This Present Darkness

Our world is full of deadly predators who have mastered the ability to deceive their prey.

For instance: the Alligator Snapping Turtle is the largest freshwater turtle in North America, and lives in southern Lakes, Rivers, and Swamps. It is a massive turtle that can weigh up to 220 pounds! I don’t know about you, but that makes me want to never go swimming again! And though this massive turtle is armed with powerful jaws and sharp claws, it still as slow as a turtle, which makes it unable to catch faster moving prey. So instead of pointlessly trying to chase its prey down, it lies motionless in the water, looking very much like a harmless rock, with its jaws wide open, and its tongue, which looks very much like a worm, hanging out, which happens to draw the attention of fish, frogs, and even other turtles. And as soon as they enter the gator snapper’s jaws to enjoy their meal, snap goes the jaw as they become the meal for the alligator snapping turtle.

Another deceptive, but deadly predator, is the anglerfish, which is a deep-water fish that is known for it’s terrifying appearance. The kind of appearance from which nightmares are made. But instead of a worm-looking tongue, this creature’s dorsal spine protrudes from above its mouth like a fishing pole. And on the end, hangs a bulb-like organ full of luminous bacteria that produces a blueish-green glow, similar to that of a firefly, which serves as a lure. But instead of reflecting on the Anglerfish’s skin, the light is absorbed making the fish invisible in darkness. And so when a fish comes along they only see the lure and not the deadly monstrocity that quickly devours it whole.

Another deadly predator is the Margay, a wild cat native to Central and South America, who is a predator with a very unique ability. And its the ability to mimic the calls of baby monkeys in distress... Which of course, attracts worried adult monkeys who come rushing to help, only to be attacked and devoured by the Margay who is lying in wait.

Our world is full of deceptive predators But as crafty as these deceptive predators are, I want to draw your attention this morning to one more deceptive predator that is a man-eater who has has devoured millions of lives to this date! What predator is that?

"Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour!” 1 Peter 5:8

Satan, our great adversary, is our greatest predator. In fact, this spiritual predator is the craftiest predator of them all, and has numerous tricks for deceiving its prey. Which is why we are called to be alert, vigilant, and sober minded - we must be ready and prepared lest we fall victim to this deadly predator’s schemes.

How can we be prepared? How can we be alert and ready for the attack? How can we overcome our spiritual predator? Well, to answer that question, turn in your Bible’s with me this morning to Matthew chapter 4, verses 1-11, where we will find the 3 things we must know to overcome our spiritual predator.

To overcome our spiritual predator, we must know:

1. The enemy’s nature.
2. The enemy’s plan.
3. The enemy’s weakness.

1. The enemy’s nature.

Let’s look at the first one, the enemy’s nature.

What is the most important piece of information all prey need if they are going to overcome their predator? They need to know the predator is there! Right? Because if you don’t know the predator is there, you aren’t going to be on guard.

I was reading this past week about a recent Barna survey of over over 1,8000 professing Christians, which asked them what they believed about the devil. And do you know what the survey discovered? It discovered that 60% of Christians don’t believe in the existence of a literal devil! 60% of Christians don’t even think their greatest enemy exists! Instead, they believe the devil is a symbol of evil - not a real living being. And with this being the case, is it any wonder why so many in the church fall prey to Satan’s traps? There are strolling around like Christianity is a picnic or a birthday party! But Christianity is ABSOLUTELY NOT a picnic, it’s not a vacation until heaven - Christianity is WAR with an enemy that is very much very real!

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 in the heavenly places.

Ephesians 6:12 ESV

Do you believe that? You had better. Church, we face not a power, not a force, but a personal being with a vast intellect and a dark army behind him who seeks our destruction!

Why do you think it is that so many people think it’s ridiculous to believe in a literal devil? I can think of two reasons:

Why people don’t believe in a literal devil:

They misunderstand the nature of evil.

People misunderstand the nature of the devil because they have gotten their theology about the devil from bad sources. The devil is not a pitch fork wielding, double horned, red guy who sits on your shoulder whispering naughty things you should do... No, the devil is a fallen angel who presents himself as an angel of light, seeking to deceive by mixing truth with lie. And if we get our theology of the devil from Hollywood, it’s no wonder we don’t take this enemy seriously!

But Scripture is clear, evil isn’t a force, evil wears a face! And behind all evil is the face of an intelligent being who along with his army of darkness seeks our our destruction.

Do you want to know a really good reason why we should believe in a literal and personal devil? Because if you don’t you are not going to be able to make sense of the present darkness around us in our world! I like how one pastor puts this when he says: “If you think that all that behind the Holocaust is Hitler, you’re never going to be able to make sense of the darkness. If you think that all that is behind addiction is poor parentings, you’re never going to be able to make sense of the darkness.” If you think that all that lies behind horrific child abuse, rape, murder, and violence, is mental illness, you’re never going to be able to make sense of the darkness.

Parents do not drown their children alive in tubs and then take their own lives because their dad didn’t hug them enough! No! For evil like this shouts the existence of an intelligent dark force who’s evil makes our heart’s throb in despair!

I’m telling you, if you don’t understand this, you are never going to be able to understand our world. You won’t be able to understand why it is that people can do the wicked things that they do Why it is that our politicians and world leaders constantly disappoint us! Why it is that our world is full of wars and conflict.

If we miss the theology of devils we will be left blind to the devil’s attacks, and unable to make sense of our world’s darkness. And so we had better recognize the devil’s existence - which Jesus did. Which is why He tells us about His encounter with the Devil. And He tells us because it is information that we need to know!

To overcome our spiritual predator, we must know:

2. The enemy’s plan.

1Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 And the tempter came

if you remember, last week we looked at Jesus’s baptism and we saw how it was a wonderful moment in Jesus’s life where the Holy Spirit came down upon Jesus as a dove and the Father spoke from Heaven, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” This was a great moment in Jesus’s life. It was the start of His messianic ministry. In fact, we could call it the commissioning of the King.

And what happened immediately after this great moment where God smiles in acceptance upon His Son? Conflict! And conflict ushered in by whom? Not the devil The Holy Spirit! That’s what verse 1 says: The Holy Spirit of God led Christ into the wilderness TO BE TEMPTED by the Devil.

And I don’t know about you, but isn’t that how it always seems to go? You start to make spiritual progress - and then BAM - you get blindsided and fall. Maybe you went to that retreat where God used the preaching to convict, challenge, and encourage you Maybe you finally confessed that sin, found someone to help keep you accountable, and a couple of days later you found yourself face down in the sin you swore off! Why is that? It is because heaven’s smile leads to hells frown It does - every single time! For heaven’s acceptance leads to hell’s fury. Which is is precisely what happened with Christ.

Jesus had been in the wilderness for 40 days without food. Which would make most of so HANGRY we might even scare the devil off.

But here was Christ, at a point of total weakness, facing off with the prince of darkness himself, who is tempting Jesus to do what? Doubt God’s love for Him. After all, if Jesus is truly God’s beloved Son, “with whom He is well pleased”, why is Jesus starving in the wilderness? What kind of Father does THAT to His Son? And so Satan says: “Alright Jesus, if you’re really God’s Son turn these stones into bread!” “Prove it! For if you were God’s Son then why are you so hungry?” “Surely it can’t be God’s plan that you be hungry!” “Surely a good and all-poweful loving Father wouldn’t put this kind of misery in your life! Surely He wouldn’t expect you put up with this!”

Oh how Satan’s lie here echoes the lie to Eve from Genesis 3! “Does God REALLY care about you? Does God REALLy love you? THEN WHY does He withhold from you?”

This is the lie Satan tells us: If you are REALLY a beloved son or daughter of God - one whom He is well pleased - then why did God let your loved one die? If God really loved you He would never do that! So either He doesn’t care about you or you’ve disappointed Him, or He doesn’t exist! So you had better rely on yourself instead of Him and “turn these stones into bread!”

But does hardship mean God doesn’t love us? Hardly - for the truth is, troubles and conflict don’t mean heaven’s frown! In fact, often times they are the result of Heaven’s smile upon us! Look at Christ The perfectly righteous and obedient Son of God who was PERFECTLy pleasing to God. Was His life peaches and cream? NO - not even close! It was suffering and hardship! And His suffering and hardship was PLANNED by His loving Father for a good and perfect purpose.

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

Romans 8:28 ESV

The Christian life is not a life of peace, but a life of war, because the Kingdom of Heaven is in conflict with the Kingdom of Hell. And God is using this conflict for His children’s good! Do you believe that? Do you trust God’s perfect plan for you - even when He leads you into the deserts of life? Or do you only trust Him if He gives you bread? If so, then you have failed to realize HE IS our bread! He IS OUR sustenance! Which is why Christ responded in verse 4 saying:

But he answered, “It is written, “ ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ”

Matthew 4:4 ESV

With Satan’s first attack unsuccessful, he moves on to tempting Christ again. In verses 5 and 6 it says:

Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written, “ ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and “ ‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’ ”

Matthew 4:5-6 ESV

In the first attack, Satan temps Jesus to not trust His heavenly Father, but in the second attack He temps Him to practice what He preaches and prove it. “Oh you trust God do you - show me! Throw yourself down if you really believe God will take care of you!” And what is Jesus’s response? Quoting Scripture, Jesus says: “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.”

Picture the setting here: Jesus and Satan are standing on the pinnacle of the temple - which is like 500 feet up. And the temple is the place where God has, in part, shown Himself to the people. So Satan is saying: “Alright, here’s your chance Jesus! Show yourself to be the Son of God!” Show me and everyone else that you are the Son of God, and show us how much you trust God! Which Christ wouldn’t do, because it was to put God to the test!

in defense against Satan’s misuse of Scripture, Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 6, which tells about the nation of Israel in the wilderness having a water shortage. But instead of trusting God, they grumbled, and as Exodus 17 further reveals, they demanded a miracle to prove that the Lord was actually with them. And while God still gave them water, the point is clear, it is wrong to put demands on God.

Satan probably isn’t going to tempt any of us to jump off a tall building, so how does he tempt us to put God to the test? I’ll give us a few examples, but maybe we can dig into this more during our fellowship and focus hour.

How about living paycheck to paycheck? People who spend their money in an unwise way, and then when they struggle to pay their bills, they go to God and say: “Lord, if you care please help me!”

How about churches that do that? Churches that “live by faith” and expect God to step in with a miracle when they can’t pay for the new million dollar building project they took a massive loan out for when they had only saved a small percentage of it? Or the church who lives paycheck to paycheck because they are “living by faith.” Church, it isn’t “living by faith” to make a financial nose-dive off the cliff and expect God to miraculously step in and swoop us to safety!

One more. “God give me a sign!!!” Anyone ever done that one before? That’s called laying out a fleece before God, and ya know, I don’t recall ever reading anywhere where God praised Gideon for His fleece laying. How does Scripture say God’s people walk? By sight? No! By what? By faith! And so to say to God: “God you had better give me a sign” - what is that? That’s walking by sight. And is that not, putting our God to the test?

We walk by faith and not by sight, which means we pray about our decisions, we search the scripture for answers to our decisions, we ask wise brothers and sisters in Christ for wisdom and advice on our decisions, and then we step out in faith trusting in the providence of God to lead us in our decisions We don’t roll dice or lay out fleeces before Him and demand that He miraculously provide us with an answer on our terms! We trust Him completely and walk by faith and not by sight.

The 3rd plan of attack we find from Jesus’s encounter with Satan is the temptation to compromise: Often called: “The Ends Justify The Means.”

Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.”

Matthew 4:8-9 ESV

Satan, the current god of this world as 2 Corinthians 4:4 tells us, has temporary dominion over the nations of this world. 1 John 5:19 says:

We know that we are from God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.

And so Satan shows Jesus all the Kingdom’s of the world, and says: “Bow before me and I will give them to you!”

1 John 5:19 ESV

Is there anything wrong with Jesus being crowned with many crowns - as we sang earlier? Of course not - for as Psalm 2 tells us, Christ will rule over all of the nations! So wherein lies the temptation? The temptation lies in Satan offering Christ a shortcut! “SKIP THE CROSS - Satan says, worship me and you won’t have to do it!” “All of the nations can be yours if you simply bow the knee!” That baptism you just took part in, that symbolized your death upon the cross and burial into the grave! The death where Christ would go before the Father in the garden with sweat drops of blood, pleading for the Father to spare Him from, Satan says - “Bow before me and all will be spared AND you can have the crosses’ reward!” “You can have all the kingdoms of the earth!”

This was a constant point of attack: In Matthew 10, Peter tells Jesus: “Far be it from you, Lord! You shall never suffer and die!” In which Jesus rebukes Peter saying: “Get behind me Satan.” In John 6:15 Jesus saw that the crowd was about to take Him by force to make Him their King, and so He withdrew again to the mountain by Himself. The cross was God’s plan before the foundation of the earth, which meant Jesus could not shortcut His suffering. And in fact, suffering in this life is a part of God’s plan.

And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.

1 Peter 5:10 ESV

“you can have your cake and eat it too!” “You don’t need to be a religious nut job to be a Christian!” “It’s OK to be a little bit like the world!” “Everyone lies! You can’t expect perfection!” “Seriously, who waits until marriage anymore! - that’s CRAZY!” Do you see what lies at the core of the lie? It’s this: “you can get happiness apart from God” “Burger King is right! You can “have it my way!” “you can find meaning, joy and love apart from God” But it’s a lie.... For there is no lasting love, peace, or joy apart from God.

To overcome our spiritual predator, we must know:

3. The enemy’s weakness.

10 Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, “‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’” 11 Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him.

When it comes to spiritual warfare, how do we fight these battles? Do we go around casting out Satan and demons out stuff? Sprinkle “holy water” in all of our rooms? Pray up hedge of protections around ourselves and everybody we love? Do we “bind Satan?” Please - as if we even could!

How then? The weapons of our warfare against this present darkness:

The Power of Christ.

When it comes to detecting counterfeit bills, do you know how they train experts in detecting the fake bills? Not by teaching them all of the many different ways - for that’s far too many! Instead, they teach them to become so intimately familiar with the real bills that they can detect even the slightest discrepancy. So too church are we to be this way with the Word of God.

Since the garden of Eden in Genesis chapter 3, the battle has been and always will be over truth! And as we see with Christ’’s temptation, Satan, who evidently is quite familiar with God’s Word Himself - perverted the truth by mixing it with lie! In fact: 2 Corinthians 11 tell us how Satan is so good at this mixing truth with lie, that He disguises himself as an angel of light, and so too do his servants!

And so we need to be intimately familiar with the truth in order to detect the counterfeit! And the truth is GOD’s Word - not our feelings, not our experiences, nor our ideas. For God’s Word is the weapon of our warfare, and what a powerful weapon it is!!

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

Hebrews 4:12 ESV

The weapons of our warfare against this present darkness:

In Matthew 28, Jesus says: “And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.””

I once heard a pastor tell a story about a Master who was training his dog not to eat meat when threw it on the floor. The master would throw the meat on the floor, and say: “NO!” But the temptation was too great, so the dog would ignore its master’s warning and eat the meat, which resulted in a newspaper on the back of its head. This went on several times, until eventually the Dog learned the lesson and stopped giving into the temptation. But the master of the dog noticed something interesting with his dog. When he’d throw a piece of the meat on the floor, the dog wouldn’t even look at it, and just kept its eyes fixed upon its master, for the dog seemed to understand that if it could just keep its eyes fixed upon the master, and not allow its gaze to drift to the temptation, it could resist.

So too are we to be with Christ. For when it comes to temptation, so much of the battle is practicing the present of Christ’s presence. Remembering that He is with us - right here, right now! Always - forever! He sees and knows our internet browser history He sees and knows the way we treat and talk to our spouse and family members

Have you ever been in a heated disagreement with your spouse or family member? One where you were speaking unlovingly and harshly to them? And then all of a sudden someone knocked on the door or the phone rang… Have you noticed what happens? “Oh Hi, how are you guys doing?” It’s amazing! Suddenly you are both able to completely control your emotions and speak nicely.

Now what is it that causes this total and radical shift in the behavior? The presence of the guests.

Fix your gaze upon the presence of Christ church and never look away, not even for a moment! For if we do, we will be like Peter, who when walking on the water took His eyes off of Christ, and began to look at the waves around him, and sank.

The weapons of our warfare against this present darkness:

11 Then the devil left him, and behold, angels came and were ministering to him.

Here Christ is victorious over the enemy, which results in God’s care and comfort to Him by the angels. And we must remember that it is only because of the power of Christ and the victory He attained that we too can have victory over this present darkness!

Do you remember a few weeks ago when we talked about typologies and how Christ is the true Israel? I wish we had more time for this, but we need to look at at least a few of these typologies from this passage, because it shows His greatness.

1st: Christ is the better Adam! Adam faced Satan in a beautiful Garden, but Christ faced him in a terrible wilderness. Adam had all the food he could ever want when he faced Satan, but Christ faced him forty days of fasting with no food! Adam lost the battle and plunged humanity into sin and death. But Christ won the battle and went on to defeat Satan in more battles, which resulted in His final victory over him on the cross!

2nd: Christ is the true Israel! Israel, God’s son - was tempted in the wilderness but failed miserably - where Christ, God’s Son, was tempted in the wilderness and was victorious. Israel, God’s son was fed in the wilderness for 40 years and failed, where Christ, God’s Son, was without any food in the wilderness for 40 days and was victorious. Israel failed to love God and worship Him alone, and instead worshipped idols, but Christ refused and was victorious! Satan tempted Israel with the nations of the world, in which they failed, and Christ was tempted with the nations of the world, but was victorious! Which ultimately leads to Christ being given the nations of the world, as He is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords!

Do you see the beauty, power, and worth of Christ? it’s something we never could have expected! He was hungry, but feeds others. He is King, but came as a servant He was called the devil, but casted out demons He would not turn stones to bread for himself, but he gives his body as bread for his people! He was sold for 30 pieces of silver to pay for the lives of sinners upon a cross. And by doing so he was triumphant through judgment He was victorious through defeat! And He did all of this for you and for me, so that we too might one day stand victorious with Him over this present darkness!

No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.

1 Corinthians 10:13 ESV

Christ is our way out!

And rely on His power to overcome!

I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

John 16:33 ESV

This is the manuscript the sermon was preached from, so the recording may differ in places.