Satanic Power

Welcome to Have You Not Read, a podcast seeking to answer questions from the text of scripture for the honor of Christ and the edification of the saints.

Before we dig into our topic, we humbly ask you to rate, review, and share the podcast. Thank you.

I'm Dylan Hamilton, and with me are Michael Deere, David Kazin, Chris Kiesler, and we also have

Andrew Hudson here with us, and he will comment as he feels the need, but we only have four chairs here, and somebody had to get knocked out, and he drew the short stick, so here he is.

But we've been in discussion with each other and with a lot of people in our lives, either here at the church or family members, and it seems like a topic that's been coming up lately, and just in general conversation, is maybe the context of it is spiritual powers, and maybe

Satan's, or a misunderstanding of Satan's authority now, what it might have been in the

New Testament or in the Gospels, and how we are to view it from the scriptures, how it is today, and how we are to function, whether that be in prayer life, in church with one another, concerning what powers or what spiritual authority, if any, that Satan and his minions may have.

So we're gonna go ahead and have that be the subject broached here, and Michael, if you wouldn't mind starting us off.

So many times there are unhelpful, shall we say unbiblical, pendulum swings as regards the enemy and thinking about Satan, and we can think about that trajectory in a couple of ways.

One, someone who is very thoughtful about opposition to good things, thinking about the root cause of sickness or stress, setbacks, difficulties, and so on, will instinctively know that God is good, and everything that he does is good.

God desires good things, so that when bad things happen, and it seems pretty clear that they're bad, that all the credit should be given to a power other than God.

When we see the death of children, the sickness of families, the division and falling apart of churches, when we see the kidnapping of missionaries, when we encounter various things and see various things, there is a hesitancy amongst sincere saints to say,

I wonder what God is up to? Because they're going to say, well, it's clear what Satan is up to. He's trying to keep the gospel from going out.

He's trying to keep people lost. He's trying to destroy. He's stealing, he's killing, he's destroying.

I certainly see the work of Satan here. And when that kind of thing shows up in their own lives, they sense the need to engage in spiritual warfare and oppose what they see to be diabolical forces, demonic forces, indeed

Satan himself. Now, the pendulum swing can be one in which every negative happenstance can be interpreted as demonic oppression, opposition from the enemy, and so forth.

Okay, there is another pendulum swing of saying, I think that's too much.

I don't think it's right to find two or three demons behind every bush. And I think that in the main, it's okay to just acknowledge that we live in a fallen world and yet God is sovereign and he uses difficult things in our lives for our good.

And I don't have to attribute every negative circumstance to Satan. And I think while that's probably a healthy move, there's also the tendency to then kind of live as if there is no enemy, as if there are no spiritual forces of darkness whatsoever, as if they have no influence and there is no actual impact in the world in which we live today.

Kind of a little bit agnostic towards demons and Satan. Okay, so I would say that either pendulum swing would be unhealthy in a biblical manner.

Now, I think there could be a lot of agreement with someone who is concerned and perhaps they have a heightened awareness of things in their own interpretation of events and they see demonic opposition in a variety of events in their lives and experiences and other people's lives.

That doesn't mean that they don't give all the credit to a sovereign God who's in charge of everything. And they say at the end of the day, of course,

God is in charge, he's sovereign over everything. In fact, we can see in the scriptures where God used demons as his means to achieve his ends.

We even have references in the Old Testament where the indictment against Israel is that when they're sacrificing to these foreign gods, to these gods of Canaan, they're actually sacrificing to demons.

We're not saying that that doesn't exist or that demons don't exist or that those things are just irrelevant or that they're metaphors.

These are real things. Yes, and that's good to acknowledge. So I would say that somewhere, not in terms of third wayism or anything, but to not swing the pendulum over to agnostic side where we sure like the

Bible and the theology and the doctrine of it, but when it comes to demons and Satan, we just don't even pay attention to that.

It kind of muddies things up. And then the other side of it is over -emphasizing, over -privileging demonic forces in everyday events.

Okay, now why can we say that biblically? Because I think that when we read the scriptures, that's the balance that we have in the scriptures.

We are encouraged in certain directions in the word. Where should our confidence be?

Where should our focus be? Taking those exhortations to heart, we are far better off to be at peace and at rest in the good care of our good shepherd and not overly alarmed about the enemy and yet also not unaware of his devices.

When you read the gospels and you read the book of Acts, you're actually preaching through Acts right now on Sunday mornings, and then you look at some of the letters of Paul in the

New Testament and Peter as well, you get a sense that this stuff happens often.

I understand that those are the stories that the writer's focusing on that point in time.

As we read through it, as we read through the gospels, read through Acts, read through some of the letters, it seems to happen quite a bit, at least in that time, and that hasn't really been my lived experience today.

So we can talk about some of the differences and some of the different time periods, but there seems to be an emphasis on that in the, let's say, just say in the gospels, the number of times that Christ himself went up against a very real demonic force.

And we're telling people that, hey, have you not read? I mean, we're telling people to read the scriptures and to pattern their life off those, and this is what

God is teaching you. So at the risk of being hypocritical, are we telling people that that doesn't matter?

Are we telling people that, well, that kind of stuff happens, but that's for Jesus to take care of? I mean, if we read the scriptures, where is that balance?

Yeah, so I think the balance is in paying attention, paying more attention to the stories, not less.

So when you have these encounters between Christ and demons or Satan's temptation of Christ in the wilderness, the history of the miracles through the apostles in the book of Acts, the description of spiritual warfare, for instance, in Ephesians chapter six and 1

John and in the book of Revelation, these are just a sampling, but I think the way we should approach that is more study, more reading of that, more careful reading of that, not less.

So in other words, there's a difference between, well, I think someone once put it this way.

Someone once told me, he said, I'm not an exegetical preacher. I'm not like an expositional preacher.

Really, I'm a textual preacher. Huh? And what he meant by that was, although I've never been trained to be like expositional, he does preach text after text, but the text itself is simply introducing themes to explore, right?

So you could preach one passage after another in order, but that's not necessarily expositional preaching.

It could be just textual preaching in which, hey, this text has these certain themes and now let's go explore those themes.

So it's like abstracting or like trying to find the abstract principles of the text rather than the actual meaning of the text, is that what you're saying?

Yeah, and of course, everyone's interested in the meaning of the text, okay? The difference is approaching the scripture, if you're gonna approach it expositionally, what you're thinking is, how does this passage fit particularly in a peculiar manner, in its unique manner with the surrounding passages?

How does it actually fit within the flow of thought, the development of the teaching, the flow of the story?

So for instance, I'll give you an example. When Saul visits the witch of Endor, okay?

This is a passage that would be a prime opportunity to develop theme of witchcraft and how it needs to be opposed, okay?

And in general, I mean, there's a great application there, obviously, but so much is going on in that passage that is not primarily about ghosts and witches and sorcery.

Okay, there's a lot going on in the passage talking about the downfall of Saul, the judgment of God.

There's a lot going on in that passage. It is incredibly rich given the themes of first and second

Samuel. It's not just a bad example to say, don't do what Saul did, please don't go talk to witches and then raise people from the dead, that is bad.

While we would agree that's bad, that's not the main point. Yes, so when we come across a passage where Jesus, where he resists the temptation of Satan, okay?

Very often, this passage gets taken and it's used textually. Like, this is really important, this is good information, this is really applicable, here's how we do spiritual warfare, we're gonna model

Christ. I've got nothing to oppose that at all. I agree that we should take our lessons from Jesus in resisting temptation from this passage, but there is so much going on in that passage that is not about handing you a formula for spiritual warfare, okay?

And it's not time and you don't spend about, you know, 10 minutes with the text and then begin bringing in other demonic encounters and, you know, and then land in Ephesians 6 and everyone goes out feeling like they're ready for battle.

So could you give us an example of what you're talking about as far as like, there's so much more to the text instead of, like, trying to extrapolate a meaning for us to apply.

What else is going on in that text that you would say needs to be thought of before that application?

Okay, so, yeah, good question. David? I thought the direction you were gonna go was talking about these major themes about Christ as the king and the coming kingdom and what he is doing against the forces of darkness and that the encounter with the demon appears to be almost, not secondary, but this is just an overall symptom of the coming of the kingdom, which is not of this world, which power is not drawn from this world and it's just another example of his overall power, his power over creation and his power over these demons, his power over sickness and his power over this shows who he is, but how does that fit in the overall context?

Is that the overall context for what he's, what the author is trying to get at, trying to say who this person is?

Well, it seemed like earlier you had mentioned the number of accounts we see of demons in the gospels.

Like it seems like it's really ramped up the times that Jesus has confrontations with demons and I think that something is being said in that because we have references to Satan in the

Old Testament, even titles like Prince of the Power of the Air. There's even comments in the

New Testament about him being the God of this world and things like that. I think we see there was an old system in which

Satan in some sense was ruling. Not that he had rightful ownership of it, but in some sense he was ruling, he was getting in the way, he was messing things up and then consistently we see in the

New Testament the talk of my kingdom has come, the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God is at hand and I think that's why we're seeing so much of that conflict is you have two kingdoms coming into contact with each other and one is claiming to be

God of this world and has been acting in such a way, but then you have the Son of God entering into creation and making certain claims and doing certain things and in the midst of all that is the disciples that are caught in between an old way of things and the newer way of things.

Yeah, you certainly have a heightened level of spiritual warfare throughout this

New Testament era which marks the last days of the old covenant and the inauguration of the new covenant and one of the questions you might wanna ask is this, why were there so many demons in Israel?

Like in general or is there in that time period? Because there appears to be like periods when there was a lot of demonic attack and then it kind of went like times of miracles and then it kind of comes back down, it seems to be almost like an ebb and flow or a feast and famine, if you can use that term.

Yeah, I think it was that time period, but also that area, like what in the world?

I remember John MacArthur talking about it one time and it was his perception, I don't know how accurate this is, but it got me to thinking, it was his perception that through Jesus's ministry in Galilee and Judea that he was,

I don't know if he said it was the diseases particularly, maybe it was, but more or less his opposition to the demons, he basically cleared out all of the demons out of the entire area.

I don't know if that's true or not, but it sure reads like that when you start reading through, like wow, they all seem to get taken care of everywhere

Jesus goes. And yet the evil people still murdered him.

Yes. Shows that even though all the demons were gone, it still happened. So it's good to know that people can, not,

I don't know if it's good to know, it's helpful to know that people can be evil and kill

Jesus even if they're not demon possessed. Not everybody who is evil and evil minded is demon possessed.

That is helpful to think about. Now, if we're going to think about an example of where reading carefully, keeping things in context, reading expositionally rather than textually, we should take the chief example, right, of Jesus being tempted by Satan.

So in Matthew chapter four, interesting fact about Matthew chapter four is that it follows

Matthew chapter three. And Matthew chapters one through four is introducing you to the king.

There are seven fulfillments of prophecy in chapters one through four that introduce you to the king.

And then he goes up on a mountain and tells you what his kingdom's all about in Matthew chapters five, six, and seven.

So it's nicely laid out for us and we could be introduced to the king. Now when we get to chapter four of Matthew, we come to the last of the seven fulfillment passages where Jesus in his ministry in Galilee fulfills the prophecy of Isaiah chapter nine verses one and two, where Galilee of the

Gentiles sees the light. Right before that though, in Matthew chapter three, there's another fulfillment.

And this one is focused on John the Baptist. And you'd say, well, it's a fulfillment of prophecy by John the

Baptist. It really doesn't have anything to do with Jesus. Actually it has everything to do with Jesus because he's the forerunner of the king.

He's the herald. Yes, and John the Baptist is the greatest out of the whole old covenant.

And where is he? By the way, he's the son of a Levi, a son of a priest.

And he's doing his ministry in the wilderness. He is not in Jerusalem. What does that tell you about how bad things are in Jerusalem, how bad things are in the temple?

And he has nothing positive to say about the Jerusalem religion and the temple religion. In fact, when the key representatives from the temple religion come down to see what all the fuss is about, he calls them a brood of vipers.

He calls them snakes. And I don't think he was, I think it was pun intended. Okay, I think he knew what he was talking about when he called them snakes.

And the wilderness ministry of John the Baptist is an indictment against the temple system.

He preaches very, very clearly the judgment upon the entire thing.

And then Jesus comes as the beloved son in whom

God is well pleased. He is showcased in the baptism at the spot in the

Jordan River where the first Yeshua took the generation into the promised land of rest.

Here's the fulfillment of Joshua, Yeshua himself. He's going to bring the people into the promised rest.

And no, it's not gonna be through that temple in Jerusalem. So then we get to chapter four where immediately after his baptism, the spirit leads

Jesus out into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan. And we have three temptations. And it's actually more helpful to think about this passage,

Matthew chapter four, verses one through 11, as the three responses, right? Because there were any number of passages that Jesus could have quoted to refute the temptation of Satan.

Why these three? Because these three passages also indict the temple religion as well.

I mean, he goes hard, not just against Satan's temptation, but he also goes hard against the unfaithful steward of the old covenant in the temple system.

And he starts off with reminding them about the rebellion at Meribah and Massa. Deuteronomy 8 .3,

he quotes from Deuteronomy chapter eight and says, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, reminding the people about their grumbling, that they didn't have the food in the wilderness.

It was God who let you be hungry, right? Reminding the people of their rebellion, the fact that they were not abiding by the word of God.

They were not abiding by the scriptures. And then in the second temptation, go up to the temple, make a big show of yourself, throw yourself off and his angels will not allow you to dash your foot against a stone.

And then what does Jesus say? But the Lord do not do the test. Yeah, well, what was Israel always doing, right?

And in connection with the temple, right? The third temptation where I think we're getting to one of the points that Chris was making.

The Satan is not making an illegitimate offer. In a sense he is, but in a sense he's not. He's offering

Jesus possession and control of the nations. Why?

Because he has them in his grasp. He has been deceiving the nations, right? He's the great deceiver. He was deceiving the nations.

He was possessing them and he was hampering them.

He was pulling the wool over their eyes, pulling the veil over their eyes, keeping them deceived.

And he's offering control of all of them to Christ in a crossless road to glory.

Just fall down and worship me. And then Jesus says, what? He says, it's the

Shema. This is the John 3 .16 of the Jewish life. And what's the problem with the

Jews? John and Jesus and later on Stephen and the apostles point out that they are idolatrous.

They're not really worshiping God, they worship the temple. In fact, Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for allowing oaths based on the temple, but not the gold of the temple.

You can tell what they were worshiping. They were idolatrous. Stephen was stoned because he called them idolaters, that they worship the idol of the temple.

Jesus answers Satan's temptations in a way that takes aim at the temple system. And it makes sense that he's in league with John the

Baptist who just baptized him. They're in agreement. John was in the wilderness preaching. Here Jesus is in the wilderness and he's preaching.

He's given three responses to Satan and they're recorded for the benefit of the hearers, the readers of Matthew's gospel.

Which is particular to a Jewish audience. And then following right up with that, we have the fulfillment of Jesus preaching in Galilee amongst the nations.

Well, that corresponds with the final temptation, all the kingdoms of the earth. And then the next thing that happens is

Jesus calls disciples to follow him come to me versus, that's a new covenant temple versus the old covenant temple, which was the second temptation.

And then the outboundry of this parallelism is, hey, you need bread, don't you?

And at the end we see Jesus meeting physical needs. Okay, so there's a thematic pattern throughout

Matthew chapter four. So when we look at it, it's a yes, Jesus did quote scripture to refute the temptation of Satan.

All right, that's why we teach our children to memorize scripture and then remind them to quote scripture and resist temptation.

And we remember the admonition from Psalm 119, how can a young man keep his way pure, okay?

I've hidden your word in my heart that I might not send against you, yeah. Now, when we keep reading though expositionally and we think about how it's all connected and what

Matthew's up to by the Holy Spirit, I think it's helpful to be reminded that the scriptures are safe enough for a child to wade and deep enough for an elephant to drown.

Studying this area of the scripture, I have to cut it off at some point, I just can't keep going,

I've got to move on to other things. There's just more and more and more to see. But to your point, Chris, there is a power struggle going on in this moment in time.

Jesus talks about binding the strong man in Matthew chapter 12, plundering his possessions.

He talks about, we have the description in Revelation 20, in the victory of Christ in his ascendancy in his reign, which he's reigning now as ruler of the kings of the earth, king of kings and Lord of lords.

Peter preaches in Acts chapter two that Jesus Christ possesses the throne of his father David now from the right hand of God.

So welcome to the thousand year reign. During this time, Satan is bound in what way?

Particularly, it says in the text, not bound in every possible way, not sequestered away into apparent non -existence, but he is restrained and bound particularly in that he cannot deceive the nations anymore.

Well, what happens in concert with the death and resurrection of Christ and his commissioning of his followers is what preaching the gospel to all the nations, right?

So there is a moving aside of the old and moving into the new and in the process of that, there's a lot of spiritual warfare that goes on.

But I would have us note that a lot of the spiritual warfare, as it's described in the

New Testament, is focused on the satanic control, demonic possession of the stewardship of the old covenant versus the new covenant and Christ coming as the mediator and defeating the enemy.

So when Christ comes and he curses the temples, he's made a den of thieves, he says, you are of your father the devil in John 8, 44.

He's not playing around. He's not using hyperbole just to make some noise. He's not clickbait.

He's saying - Not rhetorics. Yeah, it's not rhetorics, right? He condemns that kind of stuff, that kind of language.

He is saying, you are Satan's spawn. You are Satan's tool.

And when he's talking about the problems that are going on in the temple, it's not that they got some of the stuff wrong and just being conservative like they were, they just didn't like change.

He got a little bit irritated with Jesus and his new ways. No, he was exposing the fact that they were being controlled by the enemy.

And this is language that Paul picks up in his letters as well. So you asked the question earlier and I don't know if anybody spouted off an answer.

Why did the demons show up at this particular time and in this particular place, right? Yes, so there was a great deal of opposition.

Jesus is coming to, remember when David shows up and Saul is jealous and he is plagued by a -

Oppressing? Oppressing spirit, right. And this oppressive spirit would stir

Saul up to do what? Try to kill David. Try to kill David. Well, the greater

David shows up and those to whom the kingdom had been entrusted but they were not a people after God's own heart, that he's tearing the kingdom away from them and giving it to one who is after his own heart are stirred up by oppressive spirits and in rage, they come after Jesus.

Jesus identifies them as being under this influence and Matthew chapter 12 was a good passage to go look at as they're trying to accuse him, they're kind of projecting accusing him of being in league with Beelzebub.

And in that passage, he has a very telling thing in Matthew chapter 12 where he exposes their bad logic in a sense, but he does have a bit of a prophecy here.

So in Matthew chapter 12 and verse 43, and this is after Jesus has clarified that he is greater than Solomon, they want a sign.

He says, no, here's the sign of Jonah. Remember that Jonah was in the belly of the fish, comes out, this is apparent death and resurrection here of Jonah.

This is the sign that Jesus is giving to them. Jonah comes out and says, 40 days, this city's gonna be overthrown.

Jesus is raised from the dead and he says, within a generation, within 40 years, this city's gonna be overthrown, time to repent and believe.

So he puts Jerusalem on the same level as Nineveh, you know, that kind of pagan.

Even the language that he uses with the judgment coming on Jerusalem was the same language he used to the pagan nations, you know, in Isaiah and Joel, so it's similar language.

He's treating Israel and that generation as a pagan nation. Right, and so then he follows up in verse 43 of Matthew 12.

He says, when an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest, and finds none.

Then he says, I will return to my house from which I came. And when he comes, he finds it empty, swept, and put in order.

Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there. And the last state of that man is worse than the first.

So shall it also be with this wicked generation. So now

Jesus is not just telling stories, he's not giving advice for proper spiritual warfare.

He's saying something about the judgment. In the context of Matthew 12, this is very important.

Now what has Jesus been doing in his ministry? He's been casting out demons, just casting out demons. Everywhere he goes, he's cleaning out things and making things orderly.

He goes to the temple, and what does he find in the temple? It's pretty disorderly, isn't it?

And there's all sorts of deceit going on there, and people are being robbed because of the money changers.

The place where the Gentiles were supposed to come to worship was made a marketplace. Yes, you have made my father's house a house of identity thieves.

Jesus cleans house, he cleans house. You know, if you've ever done a little bit of study about what

Jerusalem and what the temple was like within a generation near the end, it was definitely seven times worse chaos going on in the temple when the end came.

And Jesus is talking here in Matthew chapter 12, and all throughout Matthew, he talks about this wicked and perverse generation, and very clearly states that this wicked and perverse generation is going to see the destruction of the temple, the destruction of Jerusalem, they're gonna be judged, and he says here that their end is going to be one that is seven -fold possessed by demons.

They already are, they already have this problem, and it's gonna get worse. So Jesus is not talking about all

Jews, he's not talking about there's an ethnicity that's always demon -possessed, he's talking about the final cataclysmic end of those who reject

Messiah and go down in the flaming ship of the old covenant, which was well -designed, perfectly bestowed by a good and favorable

God. And when God found fault, he found fault with them, Hebrew says, not with his covenant that he made.

His covenant was good, and in fact, he was good and holy and right to judge them in the way that he did. He didn't find fault with his own covenant, he found fault with them.

But I would have us note that when we read in the New Testament, all these encounters of demons and spiritual warfare, how often does it have to do with the connection between the

Jews who are holding fast to the old covenant stewardship, but not holding fast to the old covenant

God, who are covenant transgressors and so on, and they're just trying to hold on to power. Not always, we don't always find the spiritual interaction, the spiritual warfare happening along those lines, but very often we do.

Yeah. Well, I'm gonna give an example then, and Chris had talked about this off mic earlier, talking about the

God of this world. You have 2 Corinthians, starting in three. Even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing.

In this case, the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

And is it, would it be appropriate, looking at the paragraph before, or the chapter before, that this would be calling

Satan the God of this world, the one who has veiled their hearts?

Would it be, in the context that you just mentioned, I'm thinking of a cross -reference out of Matthew 13.

We're talking about the parable of the sowers, saying that it's an indictment from Isaiah 6, to hear with understanding.

That's why I'm speaking with them in parables, so they wouldn't hear. But chapter, verse 19 says, the evil one snatches away what has been sown in their heart.

That was that parable of the sowers. I encourage everybody to go and read that. But there was one where the birds come and snatch it away.

Well, that was the evil one coming and snatching it away. So we have 2 Corinthians.

You have the God of this world and their veiled hearts. And you're speaking in parables. And is this another example of that time period where you have people whose hearts are veiled, you have

Israelites who's veiled, who are adhering to a previous covenant, you have Gentiles in the nations, where Satan has power over them, the power is waning, but he is deceiving the nations.

Is that in the same theme with what you have just been saying? Yeah, I think it has to be, because when you start reading in verse 7, it's,

I mean, Paul makes it pretty clear. He says, but if the ministry of death written and engraved on stones was glorious,

I guess he's talking about the law, the old covenant, okay. This is in chapter 3. Chapter 3 of 2

Corinthians 7, yeah. Verse 7 of chapter 3. So that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance, which was glory passing away.

Now, remember, do you remember the story? They didn't wanna have anything to do with Sinai, it was too much. But then when Sinai got all over Moses, they didn't wanna have anything to do with Moses.

And Moses comes down out of the Mount Sinai and Moses is now the burning bush and they don't wanna have anything to do with him.

It's just too much. They're like, put a veil over that. You are scaring us, stop. Now that's some glory,

Paul's saying. And he said, and that glory, nothing compared to the greater glory.

So that glory is passing away. He's saying this weight, this light, this significance of the old covenant, as powerful as it is, is something that is passing away.

This whole arrangement of interacting between heaven and earth by this mediator, this is all passing away.

This wasn't even the main show. Okay, so let's move on. Verse eight, he says, how will the ministry of the

Spirit not be more glorious compared with the letter, ministry of the letter versus the ministry of the

Spirit, the old covenant versus the new? How often do we read in the New Testament or Jesus saying, Jesus is greater than, always greater than.

Okay, so obviously if there was glory in the old covenant and boy was there ever, how much greater glory do we have in the new?

For if the ministry of condemnation had glory, the ministry of righteousness exceeds much more in glory. For even what was made glorious had no glory in this respect because of the glory that excels.

For if what is passing away was glorious, what remains is much more glorious. Again, we are being told this is passing away.

This is passing away. This is passing away. We are reminded of Hebrews 8, 13, that the old covenant is obsolete and ready to pass away.

This accords with all the other expressions of the apostles and Christ talking about these are the last days of what, this age.

Okay, this whole system of how this old covenant were in the last days.

Okay, therefore, verse 12, therefore, since we have such hope, we use great boldness of speech, unlike Moses, who put a veil over his face so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the end of what was passing away.

But their minds were blinded, right? Just like in the way back when, when the veil came over Moses' face, they couldn't see the glory.

So he says, for until this day, the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the

Old Testament, right? The law, the prophets, and the writings. Jesus, God, Nazareth, he reads from Isaiah and he's reading, today this was fulfilled in your hearing and then eventually they get really mad and try to kill him.

Yeah, they get ticked. Yeah. And he says, but the veil, he says in verse 14, is taken away in Christ.

So this whole thing, he's talking about Jews, he's talking about those who are the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who are in this tradition of Judaism, but it's not just tradition, this is actually the old covenant, generation after generation, and they have a veil over their eyes when they read the

Old Testament. They can't see the real glory, just like they couldn't see Moses' face, but the veil is taken away in Christ.

When you come into the new covenant in Christ, that veil is taken away, and then you can see the real glory of the old covenant.

Okay, verse 15, but even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart. Man, that's sad.

Remember, this is Paul who has a very deep burden for his brethren according to the flesh. He so desires to see them saved that even though he gets frustrated from city after city when he gets rejected by the synagogue, he comes to the new city, he can't help himself, he's back in the synagogue.

All right, he loves his brethren according to the flesh, and he wants to see them saved, and he sees this time and again that the veil lies on their heart.

Nevertheless, when one turns to the Lord, and how many Jews turn to the Lord? You know, we read in Acts, all these different Jews coming to faith in the

Lord, and the veil is taken away, and they rejoice in Jesus of Nazareth as the

Christ, the Son of the living God. Now, verse 17 says, now the

Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror, the glory of the

Lord are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory just as by the Spirit of the

Lord. Now, that's the background before we get to chapter four. This is very much focusing on, why do the

Jews not believe? Why is it, backing up to chapter two, that the aroma of Christ, the gospel, is the aroma of life unto life for some, but aroma of death unto death to others?

He's explaining it here. So therefore, since we have this ministry, verse one of chapter four, as we have received mercy, we do not lose heart, but we have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves to every man's conscious in the sight of God.

Now, if all you do is start reading at the big four in 2 Corinthians, you've not really read the context yet.

That chapter division's tripping you up, brother, sister. You need to be brave. Get back there behind that big four.

Go back into chapter three. See the momentum of the text, and then you get to verse three. But even if our gospel is veiled, oh, we know what that means because of chapter three.

If all you have is chapter four, you don't have it. But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing.

That's language from chapter two, from the parade he talks about in chapter two, whose minds the

God of this age, sometimes translated the God of this world, the God of this age has blinded who do not believe lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ who is the image of God should shine on them.

Now, Paul has already said this age is passing away.

He's already said that. It's passing away, it's passing away. There's a new one here. Okay, so he just identified that the

God of what is passing away is the one who is keeping the veil over their eyes. And so Paul is saying

Satan, who's running this show, Satan has taken up his dominion in this age.

This age, meaning what was passing away, he's the one keeping them veiled. He's the one wanting to see them all perish and die and go into destruction.

So when we read that, if all we have is chapter four, we relate immediately as sincere Christians to the fact that we have family members, we have friends, we have acquaintances that when we try to witness to them, they just want to shut it down.

They don't want to talk about it. They reject the Bible. And we immediately feel the burden of they just can't see.

They just can't see. And so we want to instinctively apply this passage and say, well,

Satan is the God of this world and Satan has them blinded. But that's talking about a blinding and Old Covenant sense, right?

So that's where we're making. Yeah, because he specifically keeps mentioning passing away, passing away, passing away.

And the judgment of God against Old Covenant transgressors that David already mentioned from Matthew 13, quoting

Isaiah 6, is death ears, blind eyes, and God is sovereign over Satan and will use

Satan to achieve God's own glorious purposes. Read Job. Right, look at the cross.

Yeah, that passage in 2 Corinthians, I mean, you'd say that the God of this world, world is sometimes translated age.

That's not the word cosmos. No, it isn't. That's aeon. Yes. I didn't know that,

I just literally just looked it up. That's the God of this age, the God of this aeon, not the God of this cosmos.

And it's a passing away age. And there's a couple of other verses that read similarly, but then when you compare it to how

Jesus speaks in John, so for example, in 1 John 5, 19, we know that we are from God and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.

Yes. So you just read that verse and you hear, oh, the world lies in the power of the evil one.

And if you let that lie like that, then you might come away thinking, well, Satan is God of this world now.

Ephesians 2, 2 is similar. In once you once walked following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.

Well, the sons of disobedience is a reference to the Jews. Yes. But then Jesus, because you were talking about passing away.

So both of those, that's 1 John and that's Ephesians. Those are written by disciples that were in that generation waiting during that passing away.

It hadn't happened yet, they were waiting. So as they were writing that, Satan was the

God of that age, the God of that world, the prince of the air. But then you have statements like this about Jesus and what he came to do.

This is John 12, 31. Now is the judgment of this world. Now will be the ruler of this world will be cast out.

Yes, right. So yes, John is saying, there is a ruler of this world, the evil one.

We're waiting for him to be cast out. This is passing away. We're still in it, but that's coming to an end.

He's going to be cast out. Jesus also says in John 14, and now I have told you before it takes place so that when it does take place, you may believe.

I will no longer talk with you for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim on me.

And you keep going through and he's walking them through. He has no claim on me. I am greater. This world is passing away.

You get to John 16, concerning judgment. Because the ruler of this world is judged, his conclusion in verse 15, everything that belongs to the father is mine.

So the temptation of Jesus, I'll give you all these kingdoms, Jesus just claims it for himself.

Everything that's the father is mine because he's being judged, because Satan is being judged.

It hadn't taken place yet in some of the New Testament writings, which is why we get statements like the ruler of this world.

They were still waiting on that. And then you get to Colossians, where it just says in Colossians 2 that he's put the principalities to shame, you know, that they've been cast out and demolished because of what

Christ has done. And in 2 Thessalonians 2, it's talking about the coming of the one who will like exalt himself as God in the temple.

And the timing of it is restrained so that the timing lines up with God's timing, as though it's like even him coming to reveal himself to try and exalt himself as God, it's under the commandment of the

Lord as well. So big picture is that we've already mentioned several of these elements, but it's clear that the nations were deceived by Satan.

They were worshiping idols, offering sacrifices to demons. God forbade

Israel from offering those sacrifices or worshiping those idols, because he was saying you are my people for my possession.

But when they became idolatrous, then they were offering sacrifices to demons and they were being brought under the dominion of the enemy, even as Adam and Eve tempted by Satan were robbed and murdered, their peace destroyed.

So God was saying, don't do that Israel. But here in the last stage of the old covenant where Jesus tells them that all of the blood of the innocent, the righteous prophets is going to be heaped up on this generation.

And it's going to be destroyed because of all of your opposition to God's word. And with all that, we're not saying that Satan possessed only the old covenant stewards at this stage, but also he was exercising dominion and deceiving all the nations.

So we're going to find demon possession in Ephesus. We're going to find it throughout Paul's travels.

It's going to be there. But what happens in Christ's death and resurrection, and especially after the old covenant is done away with is a very clear victory in which

Satan is bound for a thousand years. He can no longer deceive the nations. And we see there's a shift.

There's a shift from Satan running empires to running an insurgency. He says he's running empires.

I mean, he was in Satan or through his agency, like an entire nations. We're talking like Babylon, Egypt, China.

I mean, he's an entire nations, entire empires. And now that Christ has come and Christ has ascended, and now he rules in all power and authority.

And we have Revelation, this gets into some eschatology that at Revelation 20, we're saying we are currently in the millennial reign of Christ.

I know that goes against a lot of what people have been taught, but that Christ is reigning now and Satan is bound now.

But you're saying he's not bound where he's not active. He's bound in it from deceiving the nations.

And now he's running what you said, an insurgency. Yes, roaming to and fro, seeking whom he may devour.

He was bound particularly in that way that he no longer runs these nations. All of the peoples are given to God's anointed one as his inheritance.

And he rules with a rod of iron smashing clay pots. So everyone needs to bow the knee to him.

So in this, I think there's a balance. Okay, there's a balance in scripture where we're recognizing that we still have an enemy, right?

He is still diabolical, in the Greek, diabolo is a throw through, so he's a pitcher.

And he's got about five pitches and he uses them over and over again, okay? And you can see three of them in his temptation against Christ.

And those things are helpful to recognize, okay? But also we see how limited he is.

There's a joy in scripture to see how defeated Satan is, that he is limited.

That we should not be thinking of ourselves as the ones running the insurgency. We belong to the kingdom.

We serve the king. We should not be thinking that Satan is running everything and we're hiding out and doing our best to survive, okay?

Also, it is not us who have to do the job of Christ. It's not us who are exercising dominion over Satan directly.

It is Christ who has defeated him. And we're sheep, we're not the good shepherd, okay?

So we're following him. I think there's a lot to be, a lot of these passages that we read, even in Ephesians six, where it talks about the principalities and powers, the rulers, world forces, the forces of this world, again, talking about in the heavenly places, where was that?

Well, the old covenant system, the heavenly places represented in the temple, okay?

Where was the opposition going to be? Jesus said, after he cleansed the temple, pray and ask God and this mountain, pointing at the temple mount, will be cast away into the sea.

What was the biggest obstacle against the preaching of the gospel in the early church? It was the temple. But this temple was gonna be overrun by the sea, overwhelmed by the sea, sunk in the sea.

And the Gentiles did come and overrun it. So a lot of these things are, when they're put in their context, alleviate many burdens of folks who have been instructed in a form of spiritual warfare that says,

Satan is invading your mind. He is planting bad emotions in your heart.

He's listening in on your conversations. He's a big brother, okay?

He's always trying to manipulate you, you personally. And basically, you live in an

Orwellian existence, where Satan is oppressing at every level and you are constantly trying to combat and trying to survive.

And when bad things happen, we know it's Satan, okay? I do not think that that is the testimony of the scriptures.

And at the same time, I'm not saying there's no such thing as demonic possession. I'm not saying there's no such thing as the enemy at work.

I'm not saying that. In fact, a lot of the ways that the enemy works is to distract us with things we don't really see what's actually going on.

I think everyone could agree on that. Jesus talks about that. Paul talks about that. Our first year that we did this podcast, we had midweek episodes on this week in witchcraft, where we're talking about the demonic appropriation of alternate authority, witchcraft.

And I think what we find in the scriptures is that with the end of the old covenant and the beginning of the new covenant, that spiritual warfare is not about territory, it's about truth.

And that is primarily where the battle is. And so that's what we need to be aware of.

And I think that's the language of the scriptures. Wherever you have the most clear instructions about spiritual warfare, if you wanna call it that, great.

But it's not about praying and yelling at Satan and telling him to get down like a bad dog.

Okay, it is recognizing where there's temptations and lies and deceits, and trusting ourselves to our

Lord, resisting temptation, but keeping our focus on our Savior. And this is a defeated foe.

This was the God of this age. That age is gone. We now have the ruler of all the nations on the throne with all power and authority.

And we have a defeated enemy that's taking out as many of his followers that he possibly can.

He wants to kill and destroy as much as he can as he continues to retreat.

Yes, and our comfort should be in the victory of Christ and in his forgiveness and our justification in him and our cleansing from sin in him.

Our comfort should not be taken in an idea where when we sin egregiously, oh, the devil got me that time, didn't he?

Oh, he just had me one, he got one over on me. That was the devil all in me. And we blame the devil instead of, well, actually,

I've got some bad news for you or perhaps some good news. The devil doesn't even have you on his radar screen.

You're not that important. Number one, he's not omniscient, he's not omnipresent, and you're not his number one target.

Okay, he doesn't care that much about you. But someone does care about you, your master and Lord Jesus Christ, and he desires you to follow him and to trust in him and to rest in him.

And you need to recognize that and take ownership of what you're doing and how you're feeling and pursue

Christ instead of just allowing yourself to fall into various lusts. So when we hear somebody say something like that, what we're hearing is somebody who misunderstands maybe

Christ's authority in this world right now and misunderstands something about themselves, attributing it and misunderstanding something about Satan and attributing it to him as well.

So when someone says something like that, when a Christian says something like that, it's kind of a fundamental misunderstanding of all three persons that they're talking about, right?

Yeah, you've got the bolt headed for the correct hole, but you've got it screwing in at a wrong angle.

You've got it cross -threaded. And yes, of course, lustful thoughts and actions, angry outbursts, all those things certainly are things that Satan would give a thumbs up to.

Yeah, sure. That doesn't mean he's the one oppressing you, making you do that and setting secretive tripwires for you to catch you when you weren't.

You are not in personal combat with Satan. Jesus has already done that and he won that.

There's more than enough sin in your own heart to do that on your own. You don't really need help.

Right, exactly. Didn't we just say that all of Jerusalem murdered

Jesus and it's possible that most of the demonic forces were already out at that point?

I mean, I know it's a little bit of speculation, but I think we can say that there is plenty of corruption and sin in our own hearts that if we had been there at that time and we had been unsaved, unconverted, we would have done the same.

And that's a testimony of James, right? James tells us that when God brings trials into our lives, it exposes the lust of our heart and the temptation is to what?

Say, well. Blame God. Okay, well, if it's not Satan doing this to me, I guess it's God making me sin. Actually, no.

Every good and perfect gift comes down from the father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow. And that means all those trials that are in your life that you don't really appreciate, but God means for your good, exposing your weakness and your lust and your sin.

I'm talking to myself right now. That was blessed from heaven, especially carefully crafted for you.

It wasn't Satan trying to trip you up. It was God showing you how weak you are and teaching you how to love him more and be more dependent upon him.

So don't give credit to Satan where the credit is due to God and we need to thank him for the trials. Amen.

Well, that about wraps that question up. What are we thankful for this week, Michael? Well, I am thankful for good weather, thankful that the rain stopped, thankful that we can enjoy an actual kind of spring here in Oklahoma.

I feel like we're actually getting spring this year and I'm greatly enjoying it. Flowers, cool mornings, green everywhere.

It is wonderful to put my eyes upon all these, all this new growth that God has made. So I'm very grateful for that. Well, let's go ahead and have

Michael do his recommendation since I messed up and went thankfulness first and we do recommendations first on this podcast.

So Michael, you've already done your thankfulness. Go ahead and hit us with your recommendation as well. Okay, I recommend, like I said earlier, about when you're reading the scriptures, to try to read expositionally, not just textually.

There are things that are connected and you can use your concordance in the back of your, and I love the concordance in the back of my

Bible and to use that in Bible programs, those are great. The treasury of scripture knowledge, connecting different themes, those are so helpful.

I love the cross -references, but when you've read a text, read it again. Read broadly, but don't just read broadly, read deeply.

Think about what are these connections in light of Christ? I always like to think of three Cs. I like to think, what does this have to do with creation, how

God made everything and how we are related to him as our creator, made in his image, and then what was lost in the fall, but what was retained?

I like to think of creation. I like to think of the covenants, how is this connected to the rich story being told, you know,

Noah, Abraham, Israel, and David, but then ultimately I wanna see what this passage has to do with Christ. And so I want to see, and I'm never disappointed when

I read the passage and then the surrounding context and you have to stare at it for a little while, but to see how it all begins to meet, there are practical instructions that I can walk away with and then there are deeper themes that I can worship at.

If I have enough time to read. So I just wanna recommend, when you read your scriptures and you come across a passage that really connects with you, be sure to read it carefully in its context, not just catch the themes and run.

Amen. David, recommendation? You wanna do my recommendation, Dan, what I'm thankful for, same time?

We might as well, I've messed it up already, let's just do it. Let's just do it. Let's just do it. Do it live. Do it live. Do it live.

My recommendation is I've been listening to a lot of piano music, solo piano music in the morning, and it's old classic,

I mean, we're talking old classic. The music of Frederick Chopin. I have thoroughly been enjoying this.

In particular, his Nocturnes, Opus 9, number two, there's Opus 9, that means his ninth published work.

There was like a set of three pieces in that opus and number two is like the most famous you'd recognize immediately when you listen to it.

I do recommend the Nocturnes of Frederick Chopin, especially early in the morning.

I've really been enjoying that quiet time and to read during that time.

I am very thankful for my afternoon I got to have with my daughter just earlier today.

We went through some very artsy districts today. Talk about some demonic influence, because I saw it.

There was some bad stuff and I was just seeing people, just, I mean, really to see. We actually walked into one little store and I had mentioned, it says,

I think most of the people here probably hate me if they knew me, but in those areas and the galleries we walked past and the buildings and the colors,

I saw things that were really just aesthetically pleasing. People who put a lot of time and a lot of effort into just making these places just beautiful and it was a gorgeous day.

It wasn't too hot, it wasn't too sunny, partly cloudy. It was just one of those perfect days to be outside and walk and that's what

I got to enjoy today and I would highly recommend, you know, people in this area, go to some art galleries.

It is neat. Just understand that you may see some things you didn't want to see as well, but it was a lovely day though.

Liked it. Chris? For my recommendation, it's a ministry and then one of their specific resources,

Excel Ministries, it was based out of a Bible church down in Texas where Tom Pennington is pastor, but they have kind of a, it's a ministry that they put together.

It's kind of supplemental for pastoral ministry and so you'd have a lot of people come out of Master's Seminary with a lot of kind of academics and head knowledge and a lot of good stuff, but a lot of them that came through here said that pastorally, they found much more help with this because it was more of what you're gonna face as a pastor.

They wrote papers and things like that, but it was a lot of being in the Word, memorizing things.

It's a two -year internship and at the end of it, they do a mock ordination and a mock interview.

So the elder board would sit and you would do a mock ordination where you have to answer theological questions, counseling questions, and then the other one is an interview if you were coming on to a church and they've already got an elder board, but you're coming on, and they would do an interview and then you pass or fail.

And so we got to sit in on some of those, so that was pretty neat. And it's called Excel Ministries, but I know that we had a few questions come in from youth pastors, so one of the resources that I found helpful back in the day when

I was a youth pastor, it's called the Youth Ministry Training Manual and it has a lot of helpful things in it from organizing things, pastoral questions, getting the parents involved.

Obviously, youth ministry, there's a lot of segregation. This is more family integrated, that they're children of the parents and so you have to be with the parents, not try to get the children away.

So that was a helpful resources. It's called the Youth Ministry Training Manual from Excel Ministries.

Looks like it doubles as a weapon too. Yes, you can smack, like if the thief comes in to steal or kill, then

I'll just take this up and pop him one. Yeah, and then what I'm thankful for is men of the church who have come by, not once, but twice, to come out and help me dig trenches.

We had flooding at our house and one night it was like 10 .30 at night and water's coming in and elders and deacons and lay people of the church just came and just started digging a trench to get the water to stop coming in and we had several waves of storms coming and it worked, the trenches held and it redirected the water.

And then I'm trying to get a French drain going so we can make it more permanent and they came out again, we dug 100 feet of trenches and now

I can do the work of putting the drain in. So I'm very thankful to our church for what they do in prayer and then also putting hands and feet to that as well.

Amen, well Andrew's been quiet this episode and he hasn't been much for recommendations but I'm going to at least force him to say what he's thankful for this week.

What I'm thankful for. You know honestly, when we have questions that are being answered or posed to the podcast, being forced to think biblically, to speak biblically, drives you to the word.

And there were very many passages that were discussed, context, these are all edifying things and just sitting over here,

I'm looking up in Bible verses over here in the corner on my phone with my e -sword and I just, you know,

I've said it before but I'll say it again, I thank God for his word. To know what the truth of the matter is, to continue following after the master, to be led into all truth through the reading of it, having the spirit with us, it's a beautiful thing and not something to take lightly.

So I thank God for his word. All right, well my recommendation this week is a book called Why You Can't Be Anything You Want to Be.

It was written by. Why? Why? I know, shocking, shocking. It was written.

I want to follow my heart. It's like they told me I could. And this goes directly against it and it's using a lot of data from,

I think. Reality? If I remember it well. Well, it's. It's. It's. It's.

Yes, in some sense. But very, very specific disciplines in reality like jobs or people getting out of some sort of trade school or out of some sort of school and applying to jobs or even those who are just trying to start a professional career without any sort of school whatsoever.

And he kind of goes into that a little bit and there's a lot of data to back up the issues of just go do what you think you would want to do.

You know, with all. Like the complete lack of counsel that young people have these days as to what they're gifted in. And that's what he focuses on here is giftedness and innocence of what you are like personally and what kind of jobs fit or what kind of professions might fit your makeup, your gifts.

And in the sense that not like gifts of like you have a talent for X, Y, Z that might end up being a hobby of yours but maybe you have this insatiable desire to win like you be in constant competition and there are jobs that require constant competition or you handle risk really, really well.

So you go and you go deal with risk as a venture capitalist or as someone in finances.

So he's got like these kind of paradigms for people who fall into different giftings and how they might be able to place themselves or be placed by a firm that he has, consulting firm that he has.

And I mean, that's part of it. At the end of it, it was like somebody's selling me something. So I didn't really like that too much but I understood it from even a secular point of view people can understand that the data just doesn't line up with you can do whatever you want, kid.

You're gonna be the first one -armed president or whatever you wanna be. And he lays out pretty clearly that that's just not gonna be the case.

And I think we all agree around that Providence has very specific plans for you and that includes your vocation, that includes maybe your roles within church or local governance or state or federal governance, whatever it might be.

But with my qualms about it, it needs to be updated because he also needs a book that says you're also gonna be fought on what you need to be.

Like there are gonna be even forces in a negative world where you may be well -suited with the right personality or the right giftings for certain things and that may not work out for you.

I think there are certain times in history where you may seem to be gifted for something that was good back in this era that your parents or your grandparents lived in, right?

But you're not gonna live through that time. So you have to be able to find a place for that gifting and or be told a place for that gifting and really excel in ways that the old world didn't, that the old world afforded you but you don't live in that world anymore.

But I do recommend it as far as if you are a young man or a young lady and you don't know what you wanna do,

I wish I had this book when I was like 14, 15, 16. Instead I got it when I was like 26. So a little late but it was still helpful in the sense that it confirmed a few things that I knew about myself but could also be used in whatever job

I landed in, whatever vocation I landed in because I knew what my strengths or my weaknesses were as a man. But it's, again,

Why You Can't Be Anything You Wanna Be by Arthur F. Miller. I am thankful this week after perusing a little too much on social media for ministries that function as actual ministries.

And what I mean by that is ministries that aren't like thinly disguised businesses.

So what I watch a lot in especially the reform niche world or even the general

Christian evangelical world is this battle over market share, battle over audience.

And sometimes where men that I think could really actually agree on certain things, they actually, they double down sometimes because of incentives based on their subscription model or incentives based on their donors or incentives based on the type of, the way that they're structuring their business and the way that they structure their revenue coming in.

If you can't make your convictions clear or even voice certain convictions because of a caution that you might lose half your audience or half your donors because I mean, it's your livelihood on the line, right?

And I've had discussions with some of these fellas online trying to like show them, hey, you have an incentive structure that's hanging over you and it may be guiding some of your decisions on what you do talk about or what you don't talk about or who you're willing to denounce or not denounce.

And so when that's the case, there are some that say, yeah, I mean, I realize that and I'm okay with it.

Like some people are just honest about it but those are the guys that I'm like, okay, they're running the business and they know they're running the business but a lot of times when they wanna pitch it as a ministry, they're saying, well,

I avoid those incentives. Sure you do. When you've got 3000 subscribers at 599 a month, you're ignoring those incentives, sure.

So I just, I find a very disingenuous but for the guys that really remain true to the ministry model of people partnering with them to accomplish a goal, whether it be in apologetics or evangelism or developing a deeper theology in an area,

I really do appreciate those ministries. And I would like to commit as many as possible but there's too many to name.

It just is like, there's too many to name that are the businesses that are veiling themselves as ministries, so. And that wraps it up for today.

We are very thankful for our listeners and hope you will join us again as we meet to answer common questions and objections with Happy Not Red.