Tactics of the Accuser (Part 1) | Theocast

Hi, this is Justin. Today on Theocast, in the first of two episodes, we're going to be considering the tactics of the accuser.

The accuser, of course, is Satan, the ancient serpent who is the devil, who is the great accuser of the brethren.

Satan is real. Spiritual warfare is real. Often in the church, we don't think about these things well. We tend to make one of two opposite errors.

We either act like Satan doesn't exist, or we obsess over Satan and the work of the demonic realm.

Neither of those places are a good place to be. Today, John and I are going to begin our time thinking about how Satan does accuse the saints and seek to rob us of peace and rest and joy and hope in the

Lord Jesus Christ, and how this affects us and makes us ineffective in the cause of the kingdom of Christ.

And then next week, we're going to pivot the conversation to look more toward the ways Satan tempts us and also distracts us with things that aren't necessarily bad, but also hinder us in the mission and the cause of the kingdom of Christ.

We hope these episodes are clarifying and helpful to you. Stay tuned. A simple and easy way for you to help support

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To learn how to sign up, just go to theocast .org slash give. Welcome to Theocast, encouraging weary pilgrims to rest in Christ, conversations about the

Christian life from a confessional reform and pastoral perspective. Here at Theocast, we are seeking to clarify the gospel and reclaim the purpose of the kingdom of Christ.

All of that, we hope, in a little bit more than 30 minutes today. Your hosts around the virtual table, whenever you're listening to this, are

John Moffitt, who's pastor of Grace Reformed Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee, and I'm Justin Perdue, pastor of Covenant Baptist Church in Asheville, North Carolina.

This will be the first podcast airing in the year of our Lord 2023, so happy new year from 2022.

Greetings from the past. We're recording in November. It's a long way away. That's right. That's true. Yeah, I mean, maybe the

Lord will have returned by now and this won't even air. That would be wonderful. An exciting thing, too, if you're listening to this podcast in the first week of January 2023, we're about one week away from an exciting event on the

West Coast. John and I plan to fly out to California to Escondido to be a part of the

Westminster Seminary California Conference. We're just going to be attending that conference, to be clear. But we are planning to have a collaborative mash -up event with some friends.

So, Pat Abendroth and potentially Mike Grimes from the Pactum, along with Mike Abendroth from No Compromise Radio, with Theocast.

We're going to be doing an event together on Friday, January 13th on the seminary campus there at West Cal, 5 p .m.

So please join us. I think Getting the Gospel Right is the name of the event.

We're going to be talking about all things related to the gospel, confessionalism, reformed theology, etc.

So if you're in the area, come join us for a good time. Yeah, if you want details, most likely it'll be on our social media or our website.

I don't know if there's limited seating. We'll find out. We're not sure about any of these things. Yeah. So, that's exciting.

And we're going to be there for the conference. We would encourage you to attend. We're sure there's going to be good teaching. So we're excited about enjoying the

Southern California weather in January, as guys who live on the East Coast. And we are excited about the time with friends, getting to connect, build relationships, invest in relationships we already have, and we hope get some good content recorded and be a part of a fun event with some of our like -minded friends and brothers in Christ.

So all of that, we hope, is happening a week or so from now. There we have it. I'm also hoping what happens is that we will be hitting

In -N -Out at least once, if not twice, while there. Well, brother, that's a requirement. Every time

I go to California, I've got to go to In -N -Out. I hit it twice when I was in Waco, Texas this last Thanksgiving. Well, there you go.

I mean, you didn't go to Whataburger in Texas. I'm sure everyone's offended. All right, so now that we have distracted ourselves with all these common

Kingdom considerations about Whataburger and In -N -Out, let's get on to the subject matter for today,

John. This is not like a New Year's resolution podcast, but this is applicable for people as they're thinking about embarking upon a new year and are resolving to do a number of different things and thinking about the purpose of their lives and all of these things.

We hope that the two -part episode that we're about to record will be helpful to the saints in these ways. So, let them know.

Let them know what's coming. This is a brilliant quote. So, you know, as you can see, the title of the podcast is

Tactics of the Accuser. So we're going to be talking about the spiritual realm, really the demonic realm, and how

Satan obviously uses tactics in order to come after us as believers. There's this great quote by C .S.

Lewis. I've been doing a lot of studying and research on this for quite a while. I taught at my men's retreat recently on this particular topic.

This is out of the Screwtape Letters, and I found this to be a very helpful assessment of what he was talking about his time.

I think it's appropriate to even say I think it applies to today. Not much has changed. He wrote, There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils.

One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them.

They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialistic or a magician -like effect with the same delight.

And I do, you know, just from an observation standpoint, you do have people who just laugh at the fact where it's just this red little figure with the pitchfork, or you're on the other end where you're so fascinated by him that you are being distracted from the light and you are looking, peering into the mystery of the darkness.

And I think both of those are unhealthy. And it's, that's a great example of a tactic of Satan is to get you on either side to get you distracted from him.

One of the things I always say is, recently, is that if you're in a war, if you're fighting somebody, one of the best tactics of your enemy is to make you feel comfortable with his presence.

And this is exactly, I think what Lewis is saying is that there's a comfortableness of what's going on here and he can attack you, distract you, hurt you, and you don't even know that it's coming because you're, you're accepting the presence that is there.

So that's kind of the setup of where we're at this morning or in whenever you're listening to this, this is in the morning for us.

We're going to be talking about how Satan uses different tactics to, we believe, really accuse the believer and, and knock them on their heels and, and, and, and make them weaken their faith so that they aren't one, enjoying this amazing relationship that we have with our father.

And number two, enjoying sharing the good news of the gospel of the light of the kingdom with others around us, because we either weaken faith, we're entrapped in sin, or we're distracted.

And so over this episode and the next episodes, we're going to two episodes on this. We're going to be really talking about kind of what robs us of rest and the tactics of Satan and temptation.

And then next episode, we are going to pick up where we left off and we're going to really be talking about how

Satan distracts us with things that are good, but we end up using them to distract us from the real purpose of our life of living in the kingdom of Christ.

So, Justin, that's kind of my introduction. I know you had a couple of thoughts before we jump into this. I agree with the

Lewis quote. For my money, the Screwtape Letters is the best thing that C .S. Lewis ever wrote. It's more overtly theological.

Obviously, the Narnia Chronicles are incredible in terms of an allegory and Aslan as a type of Christ, et cetera.

I mean, that's, that's really good. But in his more overtly theological works, I think the Screwtape Letters is the best thing he ever wrote.

I think it's incredibly insightful. It's very thought provoking. And I think he's exactly right that people tend to fall off of one side of the horse or the other when it comes to thinking about Satan, the enemy, the accuser, the evil one, and even the demonic realm in general.

Spiritual warfare is real. The scriptures make that plain. And I think you see, as you survey the landscape in the

American church, even, you see many people who are obsessed with these overtly spiritual things and they're obsessed with Satan and the enemy and demons and we're binding things to the pit, you know, charismania and all this kind of stuff.

But then you also have a lot of people, I think this is more the tendency in our world, John, as Reformed confessional guys, where we don't talk enough about Satan and spiritual warfare.

We don't talk about it like we should, maybe. And so that's an opposite error. And so I think

Lewis is on to something. And I think this conversation that we're going to have today over two episodes, so the listener is going to hear this over the course of two weeks, is good.

And I think that these tactics of the enemy that we're going to outline, just to briefly reiterate, of accusation, robbing us of peace and hope and assurance, temptation, you know, doubling down on what's already there in terms of the corruption of our flesh, and then distraction, either in the form of the ways we get geeked up over piety and self -righteousness in bad ways.

Well, I should say piousness and self -righteousness, or just distracting us with the considerations of the common kingdom in this world.

I trust this is going to be clear to the listener as to how this is a helpful New Year's kind of stuff for them to think through and ponder.

So that's really it for me. I'm glad we're doing this. We took our time in outlining this stuff to come together, make sure we were going to be pulling in the same direction.

And I'm eager to get going. Yeah, I mean, you're talking about falling off one side of the horse or the other. Luther is famous with his battles and the way in which he would really even just engage

Satan verbally. And, you know, I can't remember exactly where I read this, but in my research, he was just talking about how the human nature, we get so intoxicated with our self and sin and temptation that when put up on the horse, we either fall off on one side where we don't care about what

Satan's doing, or we fall off on the other side and we're too infatuated with what he's doing. But we can't seem to stay focused on what it is that we should be doing, and that is clinging tight to Christ.

And so I think that is really if you want to know where we're going in this podcast is we want to keep you safe in your affections for Christ.

And we're going to talk about today how the Bible warns us, the Bible warns us that Satan's coming for us.

And we want to double down on rest and safety and peace in Christ. And we want to keep

Christ, in every good way this could be meant, as the singular focus of the saint. And that when it comes to our own peace, but then also when it comes to our mission and purpose, which is where we're going to go in the latter portion of the second episode,

I know all of this is related, and I hope that becomes plain over the course of the next however many minutes. So Satan, the great accuser of the brethren, that's

Revelation 12, right? He is the ancient serpent who is the devil. The name, the term

Satan literally means adversary. So he is our enemy. He is the evil one.

He is the great accuser of the saints. So one of his major prerogatives, as the scripture reveals it, is to accuse us.

And what does that mean, John? We would understand that to convey that Satan hurls accusations at us that we are in fact not children of the father, that Christ is not our savior, and that there is no mercy for us.

This is what he does. I've said this before, I believe, and I'm going to reiterate it now because I think it's applicable. The MO of Satan and the tactics of the enemy pertaining to people who are not believers and people who are,

I think it's interesting to observe this. For people who are not believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, who are outside of the church,

Satan's tactic with them is to tell them, you're fine. You don't need mercy. You're good.

Your desires are good. You should be celebrated. I'm at least thinking in the terms of our day. You should be celebrated.

Nothing that you could ever want or crave or desire could be bad because it's natural for you.

You don't need grace. You don't need mercy. You don't need a righteousness that's outside of you.

You are fine as you are. That's what he says all day long to the person who is not trusting in the

Lord Jesus, however, to the person who is trusting in Christ, who now loves

God, loves God's law, desires to obey, has agreed with God about his or her sin, and has taken

God's side against his or her sin, Satan then says this, oh, there's no mercy for you.

God may be merciful and he will be merciful to some, but not to you. You are not worthy.

You have blown it too many times. You've gone to the well one too many times. God is not going to forgive you this time.

Yes, Christ is a great savior, but not for a wretch like you because you're not diligent enough or disciplined enough or serious enough.

Your affections aren't right. You don't love enough. You don't have enough faith. This is what he does.

And so we have those accusations, those darts. I'm using

Ephesians six language. I'm sure we're going to go there. He hurls these darts at us, these attacks at us, and that combined with the fact that many of us have tender consciences anyway, and we're mindful of our sin and we're grieved by it because we're born again, and it's a terrible concoction,

John, to completely rob us of peace and assurance and hope and joy. And we become riddled with despair and doubt.

We do question, as I said on the outset, is God really my father? Or maybe he's my judge.

Is Jesus really my savior? Or am I going to be one of those people that he's going to look at me at the end of it all,

I will have meant to trust him, I'll have meant to live for him, but he's going to look at me and he's going to say, depart from me, I never knew you.

Right? Yeah. That's the work of Satan, man. That is not the work of God. It is. So, I just want to use some scripture here to just help you understand the tone of what

Justin is using here. This is the tone of Paul and Peter in the

New Testament. Let me just read you a couple of passages. So, this is 1 Peter 5 .8. Be sober -minded, and that means clear of thought.

Be watchful. Well, why? Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.

Right? The point of it is that word devour, you make a thing like, well, he's going to kill me or he's going to squash me out.

No, I think what he's talking about is devouring one's hope, one's stability, one's strength, because he can't do anything that the

Father won't allow, and he obviously cannot take away our salvation. So, we're safe and secure there.

But why else would Peter write this post -resurrection? Well, I think we don't understand that, yes, the war is over.

Christ won victory over death. But one of the missions that remains for us as believers is to go and proclaim the good news of the light of the kingdom of the resurrected

Christ. And God, in His sovereignty, has decided to not deal with sinners and the accusers, the evil ones, until He comes back.

So, we're living in a world where there are two realms spiritually. There is the

King's realm and us who belong to that. And then there is His accusers, those who oppose

Him, His enemy. And while we are waiting for the King to come back, He doesn't want this message to expand.

He does not want this message to continue. And how does it continue? Well, it continues through our mouths, right?

And so, this is why He's saying, be sober -minded and be watchful, because Satan's trying to keep you from doing the very thing that you should be doing.

And how does he do this? You're not going to see it. Let me put it this way. You know, when it talks about a prowling lion, that means typically when a lion is going to take down its prey, they don't know he's there.

Here's another passage from Paul who uses the same kind of language. This is 2 Corinthians 11, 13 and following.

He says, For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ.

And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness, their end will correspond to their deeds.

Point of it is, you're not going to easily point it out. You're not going to see it because he is a deceiver.

He doesn't want you to be caught. He wants you to be familiar with him and acceptable with his presence so he can take you down.

I think one other passage that might be helpful here is Paul in Ephesians chapter six, and I know we're going to mention this a little bit later in the positive nature, but he says,

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil and heavenly realms.

Let me just tell you this right now. If you woke up this morning and your mind did not have that awareness of what could attack you, it's like getting into a car and assuming that you do not need to pay attention to road signs and other drivers around you and the particular harm that is waiting for you, there's a sense of soberness and a watchfulness because of the potentials of what could happen to you.

That's the feeling. We're not walking in fear, but I love that sober -minded, take every thought captive, pay attention to what's coming into your mind.

A few things are popcorning around in my brain. We're just going to talk because that's what this show really is.

It's you and I having a conversation. I'm sure there are some people out there who are going to say, now, fellas, you guys are reformed dudes, and you have a particular perspective on the scriptures and prophecy and apocalyptic literature, et cetera, and how some of these things are going to unfold, and you guys would understand that Satan is bound.

We would say, sure, we do, but we also do understand that Satan has not yet been finally defeated.

We understand that he is in wounded animal mode, in one sense. You used the illustration earlier.

John, I think you could go ahead and give it again for people. Even thinking about the Civil War here in the United States, when the union wins and what this means for slavery and what this means for plantations and the fact that slaves,

God be praised, are going to be liberated, just give that illustration because I think it's helpful.

If you think about the Civil War, just from a technology standpoint, once the war is finally over, the last battle has been won, well, the rest of the

United States does not know this, neither do the plantation owners know this or the slave owners, and so one of the responsibilities of the soldiers were these battalions would go out, and they would have to go liberate these slaves and let them know, hey, the war is over, we won.

Well, guess what? A lot of these people didn't agree with the war in the first place. Even though the war is over, they don't want to give up their wealth.

They don't want to give up their slaves. And so as these soldiers are coming to herald the good news that the war is over because it is over, there was still a battle, and that battle was to try and liberate those who were enslaved.

That's a great view of our spiritual war for now. The battle's over. Jesus rose from the grave victorious.

The war is over, but there's still a battle raging, and this is why we're warring, and so he says we war against not our flesh.

We are taking the kingdom of light into the kingdom of darkness, and the kingdom of darkness doesn't like it.

It wants to stop it. If you're new to Theocast, we have a free ebook available for you called

Faith vs. 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. If Satan is the wicked of the wicked, think about how all of the movies and the stories that we've read and we enjoy, think about how vehemently wicked people hold on to what's theirs.

And power, exactly. I mean, death grip, literally, to the death, we're going to contend for these things, so of course we would expect

Satan to do the same, and we do understand that Jesus, in his death, has conquered the one, and he's the one that's the one who has the power of death, namely the devil.

We understand that he descended into hell, not to suffer more, but to conquer, that he has bound the strong man, and that he has let out a host of captives, and he is triumphant.

All of that is true, and to your point, your illustration conveys this, we are still in an environment where the battle, the war is over, but there still is this residual stuff going on, and the kingdom of Christ has not been consummated yet.

And so this stuff is still real and pertinent. I just wanted to say that briefly. I was going to say to your kingdom idea, we, the citizens, are rescuing other citizens, and we're waiting for our king to come, and we're in a world that's not being dominated primarily by our king, because this is why there's a wrestling.

I mean, why else is Paul saying... Satan is called the god of this world in 2 Corinthians 4. Right, but he doesn't win, he loses, and that judgment day is coming.

It's not here yet. Right, and we're going to get here more pointedly in the next episode, in terms of our cause and our purpose regarding Christ's kingdom, like you said.

We're trying to rescue other saints, and we do that in particular ways. We're already in Ephesians 6.

I think we can go ahead and do this, John, and talk through the accusation piece. I also have a quote from Richard Sibbes in the

Bruised Reed that I think is a wonderful illustration of how the enemy accuses us, but then how we might respond to that in light of even biblical truth.

If we look at the armor of God passage in Ephesians 6, you and I have said this before, but it needs to be reiterated.

The armor of God is not something that is dependent upon us.

I think the emphasis typically when the armor of God is talked about is, well, how diligent and disciplined are you when it comes to putting on the armor?

It's all about our faithfulness, and it's all about our diligence, again, and our discipline to put the armor on well and adequately so that we might be protected, when in reality,

I think the emphasis of the apostle is something entirely different, because the armor of God for us is what?

It's who, in particular? It's Christ. It's what he's accomplished for us. Consider his language.

He says, "...stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth." Well, whose truth?

We continue on, "...and having put on the breastplate of righteousness."

Sorry for that gaffe there, but in all seriousness, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, whose righteousness,

John? It's not mine. It's not yours. I mean, if it's mine or yours, God help us.

It's the righteousness of Christ. Can I just jump on that? Think about the picture he's giving you. If it was our righteousness that protected us, we wouldn't need to put on something else.

We're putting on something that's objectively outside of us, another righteousness. Extra notice. Amen, dude.

So, it's an alien righteousness. It's the righteousness of Christ that is counted to us, but we're putting that on to shield us from the flaming darts of the enemy.

We go on, "...as far as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace."

Well, who accomplished the gospel? I mean, what is the gospel? It's the work of Christ for us that gives us peace.

Why? Because by his stripes, we're healed. All of these things, continuing on, "...in

all circumstances take up the shield of faith." Well, what is faith? Trusting, accepting, receiving, resting in the

Lord Jesus Christ alone for justification, sanctification, and eternal life. It's looking away from ourselves to him.

We continue on, "...and take the helmet of salvation." Again, who wrought that?

Who works that? Who is the Savior? Who does salvation belong to? The Lord. "...and with all prayer in the sword of the

Spirit, which is the word of God." Well, what's that a testimony about? It's a testimony about Christ and what he's accomplished,

God's plan of redemption fulfilled and accomplished in Jesus, the work of Christ in the place of the sinner, praying at all times in the

Spirit with all prayer and supplication. Amen. So, that's great. Let's listen to Richard Sibbes really quickly because this is a beautiful passage.

He says, talking about just the fact that our victory is certain through conflict and through difficulty, our victory in Christ is certain.

What a comfort this is in our conflicts with our unruly hearts that it shall not always be thus.

Let us strive a little while and we shall be happy forever. Let us think when we are troubled with our sins that Christ has this in charge from his

Father, that he shall not quench the smoking flax until he has subdued all. This puts a shield into our hands to beat back all the fiery darts of the evil one.

That's Ephesians 6 .16. Satan will object. You are a great sinner.

We may answer, Christ is a strong Savior, but he will object.

You have no faith, no love. To which we respond, yes, a spark of faith and love, but Christ will not regard that, says the enemy.

To which we respond, he will not quench the smoking flax. To which

Satan says, but this is so little and so weak that it will vanish and come to naught.

To which we say, nay, but Christ will cherish it until he has brought judgment to victory.

This is how this goes, right? What a beautiful depiction of the accusations of the enemy.

Everything we say, Christ is a great Savior. Oh yeah, it's true, but you've got no faith. You've got no love. It's like, yeah, you're right.

It's only literally an ember. I mean, it's a flicker. Oh, well, Christ won't regard that. To which we say, ah, but he will not quench the smoking flax.

He will not break the bruised reed, and he will cherish it. The little flicker of faith and love that exists in my heart because the

Lord's given it to me. He'll cherish it until he's brought judgment to victory. Justin Perdue Well, just to go back,

I think what's interesting is one of the amazing tactics, and this will kind of lead us into closing this section down and talk about next week, but one of the amazing tactics of Satan is to isolate the prey.

If you've ever watched National Geographic, what do they do? Whether it's the wolves or the predators, they isolate the weak ones.

What's interesting is that that's exactly the tactic of the world today in that Christianity is becoming isolated with our own thoughts and our own flesh and our own mind and in the world through media and entertainment and our own flesh.

I mean, listen, go spend a month alone in a cave. You don't need the Twitter and the internet to accuse you of bloodshed.

No, you're going to be just fine doing it on your own. Which we'll acknowledge here in a minute. But the point of it is that one of the tactics of Satan is, and this is going to sound crazy, and I'm going to say it anyways, but Justin, God's Word is extremely powerful, and it's wonderful, and it's glorious.

And Satan, in many ways, is like, well, I can't convince them that that's not true, so what am

I going to do? I'm going to help them at least lose some of its power. And so what we do is we isolate ourselves thinking, well, all

I need is the Holy Spirit, I need my Bible, and I'm good to go. Well, guess what? You just fell for the tactic of the accuser because in the

Bible it says you actually don't do that. Do not pull yourself away from it.

Listen, he wrote Ephesians 6 to the church. The church puts on the armor of God, not the individuals.

The church trusts in Christ together. Go back to chapter 4. When the body functions properly, it protects itself.

It builds itself up in love. Justin Perdue So that we're not blown around and knocked to and fro and all that. Jon Moffitt That's right.

So a lot of times what happens, Justin, when we start struggling with our own sin, we end up isolating ourselves. We become quiet.

We don't confess it. We deal with it on our own. And what does the Bible tell us to do? No, use each other.

Confess our sins. Bear one another's burdens. Pull the brother out of their sin. My encouragement to everybody that is here is to be very aware that Satan is definitely trying to isolate you, pull you out, distract you, and discourage you.

I've started saying this. This is next week.

If the call of the Christian life is to take the kingdom of light into the kingdom of darkness, the greatest tactic of the enemy is to call into question the person holding the light if they actually have the light.

You're not going to be running with boldness to fight Satan and free the slaved if you don't think you have the light yourself.

Justin Perdue If you don't even think that you may very well not even be a part of God's army, then what in the world does that mean for your mission?

But you were referencing this earlier. We're exhorted in the Scriptures to be sober -minded and to be aware of the fact that we live in the midst of a war.

There is peace in the midst of warfare in one sense only, and that's Christ for us.

But to be sober -minded and to have that wartime mentality would certainly mean the last thing in the world that I want to do is isolate myself away from my

Father's loving presence and where I am going to most tangibly experience the Lord Jesus and his benefits, his ministry in this life, aka the local church.

I need to be with the saints, and we together are stronger than we could ever be apart, and the

Lord ministers to us. I agree 100 percent. And I'll just say one last thing, JP, but I know we're about to close it down.

But just to add to what you're saying, I think you need to hear us clearly.

We don't want you to walk around afraid. What we're trying to say is the thing that great strength is your union and rest in Christ, the sufficiency of Christ for us.

That's what Satan attacks. So if you find yourself questioning your position with the

Father, you need to know that you're under attack. Unless you're denying the gospel and you don't believe that Christ is sufficient anymore, that's a whole other problem.

But if he is sufficient, you need to realize the moment you start questioning him, you're not listening to Christ and his words. You're listening to Satan and his deceitfulness.

Justin Perdue No, that's entirely right. This is a great tactic of the enemy to make us ineffective, and we're going to go there.

In the next episode, if you have no peace and no hope and no joy and no assurance, you're going to be a very anemic soldier.

I know this has been co -opted and hijacked, but you're not going to be on mission. If your faith has just been eroded and taken from you and all those sorts of things, and you're questioning whether or not you're legitimate in the first place.

If I may, last comment, really, last talking point for this episode, and then we'll save the rest for the next show.

This is why John and I get so worked up over the clarity of the gospel and why we respond the ways that we do sometimes to the ways that Christ is obscured and the ways that the saints are robbed of peace and hope and joy.

It's not because we're trying to split hairs, it's not because we're trying to be argumentative, but we understand that the only hope we could ever have is

Jesus Christ, the righteous one, who is our substitute and who is our representative.

As we sit and talk about the tactics of the accuser today, this is not coming from two men who have just figured all this out and who are immune to the darts of the enemy.

For Christ's sake, we know that this is real because we experience it.

We are so easily robbed of peace and assurance and hope, and the enemy fires his darts at us, and sometimes they hit and they hurt, and they're effective.

What do we need then? We need the person and work of Christ heralded.

We need the mercy and grace and the sufficiency of Christ extolled to us.

And so, that's why we contend so vehemently for these things. I think we have experienced enough and we have tasted and seen that the only hope we ever have in the midst of the assaults of the enemy is to be reminded anew of Christ for us, who stands unaffected by our weakness, who is mighty and able to save, who, as Sibbes writes, he will not break a bruised reed, he will not quench the smoking flax, and he will keep and sustain and protect and nourish us.

He is our hope and our peace always. Anything that obscures that or throws clutter on top of that or causes the saints to doubt that, we're going to pound the desk and we're going to say, no, that's not helpful.

Justin Perdue Clarifying the gospel and reclaiming the purpose of the kingdom. That's what we're trying to do. We get a little upset when people mess with the gospel because that's the tactic that we just are not for.

Next episode, just to be clear for you guys and sort of as a trailer and to prime the pump so that you're ready, next show we'll briefly touch on the second tactic of the enemy, which is temptation.

We probably won't spend a long time on that because I think it's going to be obvious just how that occurs and what that's like for us.

Then we're going to spend the bulk of our time talking about the ways that Satan distracts us either with the pursuit of self -righteousness and pious sounding things, or he distracts us with concerns of this life, common kingdom considerations that aren't bad, but they're distracting to us in ways that are detrimental.

So that's next week, and we're going to be talking more about the mission of the church and the cause of the kingdom of Christ as it relates to all of that.

We hope that this conversation, the first of two, has been encouraging to you as you embark upon this new year.

Continue to trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. He is able to save even you.

He's able to save wretched, miserable offenders like John and myself. He's able to save you too.

So keep trusting Him. Keep looking to Him. We're going to seek in a Hebrews 12 sense, even in these two shows, to help us set aside everything that entangles and ensnares, including sin and all the distractions and the tactics of the evil one.

A few things to make you aware of before we exit here. You're not already listening to Everyday Grace.

That's a different podcast of ours that's available to you for free. It comes out daily.

It's usually three, four -minute clips from sermons that John has preached or I've preached or even some highlights from our podcasts.

All of those are meant to point you to Christ and just the grace of God in Him that is so extravagant. We would encourage you to check that out.

Also, we have a community of people known as Semper Reformanda. This is our membership. It's people who have partnered with our ministry to help spread this message of Christ for us as far and wide as possible.

If you're interested in how you could support Theocast or get involved in deeper ways, maybe Semper Reformanda is for you.

Part of being an SR member means you get to listen to an additional podcast every week that John and I are about to record.

It also means that you get on the app and you get to know a lot of people, a large, growing community of people just like you who are wrestling with these same things and who are encouraged in the

Lord Jesus Christ as they learn more of the confessional faith. So we leave all that to you. You can find information about that on our website,

Theocast .org. Thank you for listening to all of that. Thank you for listening to this show. If you're an SR member, we'll talk with you on the flip side.