Sermon Title- “Spiritual Warfare- The Foe”
Sermon Subject: “Every Christian is at War in this world with
Satan, God’s arch enemy and Our Foe”
Scripture- “Ephesians 6:10-18
Date- 09 May, 2004, Fifth Sunday of Easter / Mother’s Day

Today in addition to being the Fifth Sunday of
Easter is also Mother’s Day in our country and the Festival of the Christian Home in the Methodist Church. So it is appropriate that we continue our discussion of Spiritual Warfare since we learned last week that one of Satan’s three major goals is to undermine and destroy the Christian Home. We also learned that when we accept Jesus we also gain an automatic draft status of “1-A” in the spiritual war between God and His people and Satan and his people. We also take on Satan as our enemy. I hope you have little doubt left that you and I are in a war for our very souls. Today I want us to look at our enemy, Satan. Remember that last week we reviewed some of the results of the survey we took several months ago and found that:
Bethsaida Mount Zion Walker’s
Satan 80% 50% 45%
Satan’s greatest deception is that he is a caricature of evil in a funny red suit with a long, pointed tail and horns with a playful sneer on his face, or that he is in Hell shoveling coal in the eternal furnace. In either case he can be laughed at and certainly is not a reality in our world. I am here to tell you that nothing could be farther from the truth. He hides well where we do not expect him in places such as the church and in religion, in the media in editorials that spread hate, in the Arts as in music, poetry, novels and paintings, in intellectual pride, in just causes, in the latest fads, in roaring injustices, in the newest styles and often in our private fears. We don’t see him because we do not look for him. He is the original jet setter! In Job 2:2 the following conversation takes place, “2“Where have you come from?” the LORD asked Satan. And Satan answered the LORD, “I have been going back and forth across the earth, watching everything that’s going on.””
The arrogance of Satan, he is freely roaming the earth watching you and me looking for his shot at us!

Where did Satan come from?
Isaiah 14:12-14, “12“How you are fallen from heaven, O shining star, son of the morning! You have been thrown down to the earth, you who destroyed the nations of the world. 13For you said to yourself, ‘I will ascend to heaven and set my throne above God’s stars. I will preside on the mountain of the gods far away in the north. 14I will climb to the highest heavens and be like the Most High.’” Some translations also use the name Lucifer as Satan is shown as the King of Babylon representing evil in the world.
And in Ezekiel 28:11_19, “11Then this further message came to me from the LORD: 12“Son of man, weep for the king of Tyre. Give him this message from the Sovereign LORD: You were the perfection of wisdom and beauty. 13You were in Eden, the garden of God. Your clothing was adorned with every precious stone—red carnelian, chrysolite, white moonstone, beryl, onyx, jasper, sapphire, turquoise, and emerald—all beautifully crafted for you and set in the finest gold. They were given to you on the day you were created. 14I ordained and anointed you as the mighty angelic guardian. You had access to the holy mountain of God and walked among the stones of fire. 15“You were blameless in all you did from the day you were created until the day evil was found in you. 16Your great wealth filled you with violence, and you sinned. So I banished you from the mountain of God. I expelled you, O mighty guardian, from your place among the stones of fire. 17Your heart was filled with pride because of all your beauty. You corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor. So I threw you to the earth and exposed you to the curious gaze of kings.” Ezekiel is condemning Satan for leading the King of Tyre into sin. Satan was the chief guardian of the Throne of God, perfect in all his ways until pride lead him into disobedience, to wanting to be God and sin was born as God cast him out of heaven to the earth. And God prepared Hell for him and the angels who left with him. Pride was Satan’s sin and the first sin in the Garden. When we are full of pride we are Satanic!

Notice in Ephesians 6:10-18 “against” is used 5 times. We are against someone and someone is against us- Satan. Notice also who the message is addressed to; not to Bishops, not to Pastors, not to Lay Leaders, not to Deacons or Elders, but to “The Brethren”. The Brethren- that is you and me, that is all of us. We all have the same draft status and there are no exemptions.
Personality of Satan
Satan’s personality is defined by his hatred for God, for Jesus and for God’s people. And the names he is given in the Bible tell us all we need to know about his personality. He is called the divider, the murderer, the deceiver, the beguiler, the father of lies, the evil one, the tempter, the great red dragon, the enemy, the adversary and Beelzebub. His most common names are the Devil and Satan. He actively leads the people of the world and his demons, the fallen angels that left heaven with him, in open rebellion against God. As God is love, Satan is hate.

Satan is also the great imitator. He wants everything God has and Jesus is.
He has his own church or synagogue- Revelation 2:9
his own Gospel or religion- Galatians 1:6 & 7
his own ministers- 2 Corinthians 11:4
his own doctrine- 2 Timothy 4:3
his own communion table and cup-
1 Corinthians 10:20 & 21
and he will have his own Christ, the anti-Christ
He loves to mix lies and truth in religion and lead people astray and away from Jesus! He may well be more successful in the religious arena than anywhere else.

Satan’s Position
Three titles clearly show us Satan’s position today.
1. Prince, Prince of the world as he leads evil men and women and Prince of the powers of the air as he leads evil spirits. Matthew 12:24&and 25:41; or Ephesians 2:2
2. Potentate or ruler- ruler over the evil of this world- John12:31, 14:30 and 16:11
3. God of this evil age- 2 Corinthians 4:4
Our foe is a Prince, a Ruler and a God and the second most powerful person in the universe subject only to God
Satan’s Power
Too many Christians have no respect for Satan’s power even if they do believe he is a real person. There is no motivation to put on armor against a foe you do not fear. They have been lead to believe there is no war and all is love and peace and harmony for Christians. That is a very harmful belief for you spiritual health. Matthew tells us we are held in the power of darkness by the evil one until Christ frees us. Among others Satan has these powers:
power of death as an executioner- Hebrews 2:14
power of miracles- 2 Thessalonians 2:9
power of destruction Revelation 12:3
power to devour people- 1 Peter 5:8
The verbs associated with Satan in the bible tell us about how he uses his power. He beguiles, destroys, devours, deceives, lies, hinders, tempts, persecutes, accuses, seduces, betrays and gets in the way and between God and us to keep us doing God’s will. Not one of these verbs is positive.
Satan’s Purpose
To oppose all God proposes is at the core of all of Satan’s purposes. We learned last week that Satan wants to take each of us to Hell with him so we are separated from Jesus forever. He already has an out-post in our hearts and a beachhead in our lives. He gets in through our flesh and then attacks our spirit. We need the armor of God to keep him out and from increasing the beachhead once in. We also learned last week that Satan is out to destroy the Christian family and to devour the Church of Christ. He is out to offset and counteract every good thing God wants to do for His creation.

How Satan Does It
His three main weapons are deception, division and destruction. He mixes lies and truth and deceives Eve and he creates cults to draw people away from the church Christ died for. He misquotes and distorts Scripture as in Matthew 4 when tempting Jesus. Some say you can make the Bible say anything. You can and Satan does, but the Lord does not. The Lord quotes only what God inspired men to write, not what some men might wish it to say. He uses false teachers and false prophets. (Sunday school in Baltimore) He convinces people that good can come from doing evil- the old ends and means argument. Satan is the Father of lies as Jesus says in John 8:44, “For you are the children of your father the Devil, and you love to do the evil things he does. He was a murderer from the beginning and has always hated the truth. There is no truth in him. When he lies, it is consistent with his character; for he is a liar and the father of lies. Satan divided the angels when he left heaven, he divided the first family resulting in the first murder, he divided the early church and he divides the church today. The disruptions in our church and the Episcopal and Catholic churches are not accidents. Finally Satan destroys reputations, financial bases, and physical strength. He saps time and energy and talents so we have little left for God. If he can burn us out and exhaust our resources, we have nothing left for God and we are destroyed as useful servants. Notice Ephesians 6:16- “16In every battle you will need faith as your shield to stop the fiery arrows aimed at you by Satan. What are these darts? They are fear, doubt, suspicion, negative criticism, bitterness, distrust, dislike, intolerance, jealousy, deception, destruction, division, envy, greed, arrogance, egoism and pride to name a few. Once we are hit with one or more of these darts the poison begins to circulate and look for a way out. For expression, and they find the tongue. That is what James was talking about in James 3:7 when he said, “The tongue is a restless evil full of poison”. Without the armor we will be hit and some of us are deceived or bitter or intolerant, and some of us are already casualties. We all know some who have left the faith and fallen away.

The foe is real, the war is real and the casualties are real. Paul notes in 1 Thessalonians 2:18. “We wanted very much to come, and I, Paul, tried again and again, but Satan prevented us. We are powerless on our own to ward off the enemy. We think we can do something- go to church more often, pray more, read the Bible more often, and do more good works for God. Remember in Isaiah 59:17, even God puts on the breastplate of His righteousness and the helmet of salvation before He goes out to meet Satan. But God has given us all the power and protection we need. I hope by now you see clearly the need to put on the whole armor of God. Next week we will look at the Belt or Girdle of Truth, the first piece of our armor.