Understanding Satan's Mind | Justin Perdue

Satan’s Limits, Christ’s Victory, and the Devil’s “Opportune Time”

Think about the way Satan operated when it came to the earthly ministry of Jesus. You realize Satan's powerful, but he's not God, he's not omniscient, he doesn't know everything. What's going through Satan's mind?

He tempts Jesus just like he attempted Adam and Eve. You're familiar with this account. And in every way that Adam had failed, Christ is victorious.

We know that.

Praise be to his name. But do you know what it says in Luke's gospel in particular at the end of Christ's temptation? It says that the devil left him and waited for an opportune time. Fast forward about 18 chapters, and then we read as if from nowhere that Satan inhabits.

He enters Judas, who's called Iscariot. And you know what happened then. Judas would betray Jesus. This is Satan at work. He's going to foil the plan, right? The Garden of Gethsemane, later that evening.

When Jesus is arrested, he says, why are you coming out after me like a robber? As though I've done all these things. I've been in the temple all the time and you've never touched me. But this is your hour and the power of darkness.

That was the opportune time that Satan had worked for, waited for, jumped on it. Little did he know. Little did he know. You wonder, what's going through his head as God the Son incarnate hangs on the cross?

Did he think he'd won? Little did he know that at that moment, Jesus was bruising his head. And that later on down the road, the ancient serpent would be thrown into the lake of fire. Little did he know.

Jesus has conquered and bound the strong man and he has set God's people free. But next, Jesus has delivered us and set us free from the fear of the grave. These are all the reasons why you and I can have hope tomorrow when we're tying our shoes, when we're getting ready to do whatever it is that the day holds.

We have been set free by Christ now from the fear of the grave. You know Hebrews 2, 14 and 15. It's refrigerator worthy. Because the children partake in flesh and blood. Jesus partook of the same thing.

Why?

So that through death, I'm the one who died and lived again, right? So that through death, he might conquer the one who has the power of death, namely the devil.

So that what?

So that you and I would no longer have to be subject to lifelong slavery, the fear of the grave. You know what Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15, that we bore the image of the man of dust and we will bear the image of the man of heaven.

We'll be like him. Death is the last and final enemy. It's the greatest enemy in that sense. And you don't need me to tell you that death is harrowing. I mean, if we were honest, truth serums given to everyone in the room, are you afraid to die?

I trust many would say, yeah, I am. That's frightening. But we know. We know that our Redeemer lives. We know with Job, right? We can say, I know that he lives and he's going to stand again on the earth.

And I will see him. We will see him, not with other, but with these very eyes.

We will.

May it be. We've been set free by Jesus also from the dominion of sin. The tyranny of it. Let me ask you this question. You ever get weary of battling against your flesh? You ever grow tired of that? You ever get weary of having to fight for joy?

I do.

But there is a day coming, saints, that because of Christ, those battles will be over. You realize this. There's coming a day when we will know nothing but joy in his presence forever. Joy will no longer be something we fight for.

It will be our reality. Joy will be our resting heart rate, and we won't be able to sin. That's a mind-blowing thought. We won't be able to sin, nor even better, nor will I even want to.

Nor will you.

The end, you realize, is better than the beginning. We have gained more in Christ than we lost in Adam. Christ has also freed us, though, from bondage to Satan. We just were hearing about the spiritual realm.

I don't know that we think enough in these terms. We were enslaved to the evil one, and Christ has set us free. The great adversary, the great enemy of God's people. Sinister and manipulative and shrewd and powerful from the beginning.

A liar.

The great accuser of the brethren. The strong man, as Jesus refers to him in Mark chapter 3. The strong man has been bound, and his goods have been plundered.