SATAN

Transcript:

0:00 Intro

Satan is bound and his power is even more limited now by the defeat of Christ than it was previously by the sovereignty of God. 

Today's video is on the topic of Satan. Looking for some answers, Kyle and I went to Trinity Reformed Church to get Pastor Van eyk's thoughts on the subject. This is Faith to Film.

Satan is a created angel, originally created good, but he rebelled against God and in his rebellion became a fallen angel. He is of the first rank among all the evil angels and he actively opposes God and everything good. 

0:45 How is Satan described in the bible?

Satan is described in the bible differently to common conceptions of Satan. He is portrayed as dressed in a red suit with cloven hooves and with a tail, horns, carrying a trident, and that was actually a medieval conception intended to help people to mock and ridicule Satan because they thought that would be effective in weakening his power because of his pride. But the bible is far more sophisticated in its description of Satan. Satan is a fallen angel. Satan is superhuman. He has power and intellect above normal human capacity. He is described as the great deceiver, a liar, the father of lies, a murderer from the beginning. He cloaks himself as an angel of light. He is deceptive, he schemes always, he is malevolent and has pure - if someone like Satan can have anything pure - but has a pure hatred for God and for God's people in particular. 

1:56 How does Satan work against us?

The bible speaks about Satan as having schemes. He's sinister and he works against us in a variety of ways. He works against us through the forces of nature. Both within us and around us. So, for example, in Luke 13 Jesus speaks about a woman who was bent over and who could not straighten up as being oppressed by Satan and then in the story of Jesus on the sea of galilee with his disciples in the midst of that enormous storm it is clear there that behind the forces of nature that caused the storm and that threatened the disciples was the sinister figure of Satan whom Jesus then rebukes when He rebukes the wind and the waves. So, he works in the forces of nature both within us and around us. He works through the manipulation of nations and the apostle Paul talks about how we fight not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers. And then Satan can use other believers. Christians can be unwitting tools of Satan to mislead their brothers and sisters. Remember how Jesus in Mark's gospel said to Peter "get behind me Satan" at that moment Peter was an instrument of Satan to attack the Lord Jesus. Satan often attacks us through temptations and his chief design always is to get us to reject God and the Lord Jesus Christ and his chief tool is deception. He always casts aspersions or doubts on the truthfulness of the Word of God so that we would believe a lie rather than embrace the truth. 

3:52 How should we respond to this?

When Christians think about Satan, they often go to two extremes. One is to think that he's non-existent or not important the other is to be in terror of him. We ought to reject both extremes. The bible tells us that Satan is powerful, that he is one to be feared, he goes about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour, that's what the apostle Peter says. But the scriptures also tell us that he is a defeated enemy, he is actually a loser, he always attacks from a position of defeat and that though he might be stronger than Christians, he is not stronger than Christ. He who is in us is greater than he who is in the world. Christ is the champion, he's the one who is the victor, who has vanquished by his death on the cross, Satan so that Satan is mortally wounded..