Latest / Reformed Thinking / Providence and the Ongoing Existence of Satan: The Glory of Christ in the Defeat of Evil

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Providence and the Ongoing Existence of Satan: The Glory of Christ in the Defeat of Evil · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to reform Thinking. You know, usually when we talk
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  about a medical diagnosis, there is this expectation of
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  precision. Oh, absolutely.
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  Precision is what we want. Right.
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  It feels clean. It feels almost like
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  engineering. Let's say you fall and you break
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  your wrist. You go to the hospital and they
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  put your arm under an X-ray machine and the doctor just
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  points to the screen. You see that jagged white line
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  on the bone and the doctor says, well, there it is.
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  That is the fracture. Right, there is no ambiguity
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  there. None at all.
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  The solution is clear, the problem is totally visible, and
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  the outcome is pretty straightforward.
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  You get a cast, you wait six weeks and you heal.
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  It is a very clean system. It is binary, really.
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  It is either broken or not broken.
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  And you know, that brings a lot of comfort to us.
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  We like things to be visible. We really do.
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  We like our problems to be neatly categorized, to have a
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  strict cause and an immediate, predictable effect.
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  But then, you know, you step into the world of theology.
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  Yeah, that is where it changes. It really does.
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  And specifically, you step into the lived reality of spiritual
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  warfare, of temptation, of chronic suffering, and suddenly
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  that X-ray machine is broken. We are looking at a landscape
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  that is just incredibly murky. We want clean answers about why
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  evil persists, but the reality we experience every day feels
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  messy. It feels chaotic to us.
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  Right. So today we are tackling one of
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  the most agonizing tensions in the Christian life.
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  And here's the question we are looking at.
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  Laid out for us. If God possesses absolute
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  sovereignty and omnipotence. If he dictates the movement of
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  every single atom in the universe, why does he let the
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  devil keep breathing? That is the big one.
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  It is we are going to investigate the biblical
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  Reformed perspective on why the Almighty delays the adversary's
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  final destruction, opting instead for a strategic,
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  unfolding narrative of glory. I think we have to pause right
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  here at the start and recognize the weight of this, because we
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  are not talking about some abstract ivory tower
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  philosophical puzzle. No, not at all.
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  This is the reality that touches you, the listener, on a Tuesday
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  morning when you face an overwhelming, relentless
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  temptation, or when you are hit with an unexplained illness that
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  doctors just cannot figure out. Yeah, the things that keep you
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  up at night. Spot on.
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  Or when you endure the sting of a false accusation that ruins
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  your reputation. You are living inside this
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  theological tension. Wow.
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  Yes, if Satan still prowls around like a worrying lion,
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  does that mean God's Providence is somehow slipping?
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  People definitely wonder that. They do.
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  Does it mean God's control was incomplete?
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  That is the question we have to answer, and we will do so by
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  relying on the whole Council of Scripture establishing our
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  discussion firmly within the historic framework of the
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  Westminster Confession of Faith. That is our baseline for this
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  entire deep dive. We adhere to the Westminster
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  Confession because it provides such a robust scriptural lens
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  for understanding how God interacts with His creation.
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  It gives us the right categories.
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  It does. Chapter 5 of the Confessions,
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  specifically sections one and four, lays this out beautifully.
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  It states that God the Great Creator upholds, directs,
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  disposes, and governs all creatures, actions, and things.
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  All creatures, all of them. And yes, that includes the
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  devil. But I want to talk about how we
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  actually picture this in our minds, because I think a lot of
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  people unintentionally adopt A sort of Star Wars theology.
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  Oh, the light side and the dark side.
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  Right. We picture the light side versus
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  the dark side like there are these two equal forces battling
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  it out for the universe. Yes, that is what we call
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  functional dualism is the idea that the universe is a grand
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  cosmic scale and you have God on one side and Satan on the other
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  locked in this eternal equal struggle for supremacy.
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  Like an arm wrestling match. Precisely like an arm wrestling
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  match. But the biblical text allows no
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  such concept. God alone is the creator.
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  God alone is the sustainer. Amen to that.
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  The devil is not an eternal principle of darkness.
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  He is not an equal rival deity. He is a created entity.
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  He is fallen. He is corrupt.
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  He is malicious, but he remains strictly bounded by the one who
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  made him. So his rebellion did not change
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  his status as a creature. Not one bit.
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  His rebellion did not somehow exempt him from the sovereign
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  government of his Maker. I like to think of it like rogue
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  software in a massive computer system.
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  Oh, that is a good way to look at it, right?
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  Because the rogue software is malicious.
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  It wants to corrupt files, it wants to crash the system, and
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  it causes real havoc. It does real damage.
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  It does, but it is still just code.
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  It operates completely within the hardware and the operating
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  system designed by the lead programmer.
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  It cannot rewrite the fundamental laws of the
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  computer. It is confined to the
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  environment it was made in. Yeah, in fact, the programmer
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  might actually allow that rogue software to run in a controlled
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  sandbox environment, specifically to stress test the
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  system and build a better firewall.
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  That is a fascinating thought. The software is evil, but the
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  programmer is in total control of what it can actually achieve.
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  That analogy captures the boundary lines perfectly.
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  The devil is terrifying, but he is never autonomous.
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  But you know, this brings up a massive theological hurdle.
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  I know where you were going with this.
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  In Armenian theology, there is often this practical assumption
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  that the devil operates outside of God's meticulous control.
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  Yeah, that functional dualism creeping back in.
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  Right. The picture painted is that God
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  is watching from heaven, wringing his hands, hoping we
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  make the right free will choices to defeat the enemy.
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  As if God is just a spectator cheering us on.
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  Spot on. But if Satan operates outside of
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  God's control, then our suffering is meaningless chaos.
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  The Reformed view gives us an anchor.
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  God truly rules and Satan truly sins, and those two realities do
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  not contradict each other. OK, but I have to push back here
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  because this is the hardest part for people to grasp.
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  Go for it. If God is the lead programmer,
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  to use my analogy, and he has meticulous control over
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  everything, including the rogue software, including the devil,
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  doesn't that make God the author of sin?
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  That is the logical question to ask.
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  Right. If the devil cannot move a
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  single inch without divine permission, how do we avoid
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  blaming God for the evil the devil actually commits?
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  That is the most common objection, and it requires a
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  very careful scriptural distinction.
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  We must distinguish between God's holy ordination and the
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  wicked intentions of secondary agents.
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  OK, unpack that distinction for us.
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  God's Providence over evil does not make him the author of evil.
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  Satan wills evil as evil. His intention is entirely
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  corrupt. He desires ruin.
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  He desires deception, pride, misery and rebellion.
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  That is his whole motivation. It is but God, in His infinite
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  wisdom, wills to permit and govern that specific evil for
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  just, holy and pure ends. The creature's intention is
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  wicked, but the Creator's purpose is flawless.
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  So the action is the same, but the intention is different.
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  Yes, the exact same event involves 2 completely different
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  intentions. Satan means wickedness.
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  God means righteousness. I see that conceptually, but
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  when I read the story of Job for instance, it honestly makes me
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  uncomfortable. A lot of people feel that way
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  about job. Because you read the opening
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  chapters and Satan just walks right into the heavenly courts.
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  God points Job out almost like he is bringing him up to be
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  targeted. Have you considered my servant
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  job? Exactly.
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  I mean yes, that is right. Satan says let me add him and he
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  will curse you. And God says OK, do it.
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  It feels like God is gambling with Job's life and Job is the
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  one who suffers for it. I understand why it feels that
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  way, but look closely at the posture in those heavenly
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  courts. Satan does not kick the door
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  down and take something from God.
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  He does not barge in uninvited, no.
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  He appears as a subordinate who must give an account.
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  He has to ask for permission. He is on a leash first.
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  He's allowed to touch Joe's possessions, but God sets a
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  strict boundary. Do not lay a hand on the man
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  himself, right? Later, the boundaries moved and
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  Satan can touch Job's body, but God issues another absolute
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  decree. You must spare his life.
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  The devil is entirely fettered. He cannot go one inch past the
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  boundary. Not a millimeter.
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  He has a leash and God holds the end of it.
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  God is not gambling. He's deliberately putting his
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  own grace and job on display to shame the adversary.
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  We see that same dynamic with Peter in the New Testament.
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  Now that is a great example. In Luke 22, Jesus looks at Peter
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  and says, Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that
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  he might sift you like wheat. Sift you like wheat.
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  That is a violent image. It is terrifying, and the Greek
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  word there implies A forceful request, a demand, but it is
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  still just a request. Satan had to ask permission to
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  assault Peter. He could not just do it on his
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  own. Right.
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  But the part that always gets me is what Jesus says next.
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  He does not say I told him no. Jesus says, But I've prayed for
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  you that your faith may not fail.
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  And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.
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  That is the crux of the matter. The adversary's assault is very
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  real. The sifting is violent.
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  Peter genuinely stumbled. I mean, he denied Christ three
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  times. A huge failure.
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  A massive failure, but the Savior's intercession is
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  decisive. Christ sets the terms of the
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  trial, and Christ secures Peter's final restoration.
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  And you have turned again. It is not if you turn again.
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  Spot on. It is a certainty Satan is
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  terrifying, but his attacks are repurposed by Christ to prepare
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  Peter for future ministry. So if God has the Luci, and God
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  is completely sovereign, when does he pull the leash?
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  Where is the center of the victory?
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  That is the pivotal question of redemptive history.
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  Because my instinct, and I think most people's instinct, is to
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  look to the future. We look to the end of the Book
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  of Revelation where the devil is finally cast into the lake of
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  fire. We tend to focus on the final
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  judgement. Yeah, we view that future event
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  as the decisive moment, but the New Testament shifts our gaze
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  entirely. The true center of victory, the
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  most staggering defeat of the devil, did not occur at the end
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  of time. No it did not.
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  It occurred at the cross of Jesus Christ.
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  Yes, the victory at Calvary is the defining moment of the
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  adversary's ruin. We need to look at what the
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  Apostle Paul writes in Colossians chapter 2, verses 13
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  through 15. What?
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  Does he say that? He says that God forgave all our
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  trespasses by canceling the record of debt that stood
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  against us with its legal demands.
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  He set it aside, nailing it to the cross.
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  Nailing the debt to the cross. Right.
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  And then Paul says he disarmed the rulers and authorities and
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  put them to open shame by triumphing over them in him.
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  Let us unpack the mechanics of this, because I think of it like
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  a prosecuting attorney holding an ironclad blackmail file
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  against us. A blackmail file.
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  I like that. This attorney hates us.
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  He wants us locked away forever. And the terrifying part is that
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  the file is not full of lies. Yeah, that's the worst part.
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  Right. The file is full of undeniable
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  evidence of our actual guilt. Every single transgression,
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  every wicked thought, every selfish motive, every failure to
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  love God and neighbor. The file is legitimate.
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  We actually committed those crimes.
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  We are fully culpable. The law of God demands justice,
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  and the devil, as the accuser of the brethren, simply points to
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  the law. He uses God's own standard
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  against us. Yes, he says.
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  Look at what they did. You are a holy God.
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  You must condemn them. But the cross did not just lock
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  the attorney out of the courtroom, it completely
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  shredded the blackmail file. Shredded it to pieces.
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  The debt was nailed to the cross.
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  Jesus paid the penalty in full. So now the prosecutor has 0
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  leverage. He can yell from the back of the
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  courtroom, he can point fingers, he can try to dig up the past.
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  But the judge looks at him and says you have no evidence the
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  debt is paid, the file is gone. That analogy captures the legal
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  reality perfectly. We can connect this directly to
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  Hebrews chapter 2, verses 14 and 15.
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  How does Hebrews frame it? The writer of Hebrews states
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  that Christ partook A flesh and blood so that through death he
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  might destroy the one who has the authority of death, that is
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  the devil 3. Death.
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  Notice the mechanism there. It is not through raw,
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  overwhelming force. It is through death.
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  As long as our guilt remains, Satan has a legitimate claim to
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  demand our judgment. Because the wages of sin is
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  death. Exactly.
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  I mean, absolutely right. But when the Incarnate Son of
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  God takes that guilt upon himself, satisfying the wrath of
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  God, he strips the enemy of his only damning weapon.
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  The legal right to accuse us. Yes, the devil is completely
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  disarmed because his legal standing to condemn God's people
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  has been obliterated. I want to talk about the
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  aesthetic and moral superiority of doing it this way well.
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  Let's get into that. If God wanted to, he could have
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  annihilated the devil with a single word at the dawn of time.
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  He could have just spoken and Satan would have evaporated into
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  nothingness. A pure display of might.
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  Right. That would have shown God's
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  vast, unstoppable strength. But God chose not to do that,
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  that instead, the most despicable being in the entire
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  universe was overthrown by the meekness, the righteousness, and
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  the voluntary suffering of the Incarnate sun.
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  It is stunning when you really think about.
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  It it is the ultimate irony of omnipotent weakness.
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  It is what theologians sometimes call a doxological victory,
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  doxological meaning it is explicitly designed to bring
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  maximum glory and praise to God's specific character traits.
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  Oh. That makes.
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  Sense If God had simply crushed Satan with a display of
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  unapproachable might, we would have known that God is strong.
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  We would respect his physical authority.
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  We would fear him, sure. But by defeating the devil
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  through the agonizing, humiliating death of the cross,
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  God put so much more on display. We behold grace toward the
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  guilty. We see mercy poured out on the
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  miserable. Things we would never see in a
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  mere show of force, right? We witness patience toward the
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  undeserving, justice is completely satisfied without any
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  compromise, and love a love so vast that the infinitely worthy
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  son gives himself for the unworthy.
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  Mere annihilation by force could never reveal the fullness of
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  those perfections. And it exposes the devil's
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  complete folly. Oh, it really does.
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  Satan entered the events of the Passion Week with murderous
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  delight. He put it into the heart of
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  Judas to betray Jesus. He stirred up the crowds to yell
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  Crucify him. He was engineering the whole
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  thing. He thought he was winning.
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  He thought he was destroying the Son of God.
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  But the very death Satan meant to exploit became the death blow
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  to his own dominion. Talk about backfiring.
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  He overreached in his hatred. He facilitated the exact event
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  that secured the redemption of God's people.
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  The irony is breathtaking, but it leads us right into the
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  tension we feel today. The lived reality, right?
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  If the cross was this absolute devastating legal defeat for the
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  devil, why are we still fighting him?
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  That is what everyone wants to know.
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  Why did Paul, the greatest missionary of all time, still
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  have a messenger of Satan harassing him?
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  If the war is won, If the file is shredded, why is the
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  prosecutor still yelling in the hallway?
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  Such a good question. Why are we living in a world
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  where temptation and demonic affliction are still a daily
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  reality? Well, we have to acknowledge the
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  current era we live in the Church age.
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  Theologians call it the already, but not yet.
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  The already but not yet. The Devil is legally disarmed.
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  The victory is already won, but he's not yet cast into the lake
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  of fire. His final sentence is delayed,
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  and the question we have to wrestle with is why the delay?
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  To understand the divine logic behind this delay, we need to
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  look at a specific biblical case study.
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  Where should we look? In Luke chapter 13, Jesus is
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  teaching in a synagogue on the Sabbath, and there is a one who
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  has had a disabling spirit for 18 years.
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  She is bent over entirely unable to straighten herself. 18 years.
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  Now Doctor Luke, writing under the inspiration of the Holy
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  Spirit, does not just describe this as a physical medical
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  issue. He specifically notes that she
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  was bound by Satan for 18 years. We have to pause here because we
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  are talking about 18 years of severe physical affliction
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  caused by demonic binding. It is.
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  Heartbreaking. It is if you are listening to
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  this and you have had chronic pain for a decade or you have
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  dealt with a debilitating illness for years.
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  This is not just a Bible story for you.
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  This is your life. It is deeply personal.
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  And the burning question is, why 18 long years?
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  Jesus had the authority to heal her on day one, or even prevent
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  the illness entirely from the beginning.
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  What is the divine logic behind permitting almost 2 decades of
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  satanic affliction? The answer lies in the concept
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  of defeating the enemy by showing.
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  By showing. Yes, God defeats the Adversary
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  by displaying his own divine attributes against a dark
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  backdrop. Think about the outcome of that
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  narrative in Luther 13. OK, what happens when she is
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  healed? When Jesus finally calls her
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  over and says, woman, you are freed from your disability, He
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  heals her instantly. She straightens up and begins
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  glorifying God. A.
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  Beautiful moment. But the synagogue ruler gets
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  angry because it happened on the Sabbath, and Jesus rebukes him,
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  pointing out the hypocrisy of untying an ox on the Sabbath but
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  refusing to untie a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for 18
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  years. He calls out the hypocrisy
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  directly. Right.
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  And the text says that his adversaries were put to shame,
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  and all the people rejoiced at all the glorious things done by
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  him. So the delay, the 18 years of
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  agony, actually set the stage for a much larger revelation of
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  who Christ is. Precisely if God had simply
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  protected her from the beginning, we would not have
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  seen the hypocrisy of the religious leaders unmasked so
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  clearly. That makes sense.
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  We would not have seen this specific tender compassion of
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  Jesus for the oppressed. We would not have heard the
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  crowds erupt to create the necessary conditions for a
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  manifold demonstration of Christ's superiority.
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  I have heard it said that history is the theatre of God's
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  wonders. That is a brilliant way to
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  phrase it. History is the theatre of God's
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  wonders. Every time Jesus drives out a
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  demon in the Gospels, every time he delivers someone from
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  bondage, every time he exposes the lies of the enemy, he is
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  continually proving that he is infinitely superior.
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  The contrast is necessary. Yeah, if there were no villain
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  on the stage, the multifaceted radiance of the Savior's heroism
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  would not shine as brightly. We would know He is good, but we
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  would not see His goodness actively triumphing over such a
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  dark, oppressive misery. The darkness makes the light
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  visibly brighter. God intends to put his own
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  character on display in ways that would be completely
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  impossible if the adversary were prematurely removed from the
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  stage. And that truth moves us for the
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  broad scope of redemptive history right down into the
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  private, daily holiness of individual believers.
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  Down to our own lives, yes. How does God use the devil's own
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  malice to purify the church? To answer this, we have to do a
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  close reading of the Apostle Paul's experience in Second
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  Corinthians chapter 12. The thorn in the flesh.
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  Right. Paul has been granted these
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  astonishing celestial visions. He has seen the 3rd heaven.
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  Things he is not even allowed to utter.
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  Incredible spiritual highs. And he writes that to keep him
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  from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of
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  the revelations, a thorn was given him in the flesh, And he
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  explicitly identifies this thorn as a messenger of Satan to
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  harass him. You know, a lot of people hear
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  this and think, wait, if I am suffering it means I do not have
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  enough faith. We hear that a lot today.
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  That is basically what you see on TV preachers all the time.
• 19:25
  The prosperity gospel tells you that if you have a thorn or are
• 19:29
  suffering, it means you have unconfessed sin, or you lack
• 19:32
  faith, or you have somehow stepped outside of God's
• 19:35
  protection. They view suffering as a
• 19:37
  failure. They claim that victory means
• 19:39
  the total absence of affliction. But Paul is the greatest apostle
• 19:43
  ever. He wrote half the New Testament.
• 19:45
  So how does that square with him having a demon actively
• 19:48
  harassing him? It completely dismantles the
• 19:51
  prosperity gospel. It shows that severe satanic
• 19:54
  affliction can be the very center of God's perfect will for
• 19:58
  a believer. Sanctification.
• 19:59
  That is a hard pill to swallow, but it is true.
• 20:02
  Paul was not lacking faith. He was not outside of God's
• 20:05
  protection. He was directly in the center of
• 20:07
  God's providential care. We have to look at the clash of
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  intentions here. Just like we talked about
• 20:13
  earlier with God's intention versus Satan's, yes.
• 20:16
  The devil's goal is never to foster humility in a believer.
• 20:20
  The devil hates humility. He wants to build pride, he
• 20:23
  wants to induce despair, he wants to create bitterness, and
• 20:27
  he wants to ruin our faith. He wants Paul to curse God.
• 20:30
  Right. Yet Paul says the purpose of
• 20:33
  this satanic messenger was to keep me from becoming conceited.
• 20:36
  God is using a demonic attack to accomplish the exact opposite of
• 20:40
  what the demon intends. God intends humility and total
• 20:43
  reliance on grace, and He is using Satan's own messenger as
• 20:47
  the tool to chisel that humility into Paul's soul.
• 20:50
  The devil is suicidal in his rebellion.
• 20:53
  He attacks believers intending to drive them away from God, but
• 20:56
  under the sovereign bounding of the Father.
• 20:58
  Those attacks only drive the believer deeper into the arms of
• 21:01
  Christ. That is the glorious irony of it
• 21:03
  all. I was reading some Puritan
• 21:05
  authors recently and they had a brilliant way of describing
• 21:07
  this. They view the devil as God's
• 21:10
  Goldsmith. God's Goldsmith.
• 21:12
  That is a staggering image. It really is.
• 21:15
  The Goldsmith applies intense scorching heat to the gold, not
• 21:19
  to destroy it, but to burn away the dross and impurities so that
• 21:23
  the pure gold can shine. The heat is purposeful.
• 21:26
  The devil thinks he is burning the believer to ashes, but God
• 21:29
  is using the heat of the devil's own furnace to refine the bride
• 21:33
  of Christ. Every single strike from hell is
• 21:36
  bounded by the Father. Not 1° hotter than necessary.
• 21:39
  The devil cannot turn up the heat a single degree higher than
• 21:43
  what God has decreed is necessary for your purification.
• 21:46
  The enemy is outsmarted. At every turn he tries to crush
• 21:49
  you and instead he polishes your faith.
• 21:52
  That highlights the absolute supremacy of God's governing
• 21:55
  will. Paul pleased with the Lord three
• 21:57
  times to take the thorn away. He begs for relief.
• 22:00
  Anyone in his position would. Right.
• 22:02
  And the Lord's response is not immediate deliverance.
• 22:05
  The response is my grace is sufficient, efficient for you,
• 22:07
  for my strength is made perfect in weakness.
• 22:09
  Strength and weakness. God did not just allow Paul to
• 22:13
  suffer. He ordained that through this
• 22:15
  specific suffering, Paul would learn the sufficiency of Christ
• 22:19
  in a way he never could have otherwise.
• 22:21
  Which brings us to the deepest battlefield.
• 22:23
  In all of this, we have talked about the legal victory at the
• 22:26
  cross, the public display of Christ superiority, and the
• 22:29
  refining process of sanctification.
• 22:31
  The practical application. But the deepest battlefield in
• 22:33
  spiritual warfare is not physical suffering.
• 22:36
  The deepest battlefield is worship.
• 22:39
  It is a battle of desires and affections.
• 22:41
  This is vital to grasp. The adversary's main goal is not
• 22:45
  just to make you sick or make you poor.
• 22:47
  His ultimate final goal is to make you stop finding Christ
• 22:51
  supremely desirable. That is the core of the
• 22:54
  conflict. Satan is a tempter.
• 22:56
  He presents alternative objects of trust, alternative delights,
• 22:59
  alternative fears. He is a master marketer of sin.
• 23:03
  He really is. He offers pleasures that promise
• 23:06
  satisfaction apart from God. He wants the believer to
• 23:08
  conclude that obedience is joyless, that compromise is
• 23:11
  sweet, and that Christ is simply not enough.
• 23:14
  That is his entire strategy. The battle of affections is
• 23:17
  where the war is truly waged, and this is where we see how God
• 23:21
  delivers the most humiliating defeat to the Kingdom of
• 23:23
  darkness. I want to spend a lot of time on
• 23:25
  this because this it completely shifted how I view my own
• 23:28
  struggles. Let us dive into.
• 23:30
  It Let us look closely at how Paul responds to his thorn in
• 23:33
  2nd Corinthians 12 verse 9 after God tells him that his grace is
• 23:37
  sufficient. Paul does not just grit his
• 23:39
  teeth and say, OK, fine, I will endure this right he.
• 23:42
  Does not just surrender to the misery.
• 23:44
  He does not just white knuckle his way through the pain with a
• 23:46
  stoic attitude. He says, Therefore I will boast
• 23:49
  all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the strength
• 23:52
  of Christ may rest upon me. Look at that word gladly.
• 23:56
  The Greek word he uses there for gladly is hadista.
• 23:59
  It is the linguistic root of the word hedonism.
• 24:03
  Paul is talking about a deep, effective delight.
• 24:05
  He is delighting in his weakness because his weakness magnifies
• 24:09
  the sufficiency of Jesus. That glad busting is a massive
• 24:12
  victory. If Paul had stoically submitted
• 24:14
  to the pain while inwardly resenting God, Satan would have
• 24:18
  achieved A partial victory. He would have stolen Paul's joy.
• 24:21
  Yes, he would have darkened Paul's joy.
• 24:25
  He would have made God look like a cruel taskmaster.
• 24:28
  But Paul says, I will boast gladly, Gladly.
• 24:31
  That shows the watching universe that Christ is not a lifeboat to
• 24:34
  keep us from drowning. He is a treasure so vast that
• 24:39
  even in the midst of agonizing pain, he is more precious than
• 24:44
  the comforts we have lost. That is beautiful.
• 24:46
  The devil is not most thoroughly conquered when he is proven to
• 24:49
  be weaker than Christ. Yeah, the devil is most
• 24:51
  thoroughly conquered when he is shown to be less desirable than
• 24:54
  Christ. Think of it like this.
• 24:56
  Imagine a known scammer comes up to you and hands you a
• 24:59
  counterfeit check for $1,000,000.
• 25:01
  OK, a fake check, he says just cash this, compromise your
• 25:05
  integrity and you can have all this money.
• 25:06
  How do you turn that down? You do not want a fake check.
• 25:09
  You do not turn it down out of some grim, miserable sense of
• 25:12
  duty, staring at the fake check, sweating, wishing you could cash
• 25:15
  it but knowing it is wrong. Like it's a massive sacrifice to
• 25:18
  walk away. Right.
• 25:19
  You turn it down because you are already holding the keys to an
• 25:22
  infinite fortune. You reject the fake check
• 25:25
  effortlessly because you possess the real treasure.
• 25:28
  You see it for what it is. When Satan offers us the
• 25:30
  counterfeit pleasures of sin, or tries to terrify us with a loss
• 25:34
  of earthly comfort, we reject his offers, not because we love
• 25:38
  rules, but because we are captivated by a superior beauty.
• 25:42
  We can synthesize this with Philippians chapter 3, verse 8.
• 25:45
  Oh, there's a perfect text. For this Paul writes, Indeed, I
• 25:48
  count everything is lost because of the surpassing worth of
• 25:51
  knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. Believers weigh everything the
• 25:54
  world has to offer, Riches, reputation, ease, sinful
• 25:58
  pleasure, and they put it on the scale next to knowing Christ.
• 26:02
  And the scale just tips completely.
• 26:04
  It shatters the scale and they declare that it is all loss.
• 26:08
  It is refuse. In comparison.
• 26:10
  God allows the adversary to offer every conceivable
• 26:13
  alternative pleasure and to threaten every earthly comfort.
• 26:16
  And then what happens? And when a believer, by the
• 26:18
  grace of God, rejects those offers and prefers Christ, the
• 26:22
  devil is defeated in the most humiliating way possible.
• 26:25
  He is outshined by beauty and out flavored by sweetness.
• 26:29
  Satan's entire Kingdom feeds on disordered desire.
• 26:33
  He needs us to love the creation more than the Creator.
• 26:35
  That is the essence of idolatry. But the grace of God restores
• 26:39
  true desire. It teaches our hearts to delight
• 26:41
  chiefly in the sun. When we suffer loss and say
• 26:44
  Christ is better, we expose the devil as a liar.
• 26:47
  Every single time. When we endure affliction rather
• 26:50
  than abandoned obedience because fellowship with Christ is
• 26:53
  sweeter than safety, the devil's entire strategy collapses.
• 26:58
  He can wound us. He can frighten us.
• 27:00
  He can even kill us. But he cannot conquer a soul
• 27:02
  that treasures Christ above all things.
• 27:05
  This requires us to constantly maintain the distinction between
• 27:08
  the law and the gospel as we look at our own lives.
• 27:11
  It is a vital distinction to make.
• 27:13
  The law of God is a mirror. It exposes our radical tendency
• 27:16
  to murmur against Providence. When we are hit with a thorn,
• 27:19
  our natural fleshly reaction is to demand immediate relief.
• 27:23
  We want out of the pain right away.
• 27:25
  We do. We secretly suspect that God is
• 27:27
  being unloving or unwise in His timing.
• 27:30
  The law convicts us of our idolatrous affections, showing
• 27:34
  us how often we are tempted by the devil's counterfeit offers.
• 27:37
  It shows us our own bankruptcy. It shows us that in ourselves we
• 27:41
  are spiritually bankrupt. We prefer comfort over Christ.
• 27:45
  We prefer ease over holiness. But the gospel announces the
• 27:48
  victory. The gospel declares that our
• 27:51
  legal debt has been cancelled. It announces that the accuser of
• 27:54
  the brethren has no standing against us in the heavenly
• 27:57
  courtroom. No standing whatsoever.
• 27:58
  The prosecuting attorney's file has been shredded.
• 28:01
  We are no longer under wrath. We are under grace.
• 28:04
  And that grace is actively governing every trial, every
• 28:07
  temptation, and every satanic assault for our absolute good.
• 28:11
  We're not fighting for victory. We are fighting from victory.
• 28:14
  We enact this theology corporately when we gather for
• 28:16
  worship, specifically in the administration of the Lord's
• 28:19
  Supper. The visible word.
• 28:20
  The bread and the cup are the visible word.
• 28:23
  When we partake of the elements, we are engaging in a physical
• 28:26
  act of savoring the sun. We are remembering the Incarnate
• 28:29
  Christ who willfully chose the fire of suffering to liberate
• 28:33
  unworthy sinners. It is a physical reminder of his
• 28:36
  victory. It is we are declaring that his
• 28:39
  broken body and shed blood are the singular source of our life
• 28:43
  and joy. By eating and drinking, we are
• 28:46
  publicly rejecting the nourishment the devil offers and
• 28:49
  satisfying our souls with the supreme treasure of the
• 28:52
  universe. It is a corporate declaration
• 28:54
  that Christ is enough. So what does this all mean for
• 28:57
  you, the listener, as you turn off this audio and step back
• 29:00
  into your day? Let us bring it home for them.
• 29:02
  Let us go back to that medical analogy from the beginning.
• 29:05
  You might be staring at a diagnostic landscape in your
• 29:07
  life right now that feels incredibly murky.
• 29:10
  It might feel hopeless. You might be in during a season
• 29:13
  of spiritual warfare that feels relentless, or carrying a thorn
• 29:16
  in the flesh that brings you daily agony.
• 29:18
  You have prayed, you have pleaded, and the thorn remains.
• 29:22
  You have begged for relief. I want to leave you with a
• 29:24
  challenging, lingering concept. Consider the most painful,
• 29:28
  persistent struggle in your life right now, the thorn you
• 29:31
  constantly beg God to remove. Think about that specific trial.
• 29:35
  What if that specific agonizing trial is the very instrument God
• 29:39
  is meticulously governing to secure your absolute highest joy
• 29:43
  in Christ? What if the murky waters of your
• 29:45
  current suffering are the exact location where God's clear,
• 29:48
  overriding sovereignty is forging a faith that will
• 29:51
  outshine the darkness forever?