Phil: I had a rather unusual thought come to me this week and I want to probably cover a lot of scriptures, which is why I actually have some notes here, because you know how it goes. But anyway, I believe the Lord wants us to have, obviously, a greater confidence in Him and enable us to move forward in this broken world that we are called to live in. And how many know that He’s faithful? Absolutely.
So I wanna talk to you about an unusual subject because I saw something from the devil’s point of view that I believe actually shines a light on things that we know but don’t always walk in as if we believe ‘em. But the title I guess would be, Things the Devil Knows, Things the Devil Knows. He knows a lot, doesn’t he?
But I’ll tell you, you know, beginning, you ought ask the question, who is the devil? And again, I’m gonna cover a lot of scriptures and things that we know, but I believe it’s good to set the context. We know that the devil is a created being, right? Colossians tells us that everything and everyone, all the powers, everything in heaven and earth was created by Who? Well, God, yes, but how? But through Jesus, it was created by Him, through Him, and for Him. So God had in mind a creation and a kingdom, and He gave it to His Son to rule over. And so this being that we know as Satan was one of the highest created spirit servants who was created to serve as part of this creation, given great power and great authority.
And of course we know that he rebelled, didn’t he? And he decided that he wanted to have a kingdom of his own. He was filled with pride, with self-will. And so he left the place that God had given him, that Christ had set him up in, and he fell.
Jesus mentioned to His followers in Luke Chapter 10, I’m just gonna refer to these scriptures. You make a note if you want. But in Luke Chapter 10, Jesus refers to the fact that he saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning. He knew all about the devil, knew who he was and what he was about. He said, I was there. I saw him fall from heaven like lightning.
And you know, one of the scriptures that is often referred to is in Isaiah Chapter 14. I’ll go ahead and just read a little of that. And this is a prophecy that God spoke, words that I doubt Isaiah himself fully understood, but he spoke them and they were words from God that were very prophetic in nature.
And the subject of the general prophecy was the kingdom of Babylon, which hadn’t even ascended to its greatness. But God was saying things about it. But in talking about he went beyond the kingdom and he looked at the power that was behind it. There’s an inspiration. How many of you know that whatever we see in this world politically, there’s another kingdom that’s behind it? It’s real. There are real beings.
And in this case, it says, starting in verse 12, How have you fallen from heaven? Morningstar. And that’s where the King James uses the word Lucifer. That’s where it comes from. Morningstar, son of the dawn, you have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid below the nations. You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to the heavens. I will raise my throne above the stars of God. I will sit in throne on the Mount of assembly and the utmost heights of Mount Zaphon,’ -- wherever that was. Obviously a place of ascendancy and power. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds. I will make myself like the most high.
So Satan was filled with pride, with ambition, with what was selfish ambition, obviously. And so he rebelled, believing he who he could actually establish himself as a god. And of course, we know he didn’t do it alone, did he?
And I think most of us have lived with a belief that they all fell at once. I’m not so sure about that. I’ve kind of come to a conviction that there was a time element during which angels joined his rebellion. Notice in Revelation 12 where it talks about the dragon and it tells you who the dragon is, right? This great dragon. And it says his tail dragged one third of the stars of heaven with him.
Now, where’s the tail in relation to a beast? It’s the behind side, isn’t it? So in other words, he fell, rebelled against God. But over a period of time, there were others that he dragged into his rebellion. And I have all ideas that the ones that became the gods that the nations, the heathen nations worship, were once angels that then joined his rebellion over time. It was over a period of time that they became part of his kingdom. And his purpose was to set himself up as the ruler over this world. He has a kingdom that reigns here, okay? So that’s where he’s at.
And we know that when he tempted Jesus, he offered him the kingdoms of the world. He ruled. And many references we’ve used in the past tells you that there is a kingdom. Paul, remember he said, We don’t wrestle against flesh and blood, but against powers and principalities, the rulers of the darkness of this world. So there is literally a kingdom we can’t see, but it’s very, very real, okay?
So now let’s get down to what he knows. And there’s so many things, I finally figured I had to write ‘em down. But anyway, the devil knows that God judges sin. He just didn’t go away and say, Okay, devil, you can have the world, it’s all yours. God has immediately, immediately began to intervene, began to reach out. And the devil knows that God judges the wicked.
There came a time when Satan had amassed most of humanity under his dominion, deceived them into absolutely closing their minds to truth. And only Noah, and then ultimately his family with him continued to serve the Lord, okay? And Satan had to sit there and watch God destroy his world by a flood. And everyone left behind, as I’ve said many times, did what? They perished, they died in that flood.
And of course, he was there and enjoying all the sins of Sodom and trying and really having a big time driving them to do all the things that we’re seeing in our world today. But there came a day when God said, It’s enough. And fire and brimstone fell upon Sodom and Gomorrah. God knows that, I mean, the devil knows that God judges sin. He just doesn’t sit on the sidelines and forget about it all.
But another thing, the devil knows that God has a plan. It had to be obvious to him in some sense that God, like I said, God did not sit on the sidelines and watch the world unfold and watch Satan build his kingdom. God was constantly intervening, calling Abraham, revealing Himself to this one, revealing Himself to another one, raising up a nation, acting to overthrow kingdoms and to allow others to arise. No matter what the devil did, God was involved.
And we see, every now and then we see an example of the conflict that was that was going on there, the warfare that was going on. You see that glimpse in Daniel of two angels, one of God’s angels and one of the devil’s having a warfare and having a battle. There’s a lot goes on in this world that you can’t see with a natural eye, but it’s real.
But anyway, you see God not only having a plan but beginning to raise, He raised up a nation. And even though the nation as a whole rejected God and fell under deception and rebellion, there was a remnant that God had all the way through the Old Testament. And among that remnant, there were prophets who spoke out and gave the word of God. And embedded in their words was the plan that God was instituting. Like we’ve said many times, it was like guided missiles going out and literally setting the stage for the kingdom that you and I have been called to be a part of. Praise God!
The devil knew something was up, but he didn’t understand it. You know, that ought to be a warning to those who think that they can, with the human mind, understand the Old Testament and what it was really about. God hid his plans not just from the prophets themselves and the scriptures makes it plain, they didn’t understand, but He hid His plans from the devil himself.
So this is one thing the devil didn’t know, because if he had known it, we’re told in First Corinthians Chapter 2, he would never have crucified the Lord of Glory, if he had understood what the plan was. So that’s one thing he didn’t know, but he knew God was unfolding something and he was doing everything in his power to get in the way of that and to hang on to what he considered his, okay?
Another thing is he knows who Jesus is. Obviously, when Jesus was sent to the wilderness to be tempted by the devil, the devil didn’t say, I wonder who this is? He knew exactly who it was. And even though he said, If you be the son of God, he knew who He was. There was no question. He was in flesh, but the devil knew who He really was.
And so that’s why he offered Him the kingdoms of the world. All you got to do is worship me, join my rebellion. And Jesus said, No, worship God, only Him, only Him are you gonna serve. So the devil knows who Jesus is.
And of course the fact that he attempted to kill Jesus when He was a young child. You remember that? You remember how he found out that there was this person Who would come to be king and found out it was gonna happen at Bethlehem? What did he do? Herod, this is the heathen king, sends a bunch of soldiers down there to kill everybody under two years old. So the Lord had warned Jesus’ earthly parents to remove Him, to take Him and get out of there and go to Egypt for a while. The Lord was intervening.
But here’s the devil, I know something’s up. I don’t know what it is, but the Son of God is here in flesh. I gotta get rid of this guy. And so he actually engineered that. You know that’s in Revelation Chapter 12 too, pictured in symbolic form, the devil was poised to kill that child ‘cause that child had a destiny to rule over the nations, okay? So he knows who Jesus is.
He knows scripture, doesn’t he? How many of you run into that one? The devil knows the word better than you and I do. He knows what it says. He knows how to twist it too. He knows how to cause it to seem to say something that it doesn’t really. Carl shared with me a letter recently to answer, and a lady was, I believe, confused by something that was true, but maybe was said in a way that made it easy for the devil to jump in with his interpretation and put her in real bondage.
You know the Lord can take things, for example, the devil can take things I say where the Lord instructs us to do a thing and the devil comes along and makes it a law, I mean a law in the sense that I’ve got to do that or I’m not gonna be accepted.
Boy, I’ll tell you, I’m so glad, for the message the Lord gave me so many years ago about commands and promises? Every command the Lord gives us is a promise to help us do it, because it’s not about our ability to do anything. It’s all about Him. To Him alone be the glory.
The devil knows scripture, isn’t that what he did with Jesus? As soon as Jesus quoted the word, Man shall not live by bread only, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God, the devil comes, jumps right in and says, Hey, jump off the temple because the word says He’ll command His angels and they’ll lift up your, whatever it is, they’ll lift up your feet lest you dash your foot against the stone, they’ll protect you.
Was that the purpose of that scripture? You know, we can have all kinds of questions and hear all kinds of scriptures. We need the Author. We need to have a heart that says, Lord, I want to believe and rest in your word, but I need to understand it the way You want me to. I praise God for his faithfulness.
And I would say that to anybody. If I say something somewhere along the line, you don’t understand it, talk to the Lord about it. Rest, don’t worry about it. Like Brother Thomas used to say, Put it on the shelf and say, ‘Lord, you can explain what I need to know, when I need to know it.’ I’ll tell you, God is faithful. He wants us to rest. Praise the Lord!
Let’s not let the devil twist the word of God to hinder us. Look what he’s done throughout history. A lot of his deception, yes, it’s against the world of people who just don’t serve God at all, but there’s a lot of people that are religious, but their religion is the Word twisted and to bring people into all kinds of bondage where they think they’re serving God and they’re not. I’ll tell you, we need the Lord, don’t we? But He is faithful to all of His.
So he knows scripture, but another thing he knows, he knows his destiny. And I thought about how when he left heaven, when he fell like lightning from heaven, do you think there was any illusion in his mind that, well, I can try this, but if it doesn’t work out, I can always go back? It was a one-way ticket out of there. He knew that he had set himself against the Most High, and it became more and more obvious as he went along that he had a destiny that wasn’t good, and he has been struggling against that ever since. He knows his destiny.
You remember the spirits that spoke out to Jesus in fear and they said, Have you come to torment us before the time? Before the appointed hour, there’s a time they know that’s coming. They know that there is a time when all they can have in the way of expectation is fire and judgment and darkness. And it’s coming and he knows it. Praise God!
And I’ll tell you, the scriptures, like there’s one in Jude that talks about the angels that fell, and they are being reserved in chains of darkness for the coming of the judgment of that day. And talks about how Jesus mentioned in one place about fire that follows judgment and it’s been reserved, or it’s been designed, or set up for the devil and his angels. So he knows his destiny. He’s not ignorant of what’s coming.
What would you do if you knew you had no hope and that was your destiny? I think you’d fight and fight and fuss, and that’s what he’s doing. You see it everywhere. But I’ll tell you something else that he knows without any question, because once the cross that, he didn’t understand what the cross was about. He thought he was winning. Once all of that happened, when Jesus went to the cross and when he came out of that tomb, and not only that, when He ascended to a throne far above everybody, the devil knew he had lost and lost forever. Do we know that? Praise God!
Don’t you be afraid of the devil. He lost the battle on that day. You know, the scripture in Colossians Chapter 2, read it, how he was paraded. Not only did Jesus nail the law to the cross, our sins and all of that, open a way for us to become new creatures, he paraded the devil in defeat. That’s a paraphrase of some of the language that’s there.
Do you know what that was a reference to? You know, back in the ancient world when they had battles, one kingdom against another, they didn’t have the internet. How many people here have never lived in a world where we didn’t have the internet? I’ll tell you what, you think this world is so connected, information is so instant, and here they were. They didn’t have reporters, they didn’t have telephones, they didn’t have any means of communication. So how did they know what the outcome of a battle was?
I’ll tell you one of the best ways they knew was when the opposing king and the opposing generals in the opposing army were literally chained up, stripped down and set up like they were servants and slaves, and then paraded down the main street of the capitol in front of everybody. You want the evidence that we just won that battle? There they are, there’s the king, he’s dressed like a slave and he’s in chains.
That’s the imagery the Lord has given to us. Do we understand that? Do we understand the degree to which the devil was absolutely defeated at the cross once and for all? Praise God! The devil knows that. The devil is very, very well aware of what happened because of the cross, the resurrection, and the ascension. He knows the power of the cross and of the blood.
I know some of you have been around a while. Remember that there was an occasion when Brother Thomas was dealing with a demon possessed person, and for some reason he felt led to press the particular devil about what it was they were most afraid of, best I remember the incident. And boy, that devil fought and fought and resisted and just wouldn’t.
And Brother Thomas just continued to press because the Lord was with him. It wasn’t just Brother Thomas, and began to press that devil. And finally, the devil had to admit the thing he feared the most was the cross and the blood that was spilled there. There is nothing they fear more than the cross and the blood that was spilled there. They know it was their final defeat. Praise God!
Do we know that? Do we understand the power of what God has given to us in the cross? The devil knows it. There’s no question. He’s not sitting there, I wonder? No, he knows in the depth of his soul exactly what’s going on. He knows that Christ rules. He is well aware that Christ sits in a place where he can never go. There’s no challenge, no way that he can mount a challenge to Christ and say, I’m coming for your throne. You better be afraid. He can’t even get near that place.
He sits on a throne and the decree of God is that he is there reigning, how long? ‘Till every enemy is where? Under his feet. And when he does that, what’s gonna happen? He’s gonna hand the kingdom, said, The work is done. My job is done. Here, Father, is Your kingdom. And God, the One He referred to as His Father, will be all in all and Jesus will walk among us as our brother in a brand new creation. Praise God!
The devil is well aware that this is what’s unfolding and there’s nothing he can do. He can’t get to that throne. It’s real. Jesus said before He ascended, He said, All, not some, but all authority in heaven and in earth, has what? Been given to me. See, that’s the foundation for going and making disciples and so forth. And lo, I’ll be with you to the end of the age. The devil knows that a whole lot better than we do sometimes. He knows exactly what that’s about, ‘till all enemies are under His feet.
You know, Ephesians 1 talks about the power of the resurrection and how He’s ascended to a place, not just above, but far above all principalities and powers. That’s the place that, oh, I’ll tell you, the devil is scared to death we’ll understand these things and actually live like they’re true, but the devil knows these truths better than a lot of God’s people.
