Audio transcription
Lately we have now been speaking about ideas, our thought lives. On Friday we requested if God can learn our ideas. The resounding reply is sure, God can learn our ideas, not simply ours, however the intentions of our hearts. This reality has large implications for every of us. It implies that God sees the distinction between what we wish to say and what we really say. He can weigh the distinction. So we are able to glorify God by stopping sinful phrases from popping out of our mouths. That's one of many fascinating implications we checked out on Friday in APJ 1917.
We start this new week with one other quick however deeply necessary query about our thought lives. Garrick asks him, “Pastor John, can Devil himself put ideas into our heads?”
Sure, he can and he can. And naturally the urgent questions are: How do we all know them? And the way to withstand them and never be managed by them? However earlier than I give some biblical examples, it might be good to do not forget that Devil's placing ideas into our minds and placing needs into our hearts or our bodies are very carefully associated.
Generally it might put sinful needs proper into our hearts, adopted by ideas that justify these sinful needs. Generally it might just do the alternative by placing misleading ideas in our minds that result in sinful needs. Now, Garrick solely requested about ideas, however I simply wished to make clear that ideas and needs are so carefully associated that we ought to be asking about each, so I'll maintain that in thoughts.
Devil and our sinful nature
Let's start with a biblical textual content that really makes use of the phrases Garrick used when he requested his query—particularly, “Absolutely Devil give ideas in our minds?” Right here's John 13:2: “Through the supper”—that’s, throughout the Final Supper—”the satan had already put it into the center of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him.” In Judas was a thought, a objective, a need. Devil , says John, “put it there”.
However now there’s one other clarification. This doesn’t imply—it doesn’t imply for Judas and it doesn’t imply for us—that the intention and need didn’t come up from Judas' personal sinful nature. In John 12:6 he’s described as a thief who takes cash from the disciples' cash bag. He’s mentioned to be a person who had no coronary heart for the poor, which suggests he was additionally a liar, which additionally means he was grasping. So we are able to just about conclude from this that Jesus was not the Messiah that Judas wished to comply with. He had different issues on his thoughts and coronary heart. All Devil needed to do was amplify and management Judas' personal sinfulness. This additionally applies to us. There is no such thing as a clear line between the ideas Devil places and the ideas we include, or between the needs Devil places and the needs we include.
“Our personal sinfulness is like an invite, like a welcome mat, and like an open door to Devil.”
We don't know precisely how. These are the questions that confuse us, proper? We don't know precisely how Devil interacts with our personal sinful nature to do his nasty work. However I believe it's truthful to say that our personal sinfulness is like an invite, like a welcome mat, and like an open door to Devil. That's what Paul says in Ephesians 4:26-27: “Don’t let the solar go down in your anger and don’t give the satan a chance.” In different phrases, the sinful holding of a grudge is sort of a welcome mat laid out for Devil. And it really works the opposite manner round too. When Devil tempts us to sin with misleading ideas or needs, our personal sinful nature kicks in and makes these enticements extra enticing.
Unguarded minds
Right here is one other biblical instance that solutions Garrick's query: “Does Devil put issues into our hearts? Right here is Acts 5:3 the place Ananias and Sapphira resolve to mislead the apostles and withhold a part of their promise. Peter mentioned, “Ananias, why has Devil stuffed your coronary heart to mislead the Holy Spirit and maintain a portion of the produce of the land for your self?” Ananias and his spouse thought, “Oh, let's make somewhat extra cash by mendacity about how a lot we offered our land for. And the thought turned a plan, and the plan turned an motion, and Peter describes this complete course of as “Devil stuffed your hearts.” Devil made this plan appear extra fascinating than honesty or worship. Devil's objective stuffed them and defeated all their different ideas and needs. It was fairly a pricey sin (see Acts 5:5, 10).
One other instance is how Devil incited King David to take a census of Israel in opposition to God's will. “Then Devil stood up in opposition to Israel and incited David to quantity Israel” (1 Chronicles 21:1) – that’s, to take a census of Israel. He put the thought into David's thoughts and made the thought into navy knowledge, when in actuality it was unbelief in God. And in the long run he needed to repent of this folly.
We would suppose, if we return to the very starting of the Bible, that the deception of Eve within the Backyard of Eden was not like the way in which Devil works at this time, as a result of it was by way of an actual dialog between the satan and Eve. However Paul mentioned that Christians should watch out for an identical assault as within the Backyard of Eden. In 2 Corinthians 11:3, he mentioned, “I’m afraid that for the reason that serpent deceived Eve along with his crafty, your ideas will probably be led astray from a honest and pure devotion to Christ. Devil's work in our minds is right here referred to as main us astray, corrupting our ideas. We don't understand how Devil does it, however it’s so; he does it. It will possibly destroy, twist and mislead our ideas and switch them into ideas in opposition to Christ and for sin.
Weapons of fact
The primary actuality to bear in mind in all of that is that Devil is a deceiver, a liar, and a assassin. They trigger their destruction primarily by deception, mendacity — generally with half-truths, however at all times with misleading, murderous intent. Right here is Revelation 12:9: “The good dragon was forged down, that historical serpent referred to as the Satan and Devil, deceiver of the entire world.” John 8:44: “[The devil] he was a assassin from the start and doesn’t stand within the fact as a result of there isn’t any fact in him. When he lies, he speaks from his character as a result of he’s a liar father of lies.”
All his concepts are, in different phrases, deceptive. These are deceptive ideas. Whether or not they’re half-truths or outright falsehoods, they’re deceptive. All his miracles are mendacity miracles – that’s, miracles within the service of a lie (2 Thessalonians 2:9) – which implies that the central and secure weapon in opposition to him is the reality, the idea within the fact.
Right here is the way in which Paul places it in 2 Timothy 2:25-26. We must always appropriate our adversaries “with gentleness. God might grant them repentance resulting in the data of the reality.” And right here is the impact of it: “. . . and so they can come to their senses and escape from the snare of the satan.” That's what it does: understanding the reality. Jesus mentioned, “You’ll know the reality and the reality will make you free” (John 8:32).
Let me learn 2 Timothy; I ended in the midst of verse 26. “. . . they’ll come to their senses and escape from the snare of the satan after he has taken them to do his will” (2 Timothy 2:26). How did he seize them? How did Devil seize them? By imprisoning them with lies, untruths. He satisfied them to imagine a lie by planting a lie of their hearts, by deceiving them that error is healthier than fact, sin is healthier than righteousness. The treatment, says Paul, is to talk the reality and present righteous love.
That is precisely what we get in Ephesians 6:11-18. “Placed on the entire armor of God, that you simply could possibly stand in opposition to the wiles of the satan.” Then six items of armor are talked about, and 4 of the six relate on to the reality, for the satan's plans are lies, and we shield ourselves and others with the reality:
- belt of fact (Ephesians 6:14)
- footwear of the gospel (Ephesians 6:15)
- the sword of the Spirit, which is the phrase of God (Ephesians 6:17)
- the protect of religion, which is religion within the phrase of God (Ephesians 6:16)
“Devil can put ideas into our minds, however God has given us all we have to know them and resign them.”
You have got the phrase of God in your hand like a sword, and also you increase a protect and belief within the phrase of God, the reality.
Renunciation of Devil's lies
I believe the reply to Garrick's query is fairly clear. Sure, Devil can put ideas into our minds, however God has given us every little thing we have to acknowledge and resign them. Listed here are the questions I believe we have to ask about each thought that involves thoughts.
- Is that this thought unscriptural?
- Is that this thought false to the glory of Christ?
- Is that this thought false to the love of Christ for others?
- Is this concept false to purity?
- Does this concept serve to make sin enticing and holiness unattractive?
If the reply to any of those questions is sure, then we bear in mind Revelation 12:11 the place John says, “They overcame [Satan] by the blood of the Lamb, and by the phrase of their testimony, for they didn’t love their lives unto dying.” In different phrases, we flip to Christ, who beloved us and gave himself up for us, and settle for the valuable guarantees he has made to us of his superior value and kindness, and testify To Devil: “Christ is my fact. Christ is my treasure. Go away!” And we flip and stroll with Christ in reality.