan's fall. This is Satan speaking,
I will ascend to heaven. Well, he already had
access to God. What he's saying is, I will ascend
and I'm going to occupy the abode of God. I want
equal recognition with him. In the same chapter,
he says, I will raise my throne above the stars
of God. And the morning stars are all the angels
that God has already created. So he wants to
be independent and sort of run his own show.
Third, I will sit on the mount of the assembly.
This is where God rules. So I want equality with
God. Now I want to run the show. I want to be
in control. And then where God rules, I want
to rule instead of him. Four, I will ascend above
the heights of the clouds. In the clouds, the
picture here is of God's glory. I want to be
now above God. And number five, I will make myself
like the most high. And that's the occasion of
his sin. And he knows his destiny. And a third
of the angels fell at this coup and this rebellion.
And his goal is to destroy everything that's
meaningful to God. Here's a thought. I'm reading
a book right now. And it's always, you know,
be careful of recommending books you haven't
read the whole thing. But I've read a lot of
his other stuff. This is Life Without Lack by
Dallas Willard. It's on Psalm 23. But he talks
about spiritual warfare here. And if you know
anything about Dallas Willard, he was in the
department of the University of Southern California.
He was the head of the philosophy department
for a season. He taught there for 47 years. And
multiple degrees translated multiple key texts
from German to English. He's a brilliant man
living in an academic world, and this is his
perspective for our intellectuals. Part of the
problem with our faith today is that we do not
truly believe in the reality of the spiritual,
either the good side or the evil side. In our
world, people maintain their sense of respectability
by rejecting everything except what they can
see in the natural world. To accept that there
is more than that threatens their self -identity.
as proper, intelligent citizens of the modern
world. And he talks about, obviously, he's interacting
with brilliant people at USC, and he says, you
know, I get the smiles of the naivety that I
have, that I believe in a supernatural being
and the person of Jesus and spiritual warfare.
And it's just some of the best writing I've read
in a long time about the reality, the reality
of a world that we can't see. And, you know,
whether it's on Instagram or whether it's a movie
or whether it's Netflix or whether it's time
on a screen, there is a orchestrated global goal
to get people distracted and believing that they
are the center of the world. And please, please
don't make applications I'm not making. So I
say things and they have unintended consequences.
understand that there's a great role for things
like Facebook and understand there's, you know,
what is it, two, three billion people on it now?
But could we just pause and say, so what exactly
is Facebook? Facebook is where I'm the star of
my show. And the reward is how many likes I get.
And I'm so the star of my show is that, you know,
I have to pull out my phone and take a picture
of me and then I post about me and... You were
probably wondering when I had a latte yesterday,
weren't you? Huh? Yeah, you are. Or would you
like to see my picture -perfect family and my
perfect vacation with me in Hawaii? And what
we're seeing is a nosedive of young people, a
nosedive that's suicidal, that's depression,
that's anxiety, because now they compare their
worst self with these artificial selves. And
by the way, if you haven't done some of the research
about the rewiring of the brain with screen time,
start reading. There's a great TED Talk by a
guy who's an unbeliever, and someone says, you
know, he goes through all the things that happen
with immersed screen time of young people. And
so they say, well, again, this is not a recommendation.
It's an illustration. Some of you real literal
people are going to get me in trouble. So they
ask him in this TED Talk, so, like, when's the
best time to give someone a phone? You know,
a mobile phone that can get everything and download
everything. Oh, he says, as soon as you're ready
for them to get suicidal, anxious, totally self
-focused, talk with friends, allow the whole
world to have access that they can't comprehend,
get pornography in their mind, and have them
completely inundated where they can't relate
to other people, that's when I would get them
one. Is it wrong to have a phone? Of course not.
But here's what we do, people. We act so stupid
and naive. We get so secluded in my little silo,
in my own little world, that we don't realize
it's just not messages, but it's methodology
as well. I mean, start watching commercials.
Just watch commercials. Forgive me, I do this
all the time, and my poor kids had to get it
all the years growing up. I watch commercials,
and I always ask, what are they trying to sell?
How are they trying to sell it? Where are the
cameras? What are they promising? I mean, in
the old days, it was easy. You know, like, if
you brush yourself, brush yourself with this
toothpaste or drink this beer, beautiful blondes
will jump into your sports car. It is. It's much
more sophisticated now. Watch the movies. Ask
yourself, just... record something and do a seven
o 'clock and watch three prime times and eight
o 'clock and three prime times and ask yourself,
what are the values? Then ask yourself, what
are people laughing at? Because when you want
to really trick people and change their values,
the values have changed 180 degrees in the last
30 or 40 years, but we had to laugh. about things
that were wrong and evil, and then it got to
be, well, okay with the little conflict, and
then it got to be normalized, and then it got
to be, you're a narrow bigot, not if you just
disagree. That did not happen overnight. And
that's not human ingenuity. The goal of the enemy
is to blind the minds. To say, instead of this
is male and female, this is beauty and family.
This is a community. This is what we do with
our children. This is a community of people that
sacrifice for one another. And it's twisted.
And by the way, and this passage teaches, don't
get so mad at the people that are getting deceived.
The whole passage said, the battle's not against
flesh and blood. You know, it's not like, well,
the government, it's the media, it's that group,
it's this group, it's that group. They are being
manipulated. What they need is loved by us in
ways with a lifestyle where they go, oh. But
you live it first in our day, and then we get
to tell them. So I just want to tell you, Satan's
real. I want my way. Can anyone vaguely remember
what the temptation was in the garden? What was
the promise to Eve? Oh, yeah, that's right. You
can be God. Do you understand? Okay, what's God?
I'm in control. My desires, my personal fulfillment,
my self -esteem. Does any of this sound familiar?
I mean, welcome to the NFL, people. But it's
not just the culture. It's not Hollywood. It's
not this. It's not that. There is an orchestrated
plan. And Paul would say, stop fighting spiritual
battles with fleshly means and start warring
with supernatural weapons. Number one, we're
living in this world. There's visible, invisible.
Number two, there's a cosmic conflict. Number
three, our foe is formidable. He's real. There's
a lot of verses that talk about him. Number four,
we must respect our foe but not fear him. Become
acutely aware of his methods but not be preoccupied
by them. Get that. You respect him, you don't
fear him. Paul is agreeing to forgive this brother
and then he goes, in order that no advantage
may be taken of us by Satan for we are not Ignorant
of his schemes. Circle the word schemes again.
Strategies. Here's the question I have for you.
Are you ignorant of his strategies? If so, you're
getting duped. You can work as hard as you want,
try as hard as you want, want to be a good person.
If you're ignorant of his strategies, you are
being taken in all the time. If you're on the
staff, of an NFL team, in fact, in our day, college,
high school, you know what you do all week? You
watch film. Why? You have to understand the schemes
of the other team. You will watch the last three
games. What did they do? Third and short. Well,
67 % of the time, they went off tackle right
with... What do they do in the red zone? I'm
telling you, they... Watch the film. They know
the percentages, what formations, what the possibility
in this formation, who's going to do what to
win a game. To win a game, I mean, literally,
I got a buddy that's a pretty high -profile football
coach. I mean, during football season, I think
they're up 20 hours. And I mean, and then they
break down that every person, they'll get, here's
all the film. This is your areas. When you see
this, this is your key. When he takes the first
step to the right, it's going to be a counterplay.
I mean, We need to study the film. If you want
to know Satan's strategies, here's the film.
Study his names. His name reveals his strategies.
Here's some of his names. He's anointed cherub.
He's the prince of this world. Like I said, he's
orchestrating things. His name is Satan. That
means adversary. The prince in the power of the
air. He has authority over. Remember Jesus talked
about the God of this world or the God of this
age. He's the prince in the power of demons.
So he has a host of angels working for him. He's
Lucifer. That means son of the morning or lily
of the light. We get the idea that evil is always
going to be packaged in, you know, weird stuff
and ugly stuff. Some of the most amazing evil
in the world is beautiful, attractive, luring.
It's amazing if you look at places where there's
great satanic activity. Go to Boulder, Colorado.
Go to Sedona. Go to Santa Cruz. New Age places.
It's the most beautiful places in the world.
And they take that beauty and they talk about,
here's where the energy cells are, where we lived
in Santa Cruz, more satanic bookstores than like
any place but Boulder, Colorado. And the offers
are not ugly and bad. He promises beautiful things.
Think of what he promised Jesus. Jesus, come.
Here's all the kingdoms of all the world. I'll
give them all to you. Now think of this. He had
the authority to do it. Is that how you see Satan?
Do you think of an angel that has the authority
to give all the kingdoms? Have you ever thought
of that nations are being influenced, that governments,
that economies, that laws? I mean, this is amazing.
He's the evil one. It's a very interesting word,
ho poneros. It means intrinsically wicked and
corrupt. It's the Hitlers of the world that were
inspired. The level of ruthlessness, the wiping
out of children, companies that would purposely,
knowingly pour toxins into the water streams
because we can make millions of dollars rather
than clean it up. It's evil. The abuse of little
children. The taking of women and children in
Thailand, in the Philippines, and selling them
and abusing them. This is wickedness. And this
is what he does. These are his names. You're
listening to Living on the Edge. Before we continue
today's program, let me quickly ask you, are
you concerned about the lies and temptations
bombarding your kids each and every day? Well,
join us after the message to hear about a valuable
small group resource that will help you as a
parent equip your children with the truth and
the biblical armor they need to stand victorious.
Keep listening after this message to learn more.
But for now, here again is Chip to continue our
series, The Invisible War. It goes on to say,
He's a tempter. He's the one who promises things.
Oh, you can take a shortcut. You don't have to
do it the other way. No one will ever find out.
He's the accuser. Condemnation. I did a presentation
for some of the Living on the Edge family, and
I got really, really excited, and I really had
a good time. And I looked up at the clock, and
I went, like, way too long. No, no, no. I mean,
like, way too long. And all afternoon, all I
could think of was I was preparing for this,
and it was like, you blew it. That was terrible.
Those people drove here. They came early. You
talked and talked and talked and talked. Condemnation,
condemnation. Now, no one got up and said, you
talked. I mean, they act like they were interested.
You know? And I could be deluding myself because
I really thought they were. We were having a
ball, or so I thought. And I think God really
worked, but he wants to take me out. He doesn't
want you to hear what I'm teaching you. And I
had about an hour and a half, went back up the
room, reviewed all my notes, and I just had to
say, Lord, you know. Get behind me, Satan, the
condemnation. There's some of you that have lived
with, you don't measure up. And Satan used a
teacher or a mom or a dad or a coach to tell
you, you're a loser. You don't measure up and
you've believed it. What may have come through
a human person, that's from the enemy. That's
a lie. You are worth the very blood and the life
of the son of God. That's how precious you are
to him. And ultimately, he's a deceiver. This
is his middle name. When his lips are moving,
he's lying. Jesus called him the father of lies.
He's the accuser of the brethren. Notice, he
represents himself as a servant, so he's crafty,
a dragon, fearful, powerful, terrifying, as an
angel of light, as the father of lies. Notice
his programs. And when you look at this, all
I want you to do is get, look at all these verses.
I mean, if you want a Bible study like tomorrow
morning, just take these notes out and just look
up all these verses. Every one of them will have
satanic, demonic influence. False philosophies,
false religions, false ministers, false doctrine,
false disciples, false morals. He attacks governments,
deceiving men, destroying life, persecuting the
saints, preventing service, promoting schisms,
planting doubt. And then, you know, we have to
own our choices. But we're getting a lot of help.
We have our flesh. He provokes sin and anger,
pride, worry, self -reliance, discouragement,
worldliness, lying, immorality. And then he produces
sex and cults, according to 1 Timothy 4 .1. For
those of you that were worried about how long
this was going to be, how'd I do? We Zoomed,
right? So I just want you to stare. Just stare
at the page for a minute. And if you were over
into, wow, I'm glad we're talking about Satan
and demons because, man, I'm really aware of
all that stuff. Or you may be a little bit more
like, yeah, I mean, I know the Bible teaches
it, but let's be careful that we don't go off.
Here's what I want you to know. Here's what the
Bible says. Those are verses. This is what the
Bible says. This is what Jesus says. This is
a big deal. Look at the sheer amount of material.
Can we afford to be ignorant of his schemes?
Could it be, I mean currently, church is in decline
among Christians, morals are in decline among
Christians, the giving, financial giving across
the board in churches today is less per capita
than during the Great Depression. Oh, it's us.
Right? By the way, at a time, despite our corporate
national debt, the most affluent in the history
of the world resides in the United States. Marriages
are fractured like never before. I mean, could
anyone think maybe there's something going on?
The sexual confusion? The attack on people's
identity? Here's the good news. Satan's power
is limited. He's created and therefore not omniscient
or infinite. Second, he can be resisted by the
Christian. For some of you, it's like, you know,
I'm just teasing, but hey, honey, you think we
can keep the light on tonight? He's formidable,
but we don't have to be afraid. James 4, 7. Resist
the devil. and he will flee from you. He goes
on. He says God places limitations on him. When
he wanted to attack Job, I mean, he has access
before God. Is this crazy? He only can ever do
anything in some arena that God would allow in
your life. And there are certain times where
God actually allows Satan to do things to believers
to fulfill his purposes. He did to the apostle
Paul. Paul had such revelation that he allowed
some messenger of Satan to do something physical,
we don't know what it is, to give him a sense
of dependency. It's a sovereign God. The application
here is balance and wisdom are crucial in our
assessment of spiritual opposition. To assign
too much or too little credit to the reality
of demonic activity is to err greatly. Here's
the last one and maybe the most important. As
believers in Christ, we do not fight for victory.
We fight from victory. In Christ's power, we
are invincible. Let me say that again, and I'm
not trying to be cute. As believers in Christ,
we do not fight for victory. You're not going
against him to try and win. You fight from victory.
You've already won. Here's the promises from
God over Satan that if you find yourself struggling
or thinking you're aware of some things, and
we'll talk very specifically about how to do
this in our times together, but here's some passages
that if you've never memorized any passages,
these would be good ones. 1 John 4, for you are
from God, little children, and overcome them,
because greater is he that is in you than he
that is in the world. 1 John 5, 4 and 5, for
whatever is born of God overcomes the world.
And this is the victory that has overcome the
world, our faith. And who is the one who's overcome
the world? But he who believes that Jesus is
the son of God. Romans 12, 11, it's talking about
Satan. And they overcame him, Satan, how? By
the blood of the land, by the word of the testimony,
and they did not love their life, even unto death.
And then finally, James 4, 7 and 8, submit therefore
to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from
you. I'm going to talk a little bit later, and
I'm going to give you all kind of hope. I'm going
to tell you a story of a 10 -year -old boy that
because he lived in my house, and when we lived
in Santa Cruz, we went from the mind and the
heart and the general deception to overt, wacky,
weird, I mean, satanic stuff that I thought only
happened overseas or with missionaries or someone
else. And I will tell you that a 10 -year -old
boy armed with those verses got out of his bed
on his knees, quoted them out loud, told the
demons where to go, and bam. And I talked to
him at breakfast the next morning because I heard
what was going on. And this happened much in
our house. And we'll talk a little bit more about
it. It was just like, it was terrifying the first
two years we lived there. And I remember Ryan
going, Dad, I'm just sick and tired of this stuff
that happened in the middle of the night. And
he knows 10 years old. So what's he know? He
just believes. The greater me is than him, I
believe. Usually I wake you up and we pray and
all that, but I just got tired of this. So I
got down on my knees and I quoted those verses
and I told them to leave because I wanted to
go back to bed. And they did. Because here's
what you need to understand. The power is not
in your great faith. The power is you're God's
child. You're his sons. You're his daughters.
And when Jesus says it is written, or you say
it is written, the authority of Scripture is
over demonic forces. There's nothing to be afraid
of. Here's a summary that I want you to get because
I want to plant these truths. Satan is a defeated
foe, John 12, 31. Jesus destroyed the works of
the devil, Colossians 2, 14 and 15. We are victors
in Christ, 1 Corinthians 15, 55 to 58, and we
have the power and resources to resist Satan
and demonic attacks, 1 John 4, 4. We must learn
how to put on the full armor of God to experience
in daily living the victory, underline this last
phrase, that we already possess. You're listening
to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. And the
message you just heard, what is the invisible
war, is from our series, The Invisible War. Chip
will join us in studio to share some insights
from today's talk in just a minute. Right now,
there's a spiritual battle happening all around
us. We can't see it, but it's an epic struggle
for our hearts and minds. So what are we as believers
supposed to do? Well, through this eight -part
study, Chip shares some insights from Ephesians
chapter 6 for how we're to think about, prepare
for, and respond to spiritual warfare. Learn
why we don't have to be afraid because of the
armor God's given us to fight back, and fight
well. To learn more about this series, visit
livingontheedge .org or the Chip Ingram app.
Well, Chip's with me in studio now to share a
quick word. Thanks, Dave. Before we go any further,
I want to remind you what we're learning in this
series. There is a war happening all around us.
We have an enemy whose purpose is to destroy
us and our connection with God. And you have
to know how to fight and to fight back effectively.
I want to encourage you to get the small group
study, The Invisible War, what every Christian
needs to know about Satan, demons, and spiritual
warfare. It'll teach you how Satan attacks. how
to put on your armor, and how you already have
the victory, but you have to possess it. You
know, we're in a battle, and my experience over
and over as a pastor, it's sitting around a table
or in a living room with a group of people where
you share, you pray, you share insights about
what you're learning and where you're struggling,
and you come together and put this into practice.
That's where real growth occurs. Let me encourage
you. Don't just read the book or listen to the
message. Get the small group. Dig in. and say,
Lord, you have given us the victory. Would you
now show us how to live it out day by day? To
learn more about the Invisible War small group,
go to livingontheedge .org. Join Chip in this
vital study and uncover the biblical weapons
and armor we've been given to withstand Satan's
attacks and stand victorious over him. Place
your order for the Invisible War small group
by visiting livingontheedge .org. App listeners
tap special offers. Well, with that, here again
is Chip. There is a danger when you hear a teaching
like today. And the danger is that when you hear
so many verses and so much information about
Satan and demons that you can get thinking unconsciously
that this is overwhelming despite the promises
that we've heard. Here's what I want you to take
away. Number one, there are lots of passages,
I mean tons of passages, about Satan and demons
so it's real. Number two, you do not have to
be afraid. This passage, this Ephesians 6, is
about the armor that we do have. Satan is a defeated
foe. Jesus did destroy the works of the devil.
We are victors in Christ, but you need to know
how to put on the full armor of God. Here's what
you've got to do. Go to the web. I think of all
the series that I've taught, it will be most
important that you have something to look at
as you listen. God bless you because greater
is he that is in you than he that is in the world.
You don't have to be afraid. You are more than
a conqueror through Christ. Amen. We absolutely
are, Chip. Thanks. Well, from all of us here,
I'm Dave Drewy, thanking you for listening to
this edition of Living on the Edge, and I hope
you'll join us again next time.