From Darkness to Light

In an earlier post I wrote about the practicality of fighting against Satan and his workers, be they brujos or brujas with their brujeria or demons or new agers or games of fantasy; regardless of the method used for entry into ones life, the fight is still between God and Satan. In this fight God uses weak instruments to prove His power, and those instruments are His people, at least those willing to be used. And if one is not willing to be used He can use them anyway. Understanding that should provide some insight into the following verse:

Ro 16:20 The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you.

According to the verse above and many examples, a few of which we will look at here, we (God’s followers-Christians) are to be used by Him to ‘crush Satan’, how? “Under your feet.” Therefore, once we understand that we are only instruments used by Him, that the power comes from Him, and that the glory belongs to Him, we are ready to move on to the examples.

The 80 Year Old Duo

The Bible tells us that to fight against Pharaoh and his wise men and sorcerers, Satan’s workers, God used two old men:

Ex 7:7 Moses was eighty years old and Aaron eighty-three when they spoke to Pharaoh.

The tools (us) are not important in and of themselves. The power comes from the supreme God. That is the lesson. But equally important for us to understand is that this power has an imitator and the power of the imitator is impressive as well. Satan has a great deal of power, make no mistake about it:

Ex 7:10 So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and did just as the LORD commanded. Aaron threw his staff down in front of Pharaoh and his officials, and it became a snake.
11 Pharaoh then summoned wise men and sorcerers, and the Egyptian magicians also did the same things by their secret arts:
12 Each one threw down his staff and it became a snake.

Another important lesson: Satan is able to duplicate the power of God, to an extent. That is to say that he has the power to do many ’signs and wonders’ that could deceive ‘the very elect’. But the fruit of Satan’s power is always the self and the fruit of God’s power is always others and ultimately, God’s glory.

So here in the above verses is an example of God fighting against Satan. But they are not at each other in fisticuffs; no they are using others to accomplish their goals. This is important to understand: the battle rages not only between the angels and demons but also, ultimately between God and Satan through people. Like it or not you are on one side or the other. And if you are not on God’s side then you are an instrument of Satan and his workers. More on that in another post a little later.

In the text above with Moses and Pharaoh, God’s appointed and Satan’s appointed there is an apparent standoff. But let’s continue with the text:

Ex 7:12 Each one threw down his staff and it became a snake. But Aaron’s staff swallowed up their staffs.

Standoff? Never. God always has won, is winning and will win. The evidence is indisputable though many people including some reading this post will not agree but are too cowardly to comment as such. Satan here has duplicated a miracle or power of God; but God’s power was greater.

So look at the picture. God uses weak old men. Satan uses mighty Pharaoh. God does a display of His power through the weakness of His men and Satan does a similar (if not counterfeit) display through the (earthly) strength of his men. God wins by ‘crushing Satan under his men’s feet’.

1 Against 450

In the next example we have a lowly man against a King and his 450 prophets. The man of God, Elijah calls for a test to determine whos God is Supreme:

1Ki 18:22 Then Elijah said to them, “I am the only one of the LORD’s prophets left, but Baal has four hundred and fifty prophets.
23 Get two bulls for us. Let them choose one for themselves, and let them cut it into pieces and put it on the wood but not set fire to it. I will prepare the other bull and put it on the wood but not set fire to it.
24 Then you call on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of the LORD. The god who answers by fire– he is God.” Then all the people said, “What you say is good.”

Understand that in the text leading up to the passage we are told that this King Ahab and his wicked wife Jezebel have seen to it that the prophets of God were killed, at least all they could find. Elijah is the only one left that he knows of and God has instructed him to challenge Satan (through his worker the King) to a test of power. And they all agree. Elijah does what God instructs and prepare the altar as does the group of Satan’s workers. What happens?

1Ki 18:25 Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, “Choose one of the bulls and prepare it first, since there are so many of you. Call on the name of your god, but do not light the fire.”

Ok, they do their best for Satan and…

1Ki 18:26 So they took the bull given them and prepared it. Then they called on the name of Baal from morning till noon. “O Baal, answer us!” they shouted. But there was no response; no one answered. And they danced around the altar they had made.
27 At noon Elijah began to taunt them. “Shout louder!” he said. “Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened.”
28 So they shouted louder and slashed themselves with swords and spears, as was their custom, until their blood flowed.
29 Midday passed, and they continued their frantic prophesying until the time for the evening sacrifice. But there was no response, no one answered, no one paid attention.

We are told Satan’s workers did their ultimate; they called, they shouted, they danced, they shouted louder, they slashed themselves with swords and spears, and lastly they prophesied. And Satan’s power? “ there was no response, no one answered, no one paid attention.” We are not told by God whether he prohibited Satan from responding or he was just impotent in this situation but the outcome is clear: Satan couldn’t perform!

And what of God and his challenge?

1Ki 18:30 Then Elijah said to all the people, “Come here to me.” They came to him, and he repaired the altar of the LORD, which was in ruins.
31 Elijah took twelve stones, one for each of the tribes descended from Jacob, to whom the word of the LORD had come, saying, “Your name shall be Israel.”
32 With the stones he built an altar in the name of the LORD, and he dug a trench around it large enough to hold two seahs of seed.
33 He arranged the wood, cut the bull into pieces and laid it on the wood. Then he said to them, “Fill four large jars with water and pour it on the offering and on the wood.”
34 “Do it again,” he said, and they did it again. “Do it a third time,” he ordered, and they did it the third time.
35 The water ran down around the altar and even filled the trench.
36 At the time of sacrifice, the prophet Elijah stepped forward and prayed: “O LORD, God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command.
37 Answer me, O LORD, answer me, so these people will know that you, O LORD, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again.”
38 Then the fire of the LORD fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench.
39 When all the people saw this, they fell prostrate and cried, “The LORD– he is God! The LORD– he is God!”

Elijah repaired the altar, prepared the sacrifice and then did a remarkable thing. So that no one would doubt the power of the Living God, he ordered water to be brought to soak the wood and the offering. Not once, not twice but three times! Then he prayed and God, through His strength and not of Elijahs, performed. Fire came, burned up everything and even burned up the water! And the people believed.

39 When all the people saw this, they fell prostrate and cried, “The LORD– he is God! The LORD– he is God!”

But that’s not all. Elijah then called on the people to finish God’s work:

1Ki 18:40 Then Elijah commanded them, “Seize the prophets of Baal. Don’t let anyone get away!” They seized them, and Elijah had them brought down to the Kishon Valley and slaughtered there.

God and God’s people triumph, Satan and his workers are defeated and the end result is that the workers of Satan are slaughtered.

So there we have just two of many examples of God waging battle against Satan and the outcomes thereof. God wins; Satan loses. But be careful not to use man’s idea of win/loss to understand God’s plan. Many times it appears, it appears that Satan has won. But it is not so. As in the case of the crucification of God’s only son Jesus, it appeared that Satan had the victory. But we clearly see that it wasn’t so. That’s where faith comes in, when we don’t understand.

The power of God always wins; the power of Satan will always lose. And that’s the truth.

Joh 8:32 and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

Are you free? Free from the power of Satan?

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 22nd, 2008 at 9:44 am and is filed under Extreme Bible Study, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.