Robert McLaughlin Bible Ministries
The Angelic Conflict. Part 23. Satanic offensive action and our defensive action in the Church-age.
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
Point 5. Satanic and Demonic attacks during the Church-age.
a. During the Church-age, demon attacks on the unbeliever are limited to two categories: demon possession or demon influence in which demon doctrines enter the soul of the unbeliever.
b. During the Church-age, demon attacks on believers are limited to demon influence, in which the doctrine of demons invades the right lobe of the soul, 1TI 4:1-5.
Why is the devil allowed to have strategies and schemes of deception?
Because we are involved in a conflict between two kingdoms and both kingdoms are after your soul.
Satan’s offensive action demands, on our part, dependence on the Lord and the wall of fire.
a. EPH 4:27 - a command for defensive action.
Opportunity - topos = a place or a room in your soul.
Many believers have skeletons in their closet or a secret room which is very confidential, private, and undisclosed.
ISA 5:13 Therefore My people go into exile for their lack of knowledge;
HOS 4:6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.
Just as doctrine gives the rooms of the soul pleasure and freedom, a lack of doctrine in the rooms of the soul produces slavery and bondage.
PSA 139:23-24 Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me and know my anxious thoughts; And see if there be any hurtful way in me, And lead me in the everlasting way.
GAL 5:9 A little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough.
JER 17:9 The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; Who can understand it?
ROM 7:15 For that which I am doing, I do not understand; for I am not practicing what I would like to do, but I am doing the very thing I hate.
PSA 139:12 Even the darkness is not dark to Thee, And the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to Thee.
Unless a believer is free from this bondage of his soul or this room of secret faults or sins, that believer will never enjoy true freedom.
PSA 146:7b the Lord sets the prisoners free.
JER 15:11 the Lord said, “surely I will set you free for purposes of good;”
JOH 8:32 “and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
JOH 8:36 “If therefore the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed.”
PSA 68:6 He leads out the prisoners into prosperity,
PSA 107:10,14 There were those who dwelt in darkness and in the shadow of death, prisoners in misery and chains, He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and broke their bands apart.
ISA 61:1 The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted;
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to captives, and freedom to prisoners;
ISA 42:7 to open blind eyes, to bring out prisoners from the dungeon, and those who dwell in darkness from the prison.
PSA 69:33 for the Lord hears the needy, and does not despise his who are prisoners.
Why doesn’t God just say, “Don’t worry I won’t let you be deceived, I’ll kill the devil?”
b. EPH 6:13 - a command for defensive action.
The evil day is the day that you are attacked by any system of evil.
c. JAM 4:7 - a command for defensive action -
“Hold your ground against the devil and he will flee from you.”
The ground is the spiritual advance and momentum that we have achieved from making positive decisions toward doctrine.
d. 1PE 5:8-9 Be sober minded or attain spiritual self-esteem, be alert, your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for some believer to devour; therefore, hold your ground against him by standing firm in doctrine.
e. Encouragement for defensive action against Satan -
1JO 4:4 “Greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.”
When we use our human strengths and abilities against Satan, we are defeated and overrun, but with grace we win.
In human history, the sovereignty of God and free will of man coexist by divine decree because human history is an extension of the prehistoric angelic conflict.
“Why did a holy and righteous God Who is all powerful and all knowing allow the fall of Satan and his angels to occur?”
1. God is perfect; therefore His plan is perfect and He allowed evil to come into being.
2. He allowed Satan and the fallen angels to rebel so that the elect angels and the human race would see the evil behind sin and rebellion.
3. He also allowed sin because he wanted the angels to have a free will or choice to serve Him from their own free will and personal love.
4. It was necessary to allow the fall of angels to show the grace of God in saving the elect angels and in the redemption of the human race.
In human history, the sovereignty of God and free will of man coexist by divine decree because human history is an extension of the prehistoric angelic conflict.
Satan learned in the prehistoric angelic conflict that he cannot attack the sovereignty of God, which is incorruptible, so he attacked the volition of God’s creatures.
He came up with a plan to attack God through His creatures, since he could not attack God.
Since mankind was created in history to resolve the prehistoric angelic conflict, Satan attacks at the weak point - the volition of mankind.
The greatest attack on human volition occurred in the dispensation of the hypostatic union against the humanity of Christ.
Satan’s offensive began in the prehistoric angelic conflict when Satan revolted against God with the thought, “I will be like the most high God.”
REV 12:3-4 And another sign appeared in heaven: and behold, a great red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads were seven diadems. And his tail swept away a third of the stars of heaven, and threw them to the earth.
MAT 25:41 “depart from me you who have been condemned into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels.”
Satan appealed this judgment and God granted his appeal, and therefore mankind was created to resolve the angelic conflict.
a. At the point of the Gospel, Satan attacks to obscure the content of the Gospel and to corrupt faith in Christ alone for eternal salvation, 2CO 4:3-4.
Another attack on the Gospel is salvation by works or faith plus something.
GAL 2:16 “Knowing that a person is not justified by the works of the law but through faith in Christ Jesus ... for by the works of the law no flesh will be justified.”
ROM 3:28 For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the law.
EPH 2:8-9 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast.
Satan attacks volition to reject doctrine. This is accomplished through false doctrine, legalism, distraction, false scales of values, and many other ways.