When We Don't See Satan's Accusations | Theocast

Hi, this is Justin. Today on Theocast, John and I are gonna have a conversation about the fact that we don't often see the accusations of the evil one. We're conditioned to think that his accusations look a particular way, that they're fiery darts, that maybe they are hurled at us by legalistic preachers or by scriptures being quoted out of context or even by the well-meaning, pietistic friend we have.

But in reality, just by virtue of the fact that we live in this world and we think like other human beings think and that Satan is operative in this world, we have absorbed a lot of things that affect how we think about our relationship with God.

We question whether we can really go to our Heavenly Father sometimes. We even question our own union with Christ because we are so afraid that we've not done enough, that we're not legitimate enough, that maybe there isn't mercy for us.

So we're gonna talk about all these things today. We hope this is eye-opening for you. And at the end of it all, we hope that you're comforted in Christ and that we all learn to trust the Lord and take him at his word, that he has in fact saved us.

So stay tuned.

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You can also watch it on YouTube. We have new episodes that come out every Monday.

Opening and Announcements

Welcome to Theocast, encouraging weary pilgrims to rest in Christ, conversations about the Christian life from a confessional, reformed, and pastoral perspective. Your hosts today are John Moffitt, who is pastor of Grace Reformed Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee.

And I am Justin Perdue, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina. And we are recording virtually today, John. We had some good time together a couple of weeks ago. And between you guys coming in town and then I had some other friends in town recently, I think I'm still tired.

I'm tired.

Even more than normal and recovering from all that, but thankful for good friends and thankful for the content that we got recorded and the things that we were able to do and plan and discuss while you were here.

And I trust people will be seeing more of that rolling out in the coming weeks and months. And we hope that's encouraging and profitable for people. But here we are again in our respective studios looking at each other on a screen.

And we're gonna try to have another conversation about Christ and the Christian life and even the tactics of the evil one.

Yeah, well, it's funny because I think a lot of people either are busy or whatever or skip the intros and they think that you and I are in the same location and even the same church and we're not. So we're in different states.

None of that's true.

No, but we try to spend time together as much as we can. A couple of announcements for you.

It'd be fun if we could spend more. Yeah, I know.

We're still working on TheocastU, adding more and more classes to that. We have a pretty big announcement coming up soon about being able to have one app where everything is housed. So stay tuned for that.

The thing is, mostly you don't understand is that we record almost four weeks in advance. So there are times where we make announcements and we're like, we hope it's ready by then.

We don't know.

We're projecting a little bit.

That's right. And I believe, excuse me, forgive me. I've got a chest cold I'm coming out of. I believe you still have time to register to come be a part of an event that Justin and I are gonna be at at the Grazer Forum Network in Nashville, October 3rd and 4th.

And if you haven't registered for that, please do. It's a suggestion donation of $20. So we're trying to make it affordable for anybody. There's like, I think 150 slots available. And we're gonna be doing subjects, lectures and panels, discussions and sermons on confessionalism, covenant theology, law, gospel distinction, saint, sinner realities.

What else?

Am I missing something?

No, you're good.

I mean, the sermons will be what the sermons are. But the panels and the talks will be on that subject. You already outlined, yeah.

Yeah, and then, and just pray for wisdom and strength for Justin. That's gonna be the beginning of the network, Lord willing. It's called Charter, Charter Meeting. So we'll start then and then every year we'll hopefully have our meeting in June.

So we're excited. We have multiple churches that, well, you and I are in conversation with the church in Romania that's starting. Hopefully we'll be starting and we'll be a part of our network. So it's exciting and we're thankful the Lord has given us the opportunity to unite and encourage each other and plant churches.

I think that's all the announcements I got.

Yeah, that October 3 and 4 is open to everybody, just to reiterate, and every individual needs to register just because we've got a limited seating capacity. And so if you're bringing a group from your church, every individual needs to register.

And yeah, we hope to see many of you there and it'll be good content. If you enjoy the pod, I think that you'll really enjoy the talks and the panels. And I trust the sermons, the singing, the things that we do.

And you'll also get to meet a lot of like-minded people.

So if you're not planning to come yet,.

You should change your mind.

Yeah, I am excited about meeting so many of these like-minded believers. So it's people from your church as well.

Yeah.

Satan’s Subtle Accusations and the Fear of Not Being Legitimate

Well, we'll jump into the topic here, Justin. It's a good one. And sometimes the way in which Justin and I choose our topics, we have several that are scheduled out for this year, topics that we'd like to cover.

Things like covenant theology and baptism and spiritual warfare and prayer. Prayer's been on the docket for a while. We'll get to it eventually.

We will.

But sometimes Justin and I have conversations before we get started and it's related to our own personal lives. And these become the most, I think, valuable conversations because you get to hear the pastoral side of theocast.

So today is a conversation about just Justin and I, as we think through theology and we think through preaching and we think through our own congregations and our own struggles. You know, we've done a really good job at theocast of helping you see pietism and illegalism, not only just historically, but even in modern day evangelicalism and how often it causes us to be introspective, question our salvation, and really become anxious in our relationship with the Lord when we shouldn't, when there should be no anxiety, no fear in our relationship with our Father, only rest and comfort and joy.

But then there's another influence in our life that we're gonna talk about today. And that influence is often camouflaged. We don't see it. And, you know, we were kicking around some of the titles and one of them was camouflaged accusations.

You know, when the New Testament describes the tactics of our accuser, Lucifer, Satan, it describes him as an angel of light. He's the father of all lies, but yet he's a crouched lion that hides his tactics.

Like you don't really understand and see what he's doing. And so today's conversation is going to be about how Satan can use different and various means to influence our understanding of our relationship with God.

You know, funny title, there's a Kingsman podcast out about this called Satan, the First Influencer. You can see this where Lucifer is having this conversation with Eve in the garden. And he is changing her perspective about her relationship with God and things that God had said.

And unfortunately she accepted those. Adam did not do his job in helping counteract those truths. And those thoughts then took action, right? And Justin and I, we are willing to admit, often when we're not careful, the lies of Satan through the world, through means of the world and various means that could be, and we know that Satan uses people, things that have been communicated, we start to question our relationship with our father in means of his acceptance of us.

And most of the time, Justin, it's based upon performance or the lack thereof. And that would be my introduction. I know you'd like to give a couple of thoughts and then we'll go ahead and just head down that road.

Yeah, the Camouflaged Accusations, like you said, was a potential title. We're talking a little bit about the covert ops of the evil one today. Yeah, that's really good. It's not maybe as obvious to us because I think we, and you acknowledge this already.

I mean, we, on this show, on this podcast over the years, have talked a lot about pietism and revivalism and even easy listening legalism and all these kinds of things. And I think many of us have our antennas up for that.

And when we hear that, we can spot it.

Like, ah, I know what that is.

And I'm not going to listen to that. But then to your point, Satan is very shrewd and he is referred to not only as an angel of light and as a liar, he also is called the God of this world in the New Testament by Jesus and Paul.

And that's significant because he clearly is at work in the world. And when he shows up, you mentioned the garden, Genesis three, the first time we read of him, he is, he's manipulative. He is lying and deceiving.

He's crafty, he's shrewd. All those things are true. And I read through Job recently, just personally, and even there in the early chapters, the way that, and maybe we're reading a little bit into his tone or I am, but even the way that Satan interacts, like when the sons of God are assembled and the way he interacts even with the Lord, obviously Satan is a servant of God and he's under his sovereignty and all those things, but his craftiness and his manipulativeness are just evident, you know, where it's like, oh, you know, Job only, he only loves you because you bless him.

That's right.

I mean, what a manipulative creature he is, you know? And so I think the conversation today is our attempt to try to talk in ways that maybe we don't on this show all the time. And I think as your eyes, John, and my eyes have been open to things over the course of our years of study, but also just living life as humans in this world, we experience things, we feel things.

And I think over the course of time, you begin more and more to realize, ah, I think I know what this is. And this isn't of the Lord. And I'll start by saying it this way. And we'll probably say this multiple times, I probably will.

Satan's tactics more than anything else for the believer are to cause us to do anything. Like he wants to do anything he can to cause us to take our eyes off of Christ and put them on ourselves. So if he's able to do that, that's a

And he'll use anything and everything to do it.

That's a dub, that's a win for him if he is able to take our eyes off of Christ and put them on ourselves. And there are many ways that this occurs that are not the overt legal preacher, that are not the, you know, it's just legalism and threats flying from the pulpit.

It's not pietistic and revivalistic stuff that's just obvious. It's nothing like that. It's not scripture, you know, like Bible verses are not even being quoted at us, even if they're out of context. None of that is what we're talking about.

This is just life in the world, day every day, week every week. We think in certain ways, the world thinks in certain ways. And given that Satan is the God of this world, our argument is this kind of thinking comes from him in one sense.

It does not come from the Lord. So that's maybe a second teeing up of the conversation. We're priming the pump. So now let's maybe talk a little more particularly.

I have one that is used often. I know you've heard it. You're talking to someone who's either grew up in the Christian church and fallen away, or there might even be an unbeliever when they say, oh yeah, well, God could never love someone like me.

Right, you know, I've done too much, you know. Or the other lie that's related to that is, well, I need to clean up my act before I can come back to church, or I need to clean up my act before I would ever, you know, God would ever accept my prayers.

100%.

Those are absolute lies of Satan that are communicated in our culture and around the world and have been so for thousands of years. And they don't come from scripture. They absolutely don't, but we believe them.

And at different levels, Justin, we have felt this. Have you ever felt ashamed to stand up on a Sunday and preach?

For sure.

And it's not because you didn't have access to the King to receive mercy and grace, right? It's not because you were living in full acceptance of your union in Christ. And I'm not saying we brush our sin under the rug and it's like, oh, it doesn't really matter.

I'm the exact opposite. You know, the guilt is often used to draw us to Christ. But what ends up happening is, we allow the world and the world's standards, which is influenced by Satan, to come in and change scripture.

And we don't even realize it's happening. It happens so subtly. And this is the day. And so that would be two examples that I have given. I have felt people who believe that God requires a certain level of obedience to remain in acceptance with him.

And this is where the law comes in and it utterly destroys you. And I love using this. And I'm like, oh, okay. Well, you know, if you'd like to know how far you need to come before God's gonna accept you, would you like to know that?

You know, I'll play the game with you. Let's play the game. They're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. How far do I think I need to come? I said, well, we'll just start with the first one. It's because it's the most important one.

He says, you gotta love him with all your heart, mind, and strength. And you can't fail and you can't stop doing that. So once you get to that point, and you know, they kind of start looking at you like, and you know, and I'm waiting for them to ask, well, do you do that?

I'm like, no, I've never done that. I've never once loved God with all my heart, mind, strength. I wish I could. You know, they want to use the law, which Satan says, yeah, use the law to come back to Christ.

And the gospel says, you can't use the law. This is what the good news is.

That whole premise that you're outlining falls underneath this, the umbrella of like, I'm not legitimate or I'm not good enough, you know? And this is prevalent in the church and in the world because now there's a lot of inconsistency in the way that this is done.

But if you think about how the world operates, it's like, you've got to be legitimate. You've got to be authentic. You've got to be consistent, you know, in the ways that you think this, do this, carry yourself.

Now, there's obviously a lot of double standard in the world, we all acknowledge this, but this is how the world talks. And so, like you said, how many times have we gotten up as pastors to preach or we're preparing sermons or whatever, and we know in turn, it's like, man, I'm a miserable wretch.

Like I, I'm not, I mean, I had an experience recently where I was completely exhausted by the time the week, I was behind and starting on sermon prep. I was very exhausted from just what had been going on the previous days, I was underslept.

And I, in my own heart and soul, was wrestling with having to prep a sermon and having to do the hard work that it is to study and prepare and then deliver the message, just feeling like I'm running on fumes.

And there are times in this whole experience where I'm struggling to concentrate, I'm just keeping my butt in the chair, because it's like, I know that there's nothing else to be done, I'm praying, I'm asking the Lord for grace and help, and internally, I resent the fact that I'm having to do this.

And I am thinking, like I just said, I am an abject, miserable wretch. Like it is a privilege to preach scripture, it is a privilege to herald Christ, it's a privilege that I study the word of God for, I mean, as a piece of my job in order to feed the saints, including my own soul.

And here I am, just a mess inside. And you immediately are like, I'm not legitimate, I'm not fit to be a pastor, I just need to quit ministry. Like, why in the world would anybody wanna hear anything I have to say?

How can I get up here and do this? And that's just one example of how we think, when in reality, I'm encouraged by, I've quoted him many times, I'll quote it again, I quoted him to you earlier, John. John Newton, this is balm to my soul.

People know who John Newton is, Anglican minister and hymn writer. And he said, in private, I am cold and lifeless as usual. Yet, he permits me to speak for him in public. That's how we should talk. I think, you know, we're not Richard Baxter fans here, but the man said some true things, including, I preach as a dying man to dying men.

True.

We would say, we preach as struggling sinners to struggling sinners. That's how this goes. And the enemy would have us think that unless all of our I's are dotted and all of our T's are crossed and we are absolutely crushing every element of the Christian life and pastoral ministry, then you're not fit to do this.

And you're not fit to get up there. That's just one. But I could, boots on the ground, like this week, brother, you know, I'm questioning, am I legitimate? Am I good enough as a husband? Am I legitimate?

Am I good enough as a dad? You know, am I legitimate? Am I good enough as a pastor? Not sermon prep, but just in how I'm living life this week, navigating things at our local church, meetings that I've got on my calendar that I don't want any part of.

It's like, these are things that we deal with and this is the frailty of our frames. And the evil one would have us think that he would double down on the fact that we're not good enough. And then he would have us think, well, I can't go to Christ.

I can't go to my father because I'm disappointed in me. He must be too. God, I suspect that I'm a faker. Well, God knows everything and he knows the inner recesses of my heart. So how could I go to him in this moment?

And I just am a sham and a fraud of a human being. And that's how we can be crippled with doubt and question our legitimacy and question even our union with the Lord Jesus. And none of this has occurred because of anything a preacher has said to me or anything I've read in the scripture.

This is just how I feel living life in this world.

Weakness, the Flesh, and the Call to Renew the Mind

Yeah, and this goes to the second lie that I'm gonna bring up is that what you're describing is weakness and you're wrestling with your weakness, which I know I wrestle with my weakness. And the accusations of the accuser says, well, that's your own fault because, well, you haven't tried hard enough.

And he wants us so desperately to take our eyes off of Jesus.

So you need to try harder.

That's right.

Get your eyes on your own regiment and discipline, yeah. That's right.

And what I think is interesting, I mean, I'll start with two or three and you can pick up where I leave off, but it's like, what does Paul say? Stand in the strength of the Lord, right? Looking unto Jesus, the what? Author and finisher of our faith.

We walk by faith so that we what? Do not fulfill the desires of the flesh. So one of the tactics, and it works well with me, he gets me all the time. You know, I should have done this and I shouldn't have eaten that and I shouldn't have done sit-ups.

And all of a sudden I'm thinking my mistakes are the results of my own strength when I should have sat back and say, Father, without your strength and your power and your gospel in my life. I'll just quote a passage we, you know, it might be the key passage of Theocastra.

First Peter 1 .9, right? Why are you ineffective and unfruitful? Because you have forgotten you've been cleansed by a power that is outside of you, right? You've forgotten to be cleansed from your former sins.

We walk as cleansed children by the power of the spirit, not by the power of the flesh. And man, does he really trick us to trust in the power of the flesh.

If you're new to Theocast, we have a free ebook available for you called Faith Versus Faithfulness, A Primer on Rest. And if you've struggled with legalism, a lack of assurance, or simply want to know what it means to live by faith alone, we wrote this little book to provide a simple answer from a Reformed confessional perspective.

You can get your free copy at theocast .org slash primer.

I'm gonna circle back to what I was talking about, my experience, you know, in trying to prep that sermon just a few weeks ago and my experience as a preacher, because I want to be playing with people.

You know, I'm an inconsistent mess in my own heart and mind as I'm wrestling through that whole process. I'm crying out to the Lord. It's like, you know, Lord, I know you're all I got. I know Christ, you're my righteousness.

You know, you're the forgiveness of my sins and my eternal life. And I'm thankful that you use broken vessels and you draw straight lines with very crooked sticks. And I pray that you'll use me and I pray that you'll turn the water of my efforts into wine for your people.

I mean, this is what I'm crying out, right? And then I have found it to be true time and time again in my own experience, when I feel like just a wreck in my humanity going into preaching on the Lord's day.

And John, I'm sure you would affirm the same. I find that the Lord chose himself to be mighty and faithful in those moments. Because I, and I even, I mean, the text I was preaching was Romans 8, 31 to 39.

I mean, good grief. It's like, well, you know, what better passage? You know, nothing, literally nothing. I mean, Paul basically defies the entire universe to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord, you know?

And so I'm preaching this, but I'm able in my introduction to kind of acknowledge the weakness that we all have in us and even to acknowledge very personally, here's, I know that I have felt this in my own heart and mind this week.

And so how do we hope? You know, what peace can we have? And the Lord uses our weakness, but the enemy tells us that our weakness is what's gonna ruin us. When in reality, the word of the Lord is, my power is displayed in your weakness.

My grace is sufficient, right? And this is not actually a bad thing in my economy of redemption and salvation, though you think that it is. And so that's just, I'm encouraged in thinking about these things.

Jump in, yeah, and then I've got more ammo.

Peter, Satan, and Standing in Your Own Strength

Yeah, I wanted to add an illustration.

Yeah.

You know, Jesus says to Peter, Satan wants to sift you like wheat.

Yeah.

And if you don't really understand an illustration, you know, it's obviously a farming illustration. What did Peter do? Peter stood in his own strength and said, Lord, I'll never betray you.

That's right. He stood in his own strength.

Though everybody else will, I will not. And not only once, my dear brother, who I love and has been a great comfort to my own heart. Love, Peter.

Oh, me too.

Three times, right? Peter was a great illustration for us who can go back and read and say, this is what happens when you stand in your own strength.

I'm just liking. That's right. Just like him. That's right.

And it's a Satan, you know, by the way, I'm gonna say this here, and we're gonna do some more work on this later. Justin and I aren't making excuses for anyone. And blaming it, you know, Satan made me do it kind of a thing.

The way the Bible describes it is that our flesh is weak and our spirit is willing, right? And our flesh can easily be drawn away. And Lucifer has had 2000 years of practicing his, so he doesn't die, right?

He's a spirit. So he's an angelic being. Sorry, I'm gonna put it that way. So he's had practice for 2000 years of tripping us up. And so when he's having these conversations, even when Jesus is, you know, speaking to Peter and says, get behind me, Satan, he's because he's projecting the lies of Satan, right?

That's what he's doing. So I think it's interesting how the wrestle that Justin and I are constantly wrestling with on Theocast is to get people to take their eyes off of themselves and their own capacities.

For sure.

Like, this is why we believe we are ordinary means. We hold, we're in the tradition of the ordinary means of grace. We got to trust in power, a power source that's outside of ourselves by the preaching of the word and the gathered church and fellowship and singing and prayer, right?

The table and baptism and all that.

That's right.

What does Satan want to do? He wants to sift us away from those things and get us distracted with busyness so that we don't find ourselves receiving grace from the Lord.

Or to question whether those things really can do the job.

That's right.

Oh, well, I mean, you're just going to church. I mean, you're, you know, it's not anything. What about your personal interior of your life? You know, I mean, that's the stuff we do. And we question ourselves.

Like I was telling you today on the phone. It's like, I know that I believe the gospel. I believe the scriptures. I am trusting consciously, I'm trusting Christ and I'm confessing it, I'm saying it to the Lord.

Like, you're all I got. And I believe this. And at the same time, I don't feel the way I want to feel. And so then you start asking all kinds of questions about your legitimacy. And I was having a conversation with some friends who were in town this past weekend.

This was kind of around the fire pit one evening. And we were talking about this same thing, that you're so prone to question yourself because you're always measuring. And again, I'm not talking about legalistic preachers and all the measurements they throw at us.

I'm just saying we in our own consciences and the way we think in the world, we're measuring ourselves. And you question whether you're legitimately a Christ follower. Am I legitimately His? And then you come across passages that are balm for your soul, where Jesus says that I know my sheep and they know me and they hear my voice and they follow me.

Right, and then he says that he give to those people, he's like, I give them eternal life and nobody's ever gonna take them from me. And my father's the one who gave them to me and nobody can take them from my father.

Because the father and I are one. And you hear things like that. And you say, you know what? How many times have I had conversations with people and I have said verbatim, if I could have left Christ, I would have.

If I could have punted the faith, I would have. 10 times over. But there has always been something about Jesus that I can't walk away from. Why is that? Because I've heard his voice.

That's right.

And he has me. And it's the John six reality. It's like, Lord, where are we gonna go? You're the one who's got the words of eternal life, right? And so like you come back to these things and when you think that and when you feel that, that is actually a statement for, I mean, I think that's the Lord's kindness to us to say, child, you're mine.

And I've got you. And yeah, you're frail and you're weak, but I'm strong and I'm amen, you know? Amen.

Well, you're in Romans, but I'll quote it and I'll let you jump on it. But he said, you know, Romans 12 two, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. And you know, this is the latter part of the letter.

And I, you can't, I'm not there yet, but yeah, but you can go back to Romans eight. And what are we renewing our minds in? Well, what can separate you from Christ? Because when you hear these things, well, you're not, you're not sufficient.

And it's like, well, go ahead.

No, I promise you, we ain't renewing our minds via our efforts to obey. That's right. We are renewing our minds according to Christ for us in the gospel.

That's right. I mean, when I hear Paul say, hey, John, there's nothing that's gonna separate you, not even Satan and his demons, because he says principalities, powers, and he describes everything that could possibly separate you.

And those are the things that I need to be. So when I'm being told, hey, try harder, do better, I need to be renewing my mind and nope, this is who I am in Christ. Therefore, I'm gonna boldly run into my father's throne room right now and say, father, I messed up.

I am face planted and it's been bad. Can you give me mercy?

All right, briefly

Give me strength to obey.

Briefly on Romans 8, 31 to 39, it is not coincidental that where Paul begins, he says, you know, God's for us, guys. Like, how do we know all these things are gonna be true that I've been saying? Well, God's for us.

And the evidence of that is that Christ came. Not your life, not your circumstances, not how you're doing. The evidence is that Christ came. And if that's true, is God gonna withhold anything good thing from us?

Of course he won't. But then where does he start? Who can bring any charge against God's elect? So he deals immediately with our guilt and our shame. Who can bring any charge against us and who's gonna condemn?

Because God's the one who justifies and Christ is one who died. More than that, who was raised and now he intercedes for us. So he deals with the guilt and the shame part. This is to your point about what do you renew your mind according to?

You renew your mind according to that. That guilt and shame and all those things that people know they need and are crying out for and it's nowhere to be found. Mercy and forgiveness and absolution are ours in Christ.

Then he pivots to suffering in this life and even spiritual warfare. That's how he goes. And I would say that it's very clear in his mind that if you don't know that you are free from guilt and condemnation, you will never stand in the midst of trial and the accusations and the onslaught of the enemy.

You can't.

And so that's how we renew our minds and we persevere. That's how we renew our minds and we even strive for obedience.

That's right. Well, and then when we think conformed to the world, Justin, we think like debauchery.

Of course.

And I do believe he has that in mind there, but I think he also has worldly ideologies about our relationship with God as well.

Well, I mean, the letter to the Colossians says that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And he's even fighting that in Romans because he has to deal with, well, then should we just keep on sinning, so that grace may abound? Sure, of course not.

Yeah.

And I think it's interesting too, when he says, Paul says, consider daily how to build one another up. Well, I guess that would be Hebrews. Consider how to build it up into love and good works. Well, love, we love him because he first loved us.

So if you're going to talk about building someone up into love, you're going to be telling them about the love of God, which can't separate us, right? These are the things that are so important. And being able, for me, this is like new for me, just this understanding of like identifying a lie of Satan, a sinful accusation and go, that's actually not true.

That's a lie. And I'm not going to let that sit in my brain anymore. And when I can't figure out how to do that, man, I have the comfort of going, you know what? I have brothers and sisters who are going to do that for me.

They're going to renew me and encourage me.

Mercy, Absolution, and the Gospel Against the World’s False Atonement

So another angle on this, and I know we're running out of time on the regular show. You and I were talking about this earlier. The in the world, I alluded to this a second ago, it's very evident. Like, I mean, we're speaking as Americans in the kind of Western culture.