Robert Jeffress - The Purpose-Driven Strife
It was the legendary film director Alfred Hitchcock who said, «There are no small parts, only small actors.» I tried to remind myself of that truth when I was getting ready to make my one and only appearance on the legendary television program «Dallas» nearly 40 years ago. I’d seen an ad in the newspaper calling for people who would like to be extras to send their pictures in, and so, on a lark, I decided to send my picture in. A few weeks later, I got a call from the casting director saying I needed to be at a local hotel here in Dallas, where they were going to film a scene. I was excited, got up the next morning, and arrived at the hotel set. I was immediately confronted with the difference between actors and extras. Actors get their own trailers to change in; extras are told to go to the lobby bathroom and change. But I didn’t let that slight deter my enthusiasm.
I appeared in the restaurant where we were filming, and the assistant director explained that another extra and I were going to play businessmen pretending to have a conversation at a table deep in the background while the two main characters, Cliff Barnes and Bobby Ewing, sat at the bar having a few lines of dialogue. That’s a second difference between actors and extras: actors actually get to speak their lines; extras have to mouth them without making noise. When the time came, the director said, «Quiet on the set, action!» We did our pretend dialogue for a few seconds, and then the director yelled, «Cut! Print! Moving on!» The assistant director came up and said, «Thank you very much; your $35 check is in the mail.» In just that brief moment, it was all over. But for that brief moment, I had been part of a legendary conflict between two families: the Barnes family and the Ewing family. It was actually a conflict that had begun many years earlier on the show and would continue for many years after my scene. I was just a brief part of it, and I thought, «What a great metaphor for life.»
You know, whether we realize it or not, you and I are part of a conflict between two major but hardly equal forces: the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan. It’s a conflict that began years before you were born and will continue for years after you die. Yet all of us, as a part of this conflict, are called to appear on stage for a very brief amount of time—70, maybe 80 years. We play our part, and then it’s gone. But unlike the television series «Dallas,» this conflict you and I are involved in is real, not imaginary. It’s a reality playing out in the headlines of every newspaper in the world and in the recesses of every human heart. Whether or not you know it, you are part of this conflict, and if you don’t understand it, you’ll never comprehend the struggles you face in your everyday life.
Today, we’re going to talk about the conflict we’re a part of. I’m calling today’s message «The Purpose-Driven Strife.» It is the key to understanding everything else that’s going on in your life. It’s a conflict between the kingdom of Satan and the kingdom of God. What I want to do this morning is talk about, first of all, the origin of our adversary, the devil; secondly, we’ll look at the fall of our adversary; and finally, the revenge of our adversary. If you have your Bibles, turn to Ezekiel chapter 28. As we discuss the origin of our adversary, let me say a word about the reality of our adversary, the devil.
You know, some people actually deny that Satan exists. I think of Ken Woodward, the Newsweek reporter, who a few years ago wrote about Satan, describing him as a trivial personification hardly adequate to symbolize the mystery of evil. He denied there was a real being called Satan. The problem with that is what Jesus thought about Satan. Think about it: Jesus addressed Satan, interacted with him, and taught about him. If Satan isn’t real, who was Jesus talking to? Jesus ought to be locked up in an insane asylum if there is no such being as the devil. Some people deny the existence of the devil; others simply diminish his power. They paint the devil as a cartoon character dressed in a red suit with horns and a pitchfork, hardly anyone to be feared.
The fact is, I don’t think Satan really cares whether we deny him or diminish him. As long as he can get us to underestimate him, he wins. When you understand the reality of the devil, you also understand his ferocity in attacking us. The late theologian J. Dwight Pentecost wrote about the importance of understanding our enemy, our adversary, the devil. He wrote, «No military commander could expect to be victorious in battle unless he understood his enemy. Should he prepare for an attack by land and ignore the possibility that the enemy might approach by air or sea, he would open up a way to defeat. Or, should he prepare for a land and sea attack and ignore the possibility of an air attack, he would certainly jeopardize the campaign.»
And get this: no individual can be victorious against our adversary unless he understands his philosophy, his methods of operation, and his methods of temptation. That’s why we will spend the next several weeks in our series on spiritual warfare learning everything we can about our adversary, the devil. Let’s talk about his origin, found in Ezekiel chapter 28.
Let me ask you a quick true/false question: «Satan is the opposite of God.» True or false? I sense mixed opinions in the congregation; the answer is false. Satan is not the opposite of God. Sadly, many people think he is. They see Satan as God’s evil twin, thinking this conflict we call spiritual warfare is a battle between two equally potent individuals playing a kind of tug-of-war while we sit on the sidelines hoping the best person wins. Nothing could be further from the truth. First of all, God is eternal. In Psalm 90:2, Moses wrote, «From everlasting to everlasting, Thou art God.» Satan is not an eternal being; he was created in a moment in time, as we’ll see shortly. In fact, look at Ezekiel 28, beginning with verse 12. This prophecy was written to a real person on Earth, the king of Tyre, a godless king who tried to operate his kingdom without acknowledging God. But when we get to verse 12, it’s clear Ezekiel has changed his audience; he’s no longer just addressing the king of Tyre; he’s addressing the power behind the king, the one who inspired him to think he could rule without God’s assistance.
You see this second audience beginning in verse 12; God said, «You had the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.» Was the king of Tyre a perfect being? No, far from it. He goes on, «You were in Eden, the garden of God.» When was the king of Tyre ever in the Garden of Eden? That doesn’t apply. Verse 14: «You were the anointed cherub who covers; I placed you there.» Is there any hint that the king of Tyre was an angel? I don’t think so.
Verse 15: «You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created until unrighteousness was found in you.» The king of Tyre was hardly a blameless person. Verse 17: «Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom by reason of your splendor; I cast you to the ground; I put you before kings that they may see you.» He’s talking about the power behind the king of Tyre; this is a reference to Satan.
Now, the word «Satan» in Hebrew means «adversary.» Sometimes we call him «our adversary, Satan»; sometimes we refer to him as «the devil.» «Devil» is Greek for «slanderer.» But at his beginning, he had a much more appealing name. Isaiah 14:12 tells us his name was Lucifer, literally meaning «O star of the morning.»
The important thing to note about Lucifer is that he was a created being, and as we read Ezekiel chapter 28, we find four characteristics of Satan that help us understand our enemy. First, write it down: Satan was a created being. Twice in this passage, God refers to him as created. In verse 13, «On the day that you were created they were prepared»; verse 15, «You were blameless from the day you were created until unrighteousness was found in you.» Why does God keep hammering this point? He’s reminding Satan that he is the creature, not the creator. We need to remember that about Satan as well.
He is not the opposite of God. God is omniscient (all-knowing); Satan is not. God is omnipotent (all-powerful); Satan is not. God is omnipresent; he can be in more than one place at a time; Satan is not. You know, God could easily say to Satan what a disgruntled deacon said to me once in another church: «Preacher, I was here before you got here, and I’ll be here after you leave.» Well, that was true in that situation, and God could say that of Satan: «I was around long before you ever existed, and I’ll be around forever.»
Satan was a created being. Secondly, Satan held an impressive office in God’s kingdom. Look at verse 14: «You were the anointed cherub who covers; I placed you there.» Now, what does he mean by «you were a cherub?» He doesn’t mean Satan had pink, plump cheeks; that’s not what he’s talking about. The word «cherub» refers to a class of angels. The cherubim were tasked with guarding the holiness of God, and Lucifer was the chief of the cherubim; he guarded the access to God. In today’s terminology, we would say he was the gatekeeper; he was the one who decided who was welcomed into God’s presence. He had unparalleled access to God.
Thirdly, Satan possessed incomparable wisdom and beauty. Look at verse 17: «Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom by reason of your splendor.» Satan was and is a very attractive being. When he was cast out of heaven, he didn’t lose his attributes; he remained a beautiful creature. How do you think he enticed Eve? If he had appeared as the ugly, hideous dragon we picture him to be, Eve wouldn’t have wanted to follow him at all. But he appeared in a very beautiful way. Satan is extremely beautiful; he’s also very wise, at least from a worldly standpoint. «You corrupted your wisdom.» He is very crafty, as God said in Genesis chapter 3 talking about Satan.
Now think about it: he’s an enemy who is very appealing and very crafty. That is what makes him dangerous. Satan possessed incomparable wisdom and beauty, and that leads to the fourth characteristic of Satan: his pride is what led to his downfall. Look at verses 16 and 17: «By the abundance of your trade, you were internally filled with violence, and you sinned. Therefore, I have cast you as profane from the mountain of God, and I have destroyed you, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom by reason of your splendor. I cast you to the ground; I put you before kings that they may see you.»
Here was Satan’s major problem: he forgot he was just a creature. He thought he was the creator, and he allowed his beauty and wisdom—both gifts from God—to metastasize in his heart and become pride that led to his rebellion. Satan’s pride led to his downfall; that is his origin.
But when we turn to another passage, Isaiah 14, we find a detailed description of Satan’s rebellion against God. Remember, I said Ezekiel 28 was written to a human king, the king of Tyre, but it addresses the power behind the king. So is Isaiah 14; it’s written to a different king, the king of Babylon, whose ambition was unbridled. He thought he had no need for God whatsoever, and so Isaiah writes this prophecy to him, but when we get to verse 12, it’s clear that God is addressing, once again, not the human king but the power behind him who thought he could operate without God.
Look at verse 12 of Isaiah 14: «How you have fallen from heaven, O star of the morning!» There’s the word «Lucifer.» «O star of the morning, son of the dawn! For you have been cut down to earth, you who have weakened the nations! But you said in your heart—» underline that phrase «in your heart.» This was a conversation Satan had with himself. «You said in your heart, 'I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit on the mount of the assembly in the recesses of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, and I will make myself like the Most High.'» Did you get that? «I will, I will, I will, I will, I will.»
Perhaps this self-conversation had been building in his heart for some time, or maybe Lucifer attended a motivational seminar one afternoon and heard the speaker ask, «What is it you really want in life? Do you realize you don’t have to stay the way you are; you can be something different? Whatever your mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve. Your only limitation is yourself.» So Lucifer thought, «What do I really want?»
Upon reflection, he realized he wanted more than just temporarily residing in heaven; he wanted a permanent residence. Instead of ruling over the cherubim, he wanted to rule over all the angels. Rather than bowing down and worshiping the Son of God, Jesus, he wanted Jesus to bow down and worship him. Ultimately, what he really wanted was to be God.
That afternoon, something terrible happened in the universe. Up until that point, there had only been one will in the universe—God’s will. But that afternoon, in his heart, one will became two wills. Now we had God’s will and Satan’s will. We’re not told how it is that sin entered into Satan’s heart in a perfect world, and theologians call it the mystery of iniquity. We don’t know the cause of it, but we do know the root: the false belief that there’s another way better than God’s way.
Now, I know I risk offending some of you, but before you reject this statement, consider this: whenever we ask ourselves the question, «What do I really want in my life?» we’re dangerous; we risk committing the same sin that Satan did. We are often told to imagine what we would like to achieve in life, to close our eyes and envision the income we want, the kind of house we’d like to live in, the car we’d like to drive, or the mate we’d like to have. Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve. That’s a dangerous question for a child of God.
The real question ought to be: not what do I desire, but what does God desire in my life? I realize sometimes those can be the same things; many times God gives us direction through the desires he places in our heart. Psalm 37:4 says, «Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.» Sometimes God’s desire is my desire if I’m walking in fellowship with him. But often, there is a difference between what I want and what God wants.
Remember: just as the tempter whispered into the ears of the king of Tyre and the king of Babylon, he whispers into our ears the lie that there’s a better way than God’s way. We’ve talked about the origin of our enemy, Satan, and the fall of Satan. Now let’s look at the revenge of Satan. As a result of Satan’s misguided vision, dreaming about the future, God cast him and a group of renegade angels who agreed, «We’re tired of living under the tyranny of this God.» He cast them out of heaven.
What must that have been like? You know, I tried to imagine what that rebellion must have been like, and I thought about the movie «Jerry Maguire.» Now, don’t write me any letters; I’m not recommending the movie «Jerry Maguire.» But for those of you who saw it, you know it’s about a sports agent played by Tom Cruise who is very successful. He works for the biggest sports agency in the country, and one day he gets the idea to start his own rival company based on a manifesto he’s written. There’s that climactic moment in the movie when he asks all his fellow workers if they want to join him in starting this new company. Nobody responds except one mousy secretary and her pet goldfish. They walk out of the building together, just the two of them, and she asks, «You are going to provide health benefits, aren’t you?»
In an instant, she realized what she had given up. I can imagine the scene in heaven when Satan led the rebellion. He actually did better than Jerry Maguire: he didn’t just have one but a multitude of angels who decided to join him in the rebellion. We don’t know exactly how many; some say, «Oh preacher, don’t you know your Bible? It was a third of the angels who followed him.» Maybe; maybe not. Revelation 12 is a key verse, and we’ll explore that in a few weeks.
What we do know is that a large number of angels chose to follow him; they were cast out of heaven and landed on earth. I imagine those angels, who became demons, turned to Satan and said, «What’s next, Einstein? You got us thrown out of that beautiful heaven, and now we’re stuck on this earth. What’s next?» So he had to rally the troops. He continued his speech to the demons, proclaiming, «We will still overcome! We will build a kingdom better than God’s, larger than God’s! We will rule the universe.» You might ask, «Did Satan really believe that?»
Never forget: the power of self-delusion is limitless. I remember watching a documentary on CNN about a famous televangelist you would know if I said his name. At the zenith of his career, he had a church with 5,000 in attendance every week, a television program on hundreds of stations, and an income to his ministry of $1 million every day of the year. He couldn’t have been doing better—until he sinned and fell into sexual immorality. Suddenly, he lost his kingdom completely. But instead of letting that little failure hold him back, he said, «I’m going to rebuild what I had.»
Except now, instead of having thousands in his church every week, he has only a couple of hundred. Instead of being on hundreds of television stations, he’s on just a few dozen. Instead of his ministry pulling in a million dollars a day, he has only a few thousand, but he persists anyway. I think Satan had that same kind of blind optimism. You might think, «Well, doesn’t he know the Bible?» Oh yes, he knows the Bible; he knows it better than we do. He has read it more times than we have, and he’s seen much of it up close and in person. For example, he was there the day Jesus died. Talk about a backfire; he planned to kill the Son of God, thinking that would eliminate him.
He didn’t realize that by moving in Judas’s heart to betray Christ, he was opening the way for salvation for everyone who would believe. He was also there at the empty tomb, hearing Jesus say that he was coming back again. Yet frankly, Satan has doubts about God’s ability to carry out what He has promised. He doesn’t really believe God will fulfill His promises, just as many of us also fail to believe.
We say we believe there is a God; we say we believe that the only way to heaven is through faith in Jesus Christ; we say we believe that one day, as Christians, we will stand before the judgment seat of Christ and be evaluated for our lives, receiving God’s rewards or lack thereof. We say we believe that one day, the kingdom of God will prevail forever and ever. We believe it to an extent, but if we truly believed it, wouldn’t we act differently than we do now? That was Satan; he kind of believed but didn’t fully believe.
Satan’s desperation to rebuild his former kingdom, coupled with his doubt about God’s ability to reclaim what was lost through sin, has led Satan to launch a full-scale attack on the kingdom of God and every one of us who is part of that kingdom. The kingdom of Satan is built on the lie that life apart from God is both possible and preferable. He believes one day he will overtake the kingdom of God, and so right now, he is launching an attack on God’s kingdom and every one of us who is part of it.
It’s an assault being played out in three distinct rounds, and next week, we will look at those three rounds of attack to discover Satan’s blueprint for your destruction.