Jesus Appeared: To Destroy The Devil's Work

Isaiah’s Promise of the Child Who Will Bring Light and Peace

The Old Testament reading is in Isaiah chapter nine, verses one through seven. Please stand. There will be no gloom for her who was in anguish in the former time he brought into contempt in the land of Zebulun, in the land of Naphtali.

But in the latter time he has made glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of nations. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. Those who have dwelt in the land of deep darkness and then as light shown.

You have multiplied the nation, you have increased in joy. They rejoice before you as with a joy at harvest, as they are glad when they divide the spoil. For the yoke of his burden and the staff for his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian.

For every boot of the tramping warrior in battle, tumult, and every garment rolled in blood will be burned as fuel for the fire. For to us a child is born, to us a son is given. And the government shall be upon his shoulder and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

Of the increase of his government and of peace, there will be no end. On the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore.

The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.

John the Baptist’s Birth and Zechariah’s Prophecy

New Testament reading is found in Luke chapter one. We'll be reading from verses 57 to the end of the chapter. Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth and she bore a son and her neighbors and relatives heard that the Lord had shown great mercy to her and they rejoiced with her.

And on the eighth day, they came to circumcise the child and they would have called him Zachariah after his father. But his mother answered, no, you shall be called John. And they said to her, none of your relatives is called by this name.

And they made signs to his father inquiring what he wanted him to be called. And he asked for a writing tablet and wrote, his name is John. And they all wondered. And immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue loosed and he spoke, blessing God.

And fear came on all their neighbors and all these things were talked about through all the hill country of Judea. And all who heard them laid them up in their hearts saying, what then will this child be?

For the hand of the Lord was with him. And his father Zachariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied saying, blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has visited and redeemed his people. And he has raised up a horn of salvation for in the house of his servant, David, as he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from of old, that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us to show the mercy promised to our fathers and to remember his holy covenant, the oath that he swore to our father Abraham to grant us that we being delivered from the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all our days.

And you child will be called the prophet of the most high, for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death to guide our feet into the way of peace.

And the child grew and became strong in spirit and he was in the wilderness until the day of his public appearance to Israel. You may be seated.

I will be doing that. Okay, turn in your Bibles to 1 John. 1 John chapter three. Before we begin, let's ask God to open his word to us. Father, this is the living word of God. This is how we know your thoughts.

This is how we know your will. This is how we know the right way of looking at life. And so we pray that you would bring the text to us today, make it live so that we can see clearly, make it live in our hearts so that we leave here better equipped to understand our God, ourselves and our world.

Help us now by your grace in the Holy Spirit. In Jesus name, amen. Christmas is all about destruction. Now that may take you by surprise. You may say, did I hear you right?

Yep.

You can't understand the proper meaning of Christmas without calling to mind devastation, annihilation and obliteration. We say, well, wait a minute. I thought Christmas was about peace and joy and good things, but not the destruction of anything.

Well, yeah, Christmas is about joy and peace, but without destruction and devastation, there can be no peace or joy. Where in the world do you get that? Well, you get that from the book of 1 John. I want you to turn with me if you're not there yet to 1 John chapter three.

Now, last week we looked at chapter three, verses four through seven. This week we wanna look at verses eight through 10. So let's look beginning in verse eight. Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning.

The reason the son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning for God's seed abides in him and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God.

By this, it is evident who are the children of God and who are the children of the devil. Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. You can see then the reason there is Christmas is because God aims to destroy something.

He aims to destroy the works of the devil. Someone says, but didn't John himself in his gospel write, for God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him?

Yeah, he did, but Jesus saves by destroying. He saves by destroying like a doctor saves a life by removing a gangrenous arm or a gangrenous foot. He saves the life by taking something away. And those who truly embrace Christmas for what it is are those who welcome Jesus as a destroyer in their lives.

Now, last week we saw that Jesus came as the destroyer of lawlessness and rebellion. I want you to see, I want you to see, this is not just the textual nerd in me, but this is, I want you to see this because it shows you how John has constructed this.

Notice the parallel structures here. Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness. Sin is lawlessness. Verse eight, that was verse four.

Verse eight, whoever makes a practice of sinning.

Is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. So you see sin and lawlessness, sin and the devil. Verse five, you know that he appeared to take away sins and in him there is no sin.

All right, verse nine, no one born of God, wait a minute, the reason, I'm sorry, verse eight, the last part of verse eight, the reason the son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil, okay?

Verse six, no one who abides in him keeps on sinning. No one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. Verse nine, no one born of God makes a practice of sinning. For God's seed abides in him and he cannot keep on sinning because he's been born of God.

And then verse seven, little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous as he is righteous, verse 10. But by this it is evident who are the children of God and who are the children of the devil.

Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God nor is the one who does not love his brother. So he's talking about two things. Jesus appeared to destroy lawlessness. Jesus appeared to destroy the works of the devil.

So there's this parallel thing going on. He wants us to see the incredible encompassing work of Jesus as he has appeared in this time when we recognize that. So first he talks about Jesus came as a destroyer of lawlessness or rebellion, but now he turns his attention to the fact that he has come as the destroyer of the works of the devil.

So let's look at this together. Same questions that we, or the same things we saw last week. First of all, know for whom Jesus appeared. The first part of verse eight, whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil for the devil has been sinning from the beginning.

John talks about here, talks about those who are sinful. He appeared among people who do what is sinful and nothing has changed since then. We're still around sinful people. Now what can be said about sinful people?

Last week we saw that the essence of sin is lawlessness, therefore sinners are rebellious people. We see here the origin of sin, which is the devil, and therefore sinners are linked to the devil. Now what is he like?

What do the scriptures say about him? That he has been sinning. Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. We know that he sinned from the beginning.

Now he's not talking about the creation, the moment of creation. God did not create an evil being. From the beginning, I believe means from the beginning of our history, somewhere in there Satan showed up.

We all know the story of the Garden of Eden where Satan showed up and tempted, seduced, and moved that first couple away from what God intended for them. It must mean that he has sinned from the moment of his rebellion.

Now the scripture does not say hardly anything about the fall of Satan or the rebellion of Satan. There's just a few references. One is 1 Timothy 3 .6, which is a reference to elders and it says, he must not be a recent convert or he may become conceited and fall under the same judgment as the devil.

Now we don't know the history of it. The Bible is really quite silent about it. But evidently Satan fell somewhere along the line and so from the beginning he has been evil. But notice that sin is his essential character.

It's the essence of his being. From the beginning he has been sinning. That's a word that means continuous action. It's translated there as he has been sinning. So you see the picture of Satan here. Since he's continuously sinning from the beginning, his essential being and characteristic activity is sinful, is sinning, all right?

Now because of that fact then, God says that everyone whose characteristic activity is sin exhibits a character derived from the devil. John says here that anyone who does what is sinful, doing or practicing sin, is of the devil.

That preposition means out of the devil, okay? It means he derives his character from the devil. There's only one person from whom that character can be derived and that's Satan. Now many would say, okay, wait a minute.

I don't sacrifice babies. I've never drunk blood. I don't worship Satan. I don't perform satanic rituals. So how can that be? Well, those sort of things certainly come from Satan. But it goes further than that.

He speaks here of anyone whose life lacks conformity, does not line up with the righteous commands of God, is of the devil. Let's look at a couple passages, for example. Colossians, turn to Colossians for a moment.

When you talk about people being connected to the devil, what do they typically say to you? They typically say, I don't do all those terrible things. I've never been in a coven doing weird satanic rituals.

How can you say that? Well, let's look at Colossians chapter three, beginning in verse five. So whoever doesn't line up with Satan, or line up with God's righteous commands, is of the devil. Colossians three, verse five.

Put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you, sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these, the wrath of God is coming. In these, you too once walked when you were living in them, but now you must put them all away.

Anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.

Now, notice the things he talks about. Impurity, passion. What are we told today? Passion, well, that's just normal, right? Don't tell children to, don't tell our teenagers to abstain. I mean, they're, that's just an impossible thing.

They're passion-driven people. Look what it says here about that. What about covetousness? The fact that I want something I don't have. That is, I really, really, really want it, and I gotta have it, and I'm envious of you because you have it.

Covetousness, we don't look at that as any big deal, but that's what God calls sin. And then, you know, verse eight. Anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Well, we wouldn't say anger and wrath.

We'd say, oh, I just have a short fuse. All of these things are sin and are derived from the devil, okay? The big things, satanic rituals, to the little things, I've got a short fuse. All right, now, I want you to look at John 8 for a moment.

John chapter 8, beginning in verse 39.

Jesus is talking to Pharisees here. Now, in our view, we look at Pharisees as these terrible hypocrites, which is what they were. But again, in Jesus' day, when you said the word Pharisee, the word hypocrite wouldn't jump into your mind.

The word hero would jump into your mind because the Pharisees were the holiest of the holy. They, man, they went the extra mile in keeping the commandments of God. I mean, they were the heroes of the day.

By the way, you need to keep that in mind. When you see Jesus take on the Pharisees, you got to see people standing back and like going, did I just hear him right, right? People did not think of Pharisees as hypocrites.

They thought of them as heroes. They were the holiest of the holy. In verse 34, well, verse 31, so Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, if you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.

They answered him, we're the offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say you will become free? Jesus answered, truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.

A slave does not remain in the house forever. The son remains forever. So if the son sets you free, you'll be free indeed. I know that you're offspring of Abraham, yet you seek to kill me because my word finds no place in you.

I speak of what I have seen with my father and you do what you have heard from your father, okay? They answered him, Abraham is our father. Jesus said to them, if you were Abraham's children, you would be doing the works Abraham did.

But now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did. You're doing the works your father did. They said to him, we were not born of sexual immorality.

We have one father, even God. Jesus said to them, if God were your father, you would love me for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. Why do you not understand what I say?

It's because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father, the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and has nothing to do with the truth because there is no truth in him.

When he lies, he speaks out of his own character for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I tell you the truth, you do not believe me. Now here's the point, he's talking to Pharisees, the holiest of the holies, and he tells them, you're of the father, the devil, because you do not hear what I'm saying.

Here's the point I'm just simply trying to make, and that is, even those who look holy can be of their father, the devil, because they do not believe in Jesus, because they are not listening, all right?

They're out of sync with the will of God. Anyone whose governing principle is sin, that is, who practices sin, even the sin of self-righteousness is of the devil. So Jesus appeared for those who are related to the devil, that is, to anyone who sins.

Now know why Jesus appeared, the last part of verse eight. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil, to destroy the works of the devil. How did he accomplish that? He appeared.

Now it doesn't mean that Jesus suddenly appeared and that day in the manger, in the barn, suddenly the works of the devil were destroyed, no. Not just his presence, but by his appearing from the heaven, from heaven in the form of man, living, dying, and rising from the dead, he destroyed the works of the devil.

Well, what are the works of the devil? Well, clearly here in our context, in verses eight and nine, also verse four, it's sin, sin. The work of the devil is to tempt people to sin, and when he accomplishes that, his work is done.

Look at verse nine. Let's just look ahead a little bit. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, okay? There again is sin. So the Son of God came not only to destroy the guilt of sin, but to destroy sinning itself.

The work of the devil is sinning, to destroy sinning itself. We could say lawlessness is also the work of the devil that we saw last week. Lawlessness says God may demand it, but I don't prefer it. Lawlessness says God may promise it, but I don't want it.

All right?

The work of Satan is to tempt us to reject the authority of God, to go with our desires. The Son of God appeared to destroy that work, to destroy the work of him promoting sin and lawlessness. Not only that, look at Revelation 12, verse 10.

Let's look at some other works of the devil that Jesus came to destroy. Revelation 12, verse 10. Here we read, and I heard a loud voice in heaven saying, now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down who accuses them day and night before our God.

What is the devil's work? To accuse us. And he says, now that Christ has come and the accuser of our brothers, who accuses Christians, right? It's been nullified. Do you realize that Satan accuses us?

By the way, he doesn't just accuse us to God, he accuses you in your conscience, doesn't he? How many of you have said, I've sinned, can't believe I've sinned. And Satan takes advantage of that. And he says, yeah, you're a sinner.

You fail, you're no good. See, you think you've been changed. Just look at yourself. And he paralyzes us. And we can say to our conscience, no, I have a representative before God who is my advocate, who presents himself to my God and says, I know he's sinned, but I paid for that.

He's the accuser. He gets nowhere with God. He tries to get somewhere with you. That's when you need to say, no, no. Jesus is my righteousness. Jesus is my redemption. Not me, not me, right? He destroys the work of the devil.

Colossians 2, verse 15, talking about Jesus' work on the cross. It says, he disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in him. Jesus not only frees you from the accusations of Satan, but he frees you from Satan's ability to tyrannize you because he has disarmed him and all his hoes.

He has disarmed him. You know what I've often thought this, that Satan has no power over you. The only thing he has is deception. That's all he has. He cannot make you do anything. He cannot move you to do things you don't want to do.

The only thing he has is deception. It's the only way he gets anywhere with you because he has been totally disarmed. He does not hold you in the palm of his hand. He does not turn you any way that he wants.

He cannot do that. So the only thing he has left is deception because he has been disarmed. Look at Hebrews 2, verses 14 and 15. So Jesus has destroyed the work of the devil in terms of taking away our desire for rebellion.

He takes away his power of accusation. He takes away his ability to tyrannize us. He cannot control us. In Hebrews 2, verses 14 and 15. Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself, speaking of Jesus, likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.

All right?

So Jesus has freed us from the work of the devil called slavery to fear. We're no longer slaves to fear. Now, I don't know about you, but I think so many, so much of what we see happening around us with this pandemic is driven by people who are terrified of dying.

We are now in a world where people think they can hold off dying, they can hold off death. People around us are terrified of dying. Now, again, this is not a shot at people who are saying wear masks and do all these other things.

I'm not trying to say that. What I am trying to say is there are tons of people around you today who are terrified of the thought of death. That's Satan's work. And Jesus delivers us from the terror, the fear of death.

So these are the works of the devil. Jesus came to destroy it. Jesus came to destroy sinning itself and the works of the devil amongst us. Now, know how Jesus' appearance affects you. Verse nine, no one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God.

You will not continue to sin. You cannot go on sinning. Now, does that mean you're incapable of sinning? No, again, remember what we saw last week. Chapter one, verse eight. Let's look back again, just as a reminder.

Chapter one, verse eight. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us, right? What's the answer? Openly confess it and be forgiven, all right? Verse 10, if we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar and his word is not in us.

What's the answer to that? The very next few verses, my little children, I'm writing these things to you so that you may not sin, but if anyone does sin, we, the Apostle John, including himself, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous, he's a propitiation for our sins, and not only for ours, not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world, all right?

So, we see that it's not that we're incapable of sinning, we still sin, but John addresses two errors that you see all the time. I want you to listen carefully now. He addresses two errors. Chapter one through chapter two, verse two, is aimed at those who are blind to sin and deny its existence, all right?

So, he's writing to correct the error where people are blind to sin and deny its existence. And so, people excuse their sin, they rename it, they call it things like mistakes, I made a mistake, or they'll slap some kind of a mental illness label on it, or they'll say, well, we've violated our cultural mores.

There's people who deny the existence of sin in many ways. In chapter one, the Apostle speaks of the universality of sin, the universality of sin, even in Christians, okay? But here in chapter three, he aims at those who, although they don't deny sin, are indifferent to sin and deny its seriousness.

This is addressed to people who are indifferent to sin and deny its seriousness. You know, people say, I'm a Christian no matter what I do. I remember, I was six years old and I believed in Jesus. So, yeah, I know, sure, I'm cussing all the time and I don't care to go to church, but I was saved when I was six, right?

Or someone says, too bad about Joe, he hasn't been in church for years now, and I heard he's living with his girlfriend, but thank God he was saved when he was 12, right? Heard people talk like that? That's who this is addressed to, those who are indifferent to sin and deny the seriousness of it.

Here he speaks of the incompatibility of sin.

In the Christian, all right?

Now, why is sin incompatible for the Christian? Because he's been born of God. He's been born of God. Instead of being of the devil now, you've been born of God. When John says that a person who's born of God cannot sin, he must mean that a person born of God has new wants and new desires.

It's like a new birth, something else John wrote about in his gospel. Something new has come into existence. Being born of God means that you're changed by God so that the dominion or the control of sin and Satan has been broken.

Not only that, but what else does he say? The seed of God remains in you. When a father begets a child, the father's seed remains or abides in that child. Something of the father is in the child. It makes him like his father.

Now, I've been told, many say that I laugh like my dad, that I walk like my dad, and even that I handle my anger like my dad. My dad would get angry, he would get quiet. He would just clam up.

That's quiet.

I've been told that's what I do, right? By God's grace, I'm learning to deal with that, hopefully. But there's a lot of things about me that are like my dad. Same thing with God's children. God's character is in his children and his character is the very opposite of sin.

You see, the child of God then will be like his father. Sin is incompatible to his nature. That means you won't be indifferent to sin when you do sin. It means that there's something inside of you that hates it.

There's something inside of you that just when you're aware of the sin, you hate it, right? You wanna be done with it. So that's why he's saying you don't go on sinning because there's something of God in you.

The character of God is now in you. So the appearance of Jesus has accomplished something striking in those who've been born of God. No one, listen, think of it this way. No one born of God will be content to keep on sinning.

There'll be a holy discontentment with sin. Now the last thing, verse 10. Know that Jesus' appearance gives you a new understanding, a new perspective, all right? Verse 10, by this it is evident who are the children of God and who are the children of the devil.

Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. Because Jesus has manifested himself among us, man, something of man becomes manifested. The children of God and the children of the devil.

Become obvious.

You can tell the difference. The children of God will do what is righteous. They will seek to be conformed to line up with the commandments of God. They will seek to follow Jesus. They will seek to be like him.

The children of God will do what is right. And not only that, but the children of God will be known for their love, all right? They'll be known for their love for one another. So, in this world, this is the perspective he gives us.

There are two families, two fathers. There's those who are of their father, the devil, they look like him. There are those who are of their father, God, and they look like him. And you should be able to tell the difference.

You should be able to tell the difference. These, right, these are not righteous. These are righteous and loving. They love one another, okay? By the way, then after this, he'll go on and talk about how we ought to love one another.

But the point is, we will be known by our love for one another. So Jesus appeared, accomplishing a radical transformation, giving us a new birth so that God's children will appear in the world as those who love righteousness and those who love their brothers and sisters.

So that there are those who love righteousness and love the family of God. That's what they will look like.

That's what they will look like.

So you look around the world and you see the wanton destruction caused by the evil that pervades every corner of the earth. There seems no end to it all. I don't know about you, but sometimes it just seems like it's just darkness out there.

Complete darkness and destruction. That is because much of the world is held in the grips of the evil one. But Jesus appeared.

Why?

He appeared in order to destroy the destroyer. And he has begun that work among his people by transforming them so that in this evil world, they become evident as those whose lives and loves are different.

Father, thank you for your word again. And thank you that it tells us what this season is all about. Frankly, Lord, we're caught up in the season and it's good. It's good that we celebrate the coming of the Lord Jesus, but Father, help us to celebrate it for the right reasons.

To celebrate the fact that there has come into our world a savior who destroys the lawlessness of our hearts and the ruler of darkness. Thank you that Jesus appeared for the purpose of destroying those things that are against you and in that, giving us joy and peace.

Thank you for the appearance of your son. We pray all these things in his name, amen.