Angelic
Conflict: Influenced by Demons; Eph.
We live in a world that has been dominated since at least the time of
the Enlightenment with a naturalistic worldview, i.e. a worldview that excludes
the supernatural. More and more as we live in a secularised society we are
surrounded by people who do not think that there is anything more “out there”
beyond what we can see and experience; nothing in terms of a God or angels or
spirits or anything of that nature. On the other hand we always find that there
are some people who go way too far in that degree and they overemphasise
everything that has to do with angels or demons or spirits and they virtually
get involved with pagan concepts of spiritism or demonism. The Bible, though,
gives us a clear understanding of the fact that there is another order of
beings in the universe that was created by God in eternity past, called angels.
These angels are immaterial beings and that at some time in eternity past there
was a revolt among these angels led by the highest of the angels, a cherub
called Lucifer. The reality of that revolt is a vital part of every one of our
lives and there is an intersection, the Bible says, between this immaterial,
invisible conflict in the heavenlies and our day-to-day lives. We call this the
angelic conflict.
We have looked at the assaults of Satan on the human race in terms of
its direct category and traced it through history. Now we are in the area of
indirect assaults, how Satan and the demons seek to influence individual
Christians and human history for his ultimate agenda which is to try to
disprove God’s ability to govern in history and to prove he can do it better or
at least as well as God. We are told in Ephesians chapter six that we are in
the midst of this conflict and in verse 11 we are told to put on the full
armour of God, the ultimate defence against the devil.
Ephesians
We have seen that part of his strategy is to influence man in the way
that he thinks. He does this in a number of different ways. In James
1. All human wisdom is
equated with demonic thinking.
2. It is demonic
thinking because it glorifies the creature over the creator. It locates
ultimate truth in the creation and not in the revelation of the creator.
3. The essence of this
thinking involves two concepts: autonomy, independence from God (the creature
thinks that somehow he can make life work apart from what God says) and,
secondly, antagonism to God.
4. In these attributes
lie the roots of all human thoughts systems not based on the Word of God. All
human thought systems ultimately lead to a path of self-destruction for the
creature.
1 Peter 5:8 NASB “Be of sober {spirit,} be on the alert. Your
adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to
devour.” To be of sober spirit is not the idea of not having had any alcoholic
beverage, it is the idea of thinking objectively, thinking on the basis of
rational and external system of eternal absolutes, being able to honestly and
objectively evaluate not only ourselves but circumstances because we know what
is really going on in human history. We can do this because we have the Word of
an omniscient, omnipotent God to base it on. The image of a roaring lion is
that of aggression, of something that seeks to destroy us.
How does Satan seek to influence human history? How does he influence
believers? What are some of the examples that we can go to in the Bible that
show different ways in which Satan seeks to influence people? The first one
that happens chronologically in history other than the fall is found in the
book of Job. Job is a book that deals with the issue of undeserved suffering.
We can locate Job about the time of Abraham. In the first two chapters of the
book the curtain is drawn back so that we see what happens in the throne room
of God, what happens behind the scenes that is beyond our senses. We cannot see
demons, we cannot see angels, we cannot experience them directly, we don’t see
into the throne of God, yet God has revealed this to us that we might have an
understanding of what goes on behind the scenes. The issue in Job is an issue
that is close to every single human being that has ever lived. Why do we go
through undeserved suffering? Job is addressing that to give us a framework to
understand how Satan seeks to influence us and how as a believer we should
respond.
If we look at God’s assessment of Job in verse 8 we see that it is very high
indeed. NASB “The LORD said to Satan, ‘Have you considered My servant Job?
For there is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, fearing
God and turning away from evil’.” The Lord is the one who brings Job to Satan’s
attention which tells us something about this kind of testing: that this is to
demonstrate something. At any time we are tested is has some evidentiary
bearing within the total panorama of the angelic conflict. There are four times
in John 1 & 2 that God gives this assessment of Job, and the reason He
repeats it so much is so that we capture this because after we go through Job’s
testing and we see all the ways in which he loses many things and all of the
adversity that he goes through he is sitting outside the city and is tempted to
give in to self-pity and his three friends come up. These three friends
represent the kind of thinking that most everyone brings to the issue of
suffering. They all want to somehow put the blame on Job—he did something and
God is hitting him because there is some sin in his life or something he failed
to do. So they all take a position against Job but God tells us up front that
this has nothing to do with Job’s behaviour, he is blameless and upright. What
Job shows us that the answers that are often brought to the profound questions
of life are superficial, incorrect and incomplete. That is because they are not
based on what the Word of God teaches.
Job 1:6 NASB “Now there was a day when the sons of God
came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan also came among them.” The scene is
the throne of heaven and we see that there is an angelic convocation, an
assembly of angels made up of both fallen and elect angels. They all come
before the presence of God and among them is Satan. {7] The LORD said to Satan,
‘From where do you come?’ Then Satan answered the LORD and said, ‘From roaming about
on the earth and walking around on it’.” Even in the early days of the history
of humanity Satan was still cruising the earth like a roaring lion seeking whom
he may devour. That is his normal modus operandi.
Job 1:9 NASB “Then Satan answered the LORD, ‘Does Job fear
God for nothing?’” This is the second issue that comes up in the book of Job.
Why do people worship God? Why do people obey God? Do they obey God because
they believe they are going to get something good from God? Do people worship
God and obey God for what they will get out of it, or do they worship God
simply because He is God and therefore because of who He is He is worthy of
their total and absolute devotion and attention? That is the question that
Satan poses to God. Job clearly has his priorities right and has his family’s
spiritual life and his spiritual life at the forefront of his thinking and so
now this is going to be challenged. Job
In one day in the space of about an hour and a half Job receives four
messengers to tell him that he has lost his personal wealth, he has lost his
family, he has lost everything that is near and dear to him, and we get to see
how he responds. What we have going for us is that we see behind the scenes.
Job has no idea that the angels have been meeting in heaven with God, he has no
idea that He has given Satan permission to test him.
Job
Job 2:1 NASB
“Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before
the LORD, and Satan also came among them to
present himself before the LORD.” And we see the same kind of question and answer between the Lord and
Satan. [2] “The LORD said to
Satan, ‘Where have you come from?’ Then Satan answered the LORD and said, ‘From roaming about on
the earth and walking around on it.’ [3] The LORD said to Satan, ‘Have you
considered My servant Job? For there is no one like him on the earth, a
blameless and upright man fearing God and turning away from evil. And he still
holds fast his integrity, although you incited Me against him to ruin him
without cause’.”
We are asking the question: What are the ways in which Satan seeks to
influence us? One of the ways is through adverse circumstances. Satan can also
do it through prosperity because prosperity is the test that most people fail
but the example in Job is that of adversity and suffering. Satan is seeking to
influence Job through external pressure of adversity, to force him into a
position where he will reject the grace of God and instead of responding by
honouring he will respond by cursing God, by blaming God, by reacting in anger
to God, rather than responding by divine viewpoint. We need to ask the
question: Is Job going to react in autonomy, is he going to try to solve this
pressure independently of God, or is he going to turn in anger and hostility to
God? Remember, those are the two twin poles of Satanic thinking—autonomy and
hostility.
Job 2:4 NASB “Satan answered the LORD and said, ‘Skin for skin!
Yes, all that a man has he will give for his life.
Then Job’s three friends show up. This is another arena. We get pressure
put on us just from adverse circumstances in life but then we get pressure put
on us from our friends, advisors, family, from our peer network that try to
give us some alternative solution to solving the problem. That alternative
solution can involve any number of different things but it is a way to solve
the problem without doing what Job is doing so far, which is just to relax and
trust God and refuse to blame God for what is going on. The next several
chapters in Job all focus on this idea that his friends all come along and try
to get him to reject God. Eventually he does. He succumbs as time goes by and
he begins to challenge God’s integrity, and the God shows up at the end of the
book and in a series of rhetorical questions He puts Job in his creaturely
place. He doesn’t answer Job’s question as to why he is suffering unjustly, He
is telling Job that He is omniscient and omnipotent and Job is to trust Him
because Job doesn’t have the facts to judge God. He puts Job in his place and
Job responds in humility and trusting God.
In the midst of all this there is a famous statement by Job where he
says: “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.” This is the attitude of the
believer focused on the provision of God. We trust God because of what His Word
says. Our experience is too limited to judge or evaluate, to really understand
why things are happening the way they are. We just don’t have enough data. All
we can do is trust God and recognise that He does have all the data, that He is
a God who has a plan, that He is a God who loves us, and that by succumbing to
the pressures of circumstances to turn against we are coming under demonic
influence and are seeking to address the problem on our own resources.
Another example in the Old Testament of Satanic influence comes in a
situation of divine discipline: 1 Samuel 15, where we see that the Lord is
using Satan and the demons to carry out divine discipline on a disobedient
Saul. Saul was a believer who had been obedient to God but for the last twenty
or so years of his reign was out of fellowship and had succumbed to the whole
concept of autonomy, that instead of doing exactly what God said to do he was
going to solve a problem on his own. In the war against the Amalekites Saul got
his eyes on the booty. 1 Samuel 15:9 NASB “But Saul and the people
spared Agag and the best of the sheep, the oxen, the fatlings, the lambs, and
all that was good, and were not willing to destroy them utterly; but everything
despised and worthless, that they utterly destroyed.” We see here that aspect
of autonomy, of operating independently of God. 1 Sam
The interpretation of this event is given by Samuel in verse 23 NASB
“For rebellion is as the sin of divination, And insubordination is as iniquity
and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, He has also
rejected you from {being} king.” Rebellion against a legitimate authority goes
back Satan’s initial rebellion. That is why it is categorised as a sin of
witchcraft, an activity in alliance with the demons. It is the same kind of
thing that we see in James chapter three, that when we think in independence
against God’s authority we are thinking the same way Satan thinks and the same
way the demons think.
We see the intensification of divine discipline on Saul in 1 Samuel
16:14 NASB “Now the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and an
evil [distressing] spirit from the LORD terrorized him.” It is from the Lord because
even Satan and the demons have to get divine permission to do anything. This
distressing spirit troubles him, he is under demonic oppression, and this is
external, it is not internal. Because of this external operation of the demons
Saul is greatly troubled.
1 Chronicles 21:1 NASB “Then Satan stood up against
Matthew
John 13:2 NASB “During supper, the devil having already put
into the heart of Judas Iscariot, {the son} of Simon, to betray Him.” So in
some way Satan is putting the thought, the temptation to betray Christ into
Judas’s heart. Judas responds positively, he still has volition at this point
and could have rejected the thought. Just because Satan puts a thought in it
doesn’t mean we have to act on it. Obviously there is a way in which thoughts
may originate from outside of us. This seems to be confirmed in Acts 5:3. When
Ananias and Sapphira have lied about the selling of their land Peter says:
“Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep
back {some} of the price of the land?” He could be using this as a term that
Satan could directly put that thought in to his thinking, which is what it
seems to suggest, or it could be that it is just the Satanic system of pride
that is the source of this. When we address these kinds of things we could ask
how we know whether it is from Satan or just our sin nature. We don’t, and it
doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter who is attacking because the solution against
the assault is always the same: to apply doctrine and tom stand firm in His
Word. It is not our responsibility to go out and try to figure out what may be
going on in the invisible realm in spiritual warfare.
1 Timothy 4:1 NASB “But the Spirit explicitly says that in
later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful
spirits and doctrines of demons.” This happens whenever anybody gets away from
the truth of God’s Word. 2 Cor 11:13-15 NASB “For such men are false
apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ.
The truth is ultimately embodied in the person of Christ but it is more
specifically encapsulated in the thinking of Christ. It is thought versus
thought. So we have to understand the different manifestations of the thought
systems of the world. This comes down to the role of the pastor-teacher which
is to inoculate the congregation against the influence of demonic thinking in
the culture around. He does that through the teaching of the Word of God. We
have to be inoculated against the fads and fancies that come along in every
decade to distract the church from its mission. We have to recognise the traits
of the cosmic system in our own culture so that we are able to see how the
culture around us can suddenly influence us to think in terms of its agenda
rather than the Bible’s agenda. This is the process of learning not to be conformed
to the thinking of the world, but to be transformed by the renewing of our
minds.