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Why Does God Allow Satan to Block the Gospel? · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Today we find our way back to a familiar theme on the podcast, popular
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  in emails that you send to us, in a topic thats generated probably more
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  questions to us than any other topic that I can think of. Questions about
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  Satan. You have sent in over three thousand emails now asking about him?
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  Is he real? How and why did he first sin? Why is he
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  not snuffed out but instead allowed to roam around? Questions about his chief strategies
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  for killing our joy and making us want to give up on life? And
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  can a Christian get handed over to Satan? Can the devil devour us?
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  And questions about why Satan has so much authority in this world. Questions like
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  these have been addressed in the past and several different episodes that I've attempted to
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  draw together. Draw them all together in one place, you can see the
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  ground that we've covered. I did that in the new APJ book on pages
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  three thirty one to three point fifty three as my digest there pages three thirty
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  one to three fifty three, And that leads to today. A listener named
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  Taylor writes in with a specific question for you, Pastor John. He asks
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  this, Hello, Pastor John, thank you for your ministry. My question
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  is that I know that Satan and demons have tremendous physical power and influence over
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  the world, the material world. My question is about his power over the
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  spiritual world. Why did God give Satan such immense power to blind people to
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  the glory of Christ, as we read in two Corinthians four to four,
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  and to snatch from hearts the very saving Gospel so that people are left without
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  any hope of salvation. That's Luke eight twelve. Why was he given such
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  immense spiritual power to abort the Gospel in the lives of sinners? When the
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  Bible opens, Sayatan is already there as a reality. The Bible doesn't even
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  pause for a moment to give an account for why he's there. Later on,
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  there are hints that he's a fallen angel and that there was rebellion in
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  heaven, But that's not a full explanation for where he comes from, because
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  it's very difficult to explain why a personal, rational being, an angel who
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  is created perfect, would ever find motive to rebel in a perfect universe.
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  That's not easy to explain. I don't think we have a sufficient explanation for
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  that. That's one of those things that's cloaked in mystery for now, I
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  think. Nevertheless, even though we may not be able to fully explain why
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  Satan came into being, we know he does exist and he was there from
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  the beginning of mankind because he tempts Adam and Eve in the third chapter of
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  Genesis. We also know that Jesus commanded the unclean spirits and they obey him
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  Mark one, twenty seven. That's an amazing statement. He said to Satan
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  in the wilderness, be gone, and he was gone Matthew four to ten.
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  And we know at the end of history God will throw Satan into the
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  Lake of Fire so that he can't influence God's people anymore or harm us anymore
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  Revelation twenty ten. So from all this we know God could have bound Satan
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  completely the moment he fell, or at any point in history in between.
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  We know he doesn't because in the end, the whole New Testament is telling
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  the story of Satan's activity in this world and how he deceives, how he
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  tempts, how we need to do warfare against the principalities and powers. And
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  Taylor, who's asking us this question, points out he's blinding people, he's
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  blinding people, And he wants to know what is God's reason then, For
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  God does all things for wisdom and reasons. He doesn't act whimsically. What's
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  the reason for not destroying Satan until the end and giving him such a long
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  leash, Especially, Taylor says, with regard to his free hand in blinding
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  people, it seems to the glory of Christ and stealing the word, snatching
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  it like a bird taking seed off a path. So he's referring to two
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  Christians four to four. In the case of unbelievers, the God of this
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  world, Satan has blinded the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the
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  light of the Gospel, of the glory of Christ, who is the image
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  of God. And he's referring to eight twelve, the parable of the four
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  soils, where that first soil is the seed along the path and representing those
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  who Satan comes along and snatches the word right out of their hearts so that
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  they don't believe and are saved. So he wants to know. Taylor wants
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  to know why does God allow that blinding, that word stealing power. I
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  think the key lies in the fact that if God had eliminated Satan, so
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  that the only enemy to be defeated is our own human depravity. Part of
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  the glory of the triumph of salvation would be missing. I'm going to deal
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  with only one aspect of that glory. We could do this. We could
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  make three or four episodes on this with each aspect of glory. I'm only
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  going to deal with one. I'm not going to talk about the glory of
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  the cross in this second Colossius two fifteen, or the glory of our ongoing
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  warfare with the principalities and powers in chapter six of Ephesians. I'm only going
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  to focus for the next couple of minutes on the glory of God's victory in
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  the moment of conversion itself. Right What happens at that moment of unblinding.
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  If there were no Satan to deceive us, we would still be blind to
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  the glory of God in Christ. We would not see Christ as more beautiful,
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  more desirable than anything else. We wouldn't why, because we are deeply
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  depraved people. Paul describes us like this in Ephesians four eighteen. The gentiles
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  that's us before Christ live in the futility of their minds. They are darkened
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  in their understanding, darkened alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance
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  that is in them due to the hardness of heart. So not a word
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  about Satan. Not a word. He's not our main problem. We are
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  our main problem at root. The blindness is our hardness of heart against God,
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  producing ignorance, producing alienation, producing darkness of understanding. We don't need
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  Satan to be blind. We are blind by our own depraved nature. Then
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  the question is this, why speak of Satan as blinding unbelievers the way Sewod
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  Corinthians four four does. Because God is showing us the double prison we are
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  in. We are doubly dark, the darkness of our own shackles around our
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  wrists and ankles, and the darkness of Satan's locked doors. Like Peter in
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  prison had to have the hands free that he had, the gates free,
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  and the door's free. Whose layers of bondage, the darkness of our own
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  delusions about God. That's one level of bondage and blindness, and then the
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  added darkness of Satan's lies and deceptions all around us. Therefore, when Christ
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  converts us by the power of the Spirit, he gets double glory because of
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  this double blindness, he conquers Satan's deceptions and he conquers human depravity. And
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  here's the key that I believe is so crucial for why he saves us like
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  this, rather than obliterating Satan earlier. If he obliterated Satan earlier, power
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  would be glorified. But if Satan remains and we are able to defeat his
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  deceptions by seeing the superior beauties of Christ, then not only is the superior
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  power of Christ glorified, but also the superior beauty of Christ is glorified.
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  We can see this more clearly. If that doesn't make full sense, let
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  me try to say it again. We can see this more clearly if we
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  realize that the nature of the blindness of our depravity is that we find other
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  things besides Christ, more desirable than Christ, more attractive than Christ, more
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  to be preferred than Christ himself. That's the essence of our blindness. We
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  are so corrupt we cannot see that Christ is a superior beauty, a superior
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  worth, a superior greatness, and therefore a superior satisfaction over everything else.
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  In our depravity. We are blind to all of that. But that's exactly
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  the same way that Satan blinds us with his deceptions. He's a liar,
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  and the essence of his lie is that the pleasures of sin, this is
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  his lie, the pleasures of sin that he offers, are more to be
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  desired than Christ. Therefore to be saved, to be converted, to experience
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  the victory, the glorious victory of Christ. The spirit in our lives is
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  to have both these blindnesses removed, and that's described in two Christians four six.
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  And the way they are removed is that we are granted to see in
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  one great miracle both the delusions of depravity and the deception of Satan, because
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  they're the same. We are granted to see Christ, the glory of Christ,
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  as superior to everything that our rebellious heart's ever dreamed of and superior to
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  everything Satan ever offered, so that double glorification of Christ triumphing over both of
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  those blindnesses. That double glorification would not have happened if Satan had been snuffed
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  out at the beginning. So one huge implication I close with this, One
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  huge implication of this for us right now today is that seeing and savoring,
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  desiring, preferring the superior beauty of Christ is the way we defeat the evil
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  one. So I've said more than once, Let's take up arms and beg
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  Let's take up arms and be glad in the Son of God. Gladness in
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  Christ over Sin over Satan is the victory. Yes, Sam An, thank
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  you, Pastor John. Loads of themes merged in this question. I can
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  hear all of the connections here between this episode and questions we've talked about in
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  more detail in several other episodes in the archive, Questions about Satan, is
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  he real? How and why did he first sin? Why is he not
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  snuffed out but allowed to roam around, What are his chief strategies for killing
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  our joy and making us want to give up? And whether a Christian can
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  get handed over to Satan? Can he devour us? All of those questions
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  are related to today's question today about why Satan has so much spiritual authority in
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  this world. And you can find your way to those topics either askpastor John
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  dot com or archive, or in my digest of all these topics in my
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  debrief, in my synthesis of all those episodes in the new APJ book on
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  pages three thirty one to three fifty three, speaking of lethargy. How do
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  we overcome a lack of affection in life, a lack of expressed affection in
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  this life? While we do it by overcoming ourselves and Pastor John will explain
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  why. Next time I'm Tony Rank, you will see you on Monday