“The highest being God ever made, this anointed, angelic being wanted to be like God and in the sin of pride he was thrown out of heaven and Revelation 12 says – Like a great dragon he fell and with his tail he swept a third of the angels with him. So, Lucifer, this fallen angel, the highest of the angels leads a host of one third of all the angels that God ever created. And there are literally millions of them. And these then become the demonic enemy. This is the devil. Jesus believed in him. He talked with him in Matthew 4. He talked about him in John 14, John 16, and elsewhere. The apostles believed in him, Paul talked about him, Peter talked about him, James talked about him. If you look at history you know there is a devil he tempted Eve in Genesis 3, he tempted Christ in Matthew 4. He perverted God’s word in Matthew 4 and he opposed God’s work in Zechariah 3. He hindered God’s servant in I Thess. 2 and he hinders the gospel in II Cor. 4. He snares the wicked in I Tim. 3; he desires the nations in Rev. 16. He’s an angel of light in II Cor. 11, he fights with Michael in Jude. He brought sin into the world in Genesis 3. He now has the whole world lying in his lap in I John 5. He’s been all through history.
He has personal titles. The Bible calls him in Ezekiel 28 the anointed cherub. In John 16, the prince of this world, in Ephesians 2 the prince of the power of the air, in II Cor. chapter 4 he is called “the god of this age.” And in Luke 11:15 “the prince of demons.” Fifty-two times he is called Satan which means adversary. That is his most common title. Thirty-five times he is called devil, diabolas, which means slanderer. He is called the old serpent, the great dragon, the roaring lion, the evil one, abadon, appolyon, tempter, accuser, the spirit now working in the sons of disobedience.
He is described by our Lord in John 8:44 as a murderer and as a liar. He works overtly and covertly with flat-out doctrines of devils and with seducing spirits. He is a sinner in I John 3:8, he is an imitator in II Cor. 11:13-15. He is some formidable enemy.
Lucifer, fallen from heaven, the ruler of a vast host of demon beings who have been around for centuries and thousands of years since first they fell and first they were created. They’ve been here a long time they are wily they are clever they are cunning, they are subtle, they are invisible, they are super-human and they are our enemy. And it says in verse 11 they operate on the basis of the wiles of the devil. Methodia, methods and the word is used in Ephesians 4:14 and translated cunning craftiness by which they lie in wait to deceive us. About what? Like children tossed to and fro and carried about by every wind of doctrine.
The emphasis is that the wiles of the devil are lies, false doctrines, false religion, false teaching. He is a liar and the father of it. He is a deceiver. His whole system deceives subtly, supernaturally, cleverly, powerfully. He has deceived mankind the world over with false religious systems. It’s incredible how sophisticated they come.
Can you believe that in the Old Testament Satan deceived Israel into worshipping idols and turning their back on the true God? Can you remember that in the New Testament Satan deceived Israel into murdering their own Messiah? Would you believe in the future he will deceive Israel into thinking the anti-Christ is Christ? He is a deceiver. He is subtle. His area is lies, heresies and false doctrine. He will lie about everything whether simple or sophisticated. And if I sometimes get upset about false doctrines and false cults and false teaching the reason is because I believe all of that stuff whether it is a denial of the truth of the word of God or whether it is Zoroastrianism, whether it’s the new liberation that denies God’s order for the family, whether it’s homosexuality, the new morality, whether it’s the cults and isms and schisms and spasms and the rest of that stuff or whether it’s old line religions of the world, if I get excited about that it is because those things should be blasted with the fierceness equal to their hellish origins. Because they are from Satan. They are the wiles of the devil. And he is clever. He moves into the world and prevents the word from reaching the hearts of men. He snatches the word, Luke 8 says. He twists and perverts it. He has men stand in pulpits who deny the authority of Scripture, deny the deity of Christ, deny salvation by grace, deny the second coming, deny judgment, deny sin, deny everything. He teaches a lifestyle that damns. He involves himself in politics and governments and nations as well as individual lives.
To Christians he comes and creates doubt in their minds as he did to Eve and did throughout the history of God’s people. He creates persecutions against them. He hinders their service. He infiltrates the church with his tares, he tempts us to self-reliance, to doubt, to lies, to immorality to worldliness, to pride to discouragement to on and on and on. And this is subtle, really subtle. People might think the longer you are a Christian and the more mature you become the easier it gets. No. Because the more you know the more subtle the temptations become. And so this is a formidable enemy. But it isn’t just the devil, look at verse 12.
“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood,” and keep it in mind, people, our enemy is not the system, the world as we see it. You know, they may persecute us and someday they may do to us what they did to Jesus, John 15 he said -Don’t be surprised if they persecute you and kill you and hate you they hated Me, they persecuted Me they killed Me, you wouldn’t expect them to treat the servants any different then they treated their Lord. So don’t be surprised but the real enemy is not flesh and blood, the real weapons of our warfare are not carnal but principalities, powers, rulers of the darkness of this world, spiritual wickedness in the heavenlies. Those are all terms to describe demons. It is a demon empire that is the real enemy and we wrestle and the word wrestle is not talking about a simple athletic game.”
– John MacArthur (The Believer’s Warfare, Part 1 Ephesians 6:10-13 April 22, 1979)
