THE REAL THING (part two)
Recap: Last week we looked at the difference between worshiping false gods and the one, true God. We saw God warning his people to not have images of God or to worship idols of wood and stone. And God told them what would happen if they did. He told them they would find no rest, they would be anxious, unfulfilled, in despair. They would live in constant suspense, filled with dread and never sure of their lives. This is what worshiping their inadequate gods will get them. It's no different for us. Anything we idolize will always leave us unfulfilled. Nothing can do for us what only the real God can.
Then we looked at the differences between the false gospel and the real gospel. Paul was astonished with the Galatian church that they had turned away from the real gospel to follow a false gospel. The Jews were trying to tell them they needed to follow Jesus and the law in order to be right with God. Paul called that a perversion of the gospel.
We have that same thing going on today. You have beliefs that claim to go by the teachings of Jesus yet they add things to it; therefore perverting the gospel. The real gospel is faith in Jesus; only Jesus. I can't be saved by good works and I can't be saved by following any other religious figure. Jesus is not a way; he is the way. Jesus came from heaven, born of a virgin, lived a sinless life and died on the cross for my sins. He bodily rose again from the dead on the third day and ascended back into heaven 40 days later.
In order to respond to the gospel I need to have faith in him, repent of my sins, be baptized in his name and confess him as Lord. Then I will be born again. Today, I'll be talking about how Jesus is the real thing and Satan is not.
1) Satan is like a lion.
1st Pet. 5:8-9, "Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings."
So, the analogy is given. Satan goes around like a roaring, angry lion. A lion roars when it's hungry, when it's on the prowl. That's what Satan is-he's on the prowl; he's on the hunt. He's hungry and seeking to devour. To devour means to consume, to engulf, to demolish; to dispose of. Satan wants to do all these things to us.
Have you ever felt the presence of evil surround you; even engulf you? It's a very uneasy and constricting feeling. And he wants to dispose the joy in us; dispose any amount of hope in us. Another meaning of devour is to overwhelm; to overcome. He wants to smother us; he wants to control us. He wants us to be overwhelmed and overcome with anxiety and fear.
He wants to take over and get us to come out of character and cause us to make poor decisions. He wants to contain us and make sure we have no element of active faith. But Peter said we can resist him. We don't have to be devoured; we don't have to be overwhelmed by him. We can stand firm in the faith; we can be self-controlled and alert. Although Satan is like a roaring lion, he's no match for Jesus-the real Lion of Judah.
2) But Jesus is the lion.
Rev. 5:1-5, "Then I saw in the right hand of him who sat on the throne a scroll with writing on both sides and sealed with seven seals. And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming in a loud voice, “Who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll?” But no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth could open the scroll or even look inside it. I wept and wept because no one was found who was worthy to open the scroll or look inside. Then one of the elders said to me, “Do not weep! See, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has triumphed. He is able to open the scroll and its seven seals.”
These titles are messianic titles, taken from Gen. 49:8-10 and Isaiah 11:1. Jesus is the Lion of Judah who has triumphed over death and Satan. The true lion is able to overpower the one who just acts like a lion. When David said he would fight Goliath, King Saul told David that he would be going up against someone who had been a warrior from his youth; not to mention he was a giant. This was David's response.
1st Sam. 17:34-37, "But David said to Saul, “Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it. Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. The LORD who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.” Saul said to David, “Go, and the LORD be with you.”
And we know how that turned out with David slaying the giant. We are facing the proverbial lion in Satan, who seeks to devour us. But we have the Lord with us. Because of that we'll be able to kill the lion; we'll be delivered from the paw of the lion too. Daniel was rescued from the lion's den because the Lord was with him. He shut the mouths of the lion. How many times have you felt like you were in a spiritual lion's den? Satan's demons are all around; breathing down your neck. But through the power of the Lion of Judah their mouths will be closed so that they don't chew us up.
Paul felt this way. This is what he wrote to Timothy in 2nd Tim. 4:14-18, " Alexander the metalworker did me a great deal of harm. The Lord will repay him for what he has done. You too should be on your guard against him, because he strongly opposed our message. At my first defense, no one came to my support, but everyone deserted me. May it not be held against them.
But the Lord stood at my side and gave me strength, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. And I was delivered from the lion’s mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom. To him be glory for ever and ever. Amen."
Maybe you've faced such opposition from the enemy; maybe God has allowed others to harm you. Paul faced opposition, people did him harm; sometimes bodily harm. And he was so close to being devoured he described it as being right in the lion's mouth. But Paul was rescued and he continued to be bold and courageous for the faith; confident that God could and would take care of him until it was time to go home.
Prov. 28:1 says the righteous are as bold as a lion. This doesn't mean the righteous never have times where they are afraid or nervous. But they don't run away and hide; they fight. They don't believe they're in a losing battle because they know that the real lion, the Lion of Judah has already been victorious over the enemy, the one who roars like a lion and therefore the Christian knows he has the power of the Lion at work within him to be victorious too.
3) Satan pretends to be light.
2nd Cor. 11:13-15, "For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, masquerading as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising, then, if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what their actions deserve."
Satan has no light in him; only darkness. But that doesn't mean he can't portray himself as if he does have the light. We saw this from the beginning with Eve. He presented himself as light-something good-someone to listen to-someone who had words of truth and wisdom. Eve fell for the imitation. Satan has been working this way ever since; trying to convince people that his words are true; not God's.
And he has deceived people to act in accordance with what they thought was the will of God but it wasn't. He tries to get people to misunderstand and misrepresent God's words and ways. Inciting people to engage in religious wars like the Inquisition. Fast forward to today where you have certain churches holding up signs of hatred toward certain groups of people; all in the name of God.
Satan is subtle and crafty; he knows how to get in the minds and hearts of men with artificial light. He has agents of false light to do his bidding; obviously captivated by what they have perceived to be the true light. But they are blind. 2nd Cor. 4:4, "The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God."
Before coming to Christ we resisted the gospel; we didn't see it as something better; something worth pursuing. Yet the irony was we thought we saw things clearly; it was the Christians who were blind. Because of people's indoctrination or intellectualism they are blinded to the reality of spiritual things.
Sometimes it's because they have trusted in certain people and they believe whatever they say to them. And when anyone comes to them with a different viewpoint they dismiss it because they conclude that the person whom they admire could never be wrong. That's what cult leaders prey upon; those they can trap into believing whatever they say and do whatever they want.
This is what Satan is about-captivating people in his fake illumination and blinding them to the truth. However, although people are captivated by this pseudo-light, it doesn't mean they can't escape from this trap and find the real light.
4) But Jesus is the light.
John 8:12, "When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” Jesus said he is the light; not a light. There is no other legitimate light source than him. There is the artificial light and then there's the real light. Satan gives off the delusion of light but he can't produce what Jesus as the real light can do. In Jesus is the light of truth. In Satan there are only lies and half-truths, which are still lies.
Notice Jesus didn't say, whoever believes in me, he said whoever follows me. There's a difference. Many people believe in Jesus but they haven't been willing to surrender to his Lordship and become his follower. I can believe in Jesus but that doesn't mean I'm walking in the light. I only walk in the light when I am following Jesus. I'm following his words and his ways; I'm following his example. If I'm not doing these things I'm still in the darkness; I'm deceived. I think because I believe I'm okay with God. Or I'm deceived by thinking whatever it is I am following is better than following Jesus.
And Jesus said if I follow him I will not walk in darkness. When we were walking in darkness we thought we could see fine. We thought we knew what we were doing; we thought we were heading down the right path. But we were disillusioned; deceived by the one who masquerades as an angel of light.
With Christ we see things for what they are; we understand things from a spiritual perspective. We can better understand human behavior; we can better understand Satan's tactics. Because now I have the light of life. The light of life is the glorious splendor of the Holy Spirit coming and taking up residence in me-showing me the truth, leading me in the wisdom of the truth and revealing what is hidden in the darkness.
Walking in the light of life is the effect of the Spirit, producing fruit and good examples as a child of the light. Eph. 5:8-10, "For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord." Living with the light of life causes me to want to find out what pleases the Lord; I want to walk in the light of righteousness, goodness and truth.
Psalm 36:9, "For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light." With God is the fullness of life, the freshness of life and the flow of life. When we have the light of life we will see all other "light" through the lens of truth. When we have the light of life we will know what the real light looks like. We will see the contrast of real verses fake and we will experience how much better real is than imitation. There's nothing like the real thing.
Companies that make the different products we use every day spend lots of money creating what’s called “brand identity.” That means they create a logo or identity for their company or product that is easily recognizable. One of the most successful examples of creating this brand identity is the familiar shape of the Coca-Cola bottle or their red can. When you see a can or bottle of Coke, no matter what language it’s in, you know it’s Coca-Cola.
The same is true for most successful products. The idea is that when you see that logo or name, you know you’re getting the real thing, the genuine product. So these same companies spend lots of money every year to keep others from duplicating their product or their identity.
However, there are copycat products being produced that try to imitate the genuine product. Sometimes companies who try to make a knockoff don't do a very good job and the imitation product is easy to spot. sometimes it's almost comical. Other times they are not easy to spot and the forgery is not so funny.
For example, authorities have found clones of a popular brand of down jacket for sale on the internet. When the jackets were tested, it was discovered that they were not filled with down at all but with all sorts of other things, like chicken feathers (and other parts) swept up from the floor of a poultry factory. This can pose a real health risk by carrying bacteria and disease.
Another problem these days is the availability of counterfeit medications that people purchase hoping to save money. These can be potentially harmful since they may not have any of the needed medication in them.
In the same way that we can be fooled by counterfeit products or money, we are also in danger of falling for Satan's counterfeits. We can be led to believe that he is the light instead of just masquerading as one. And being led astray by his forgeries can lead to having a counterfeit faith; believing in fake Christianity. So we need to be on our guard. Don't fall for the imitation; worship the real thing.
