Word of Salvation – Vol.12 No.15 – April 1966

 

Satan Hindered Us

 

Sermon by Rev. G. I. Williamson on 1Thess.2:18

Scripture Reading: 1Thess.2:17 – 3:13

Psalter Hymnal: 228; 5; 107; 294

 

Beloved Congregation,

At a recent conference of the Anglican Church, there was a lengthy consideration of a revision of the Catechism so as to eliminate the reference in it to the devil.  It was argued that there is no room for belief in a personal devil in this modern age, but that in place of the devil we must now substitute the word “evil”.  And this is truly a sign of the times, for it is difficult to think of any period in the history of the Church when so many have turned away from belief in the existence of a personal devil.

And look at the consequences of this change!  We now have the Archbishop of Canterbury speaking up in behalf of the legalizing of homosexuality!  We have the leaders of the Christian Church in the vanguard of those who condone the evil aggression of the Communists, sacrifice small nations on the altar of appeasement, and even abandon the Biblical duty of national and international self-defence.  So that, in the very day when the leaders of the Christian Church are saying there is no devil, no Satan, we see more clearly than ever if the Lord has opened our eyes to see “that we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”

But the reason – the one reason – why our Church leaders are so desperately deluded is that they no longer believe in the infallible word of God.  They have rejected the light, and so they have no alternative but to walk in darkness as the blind leaders of the blind.  They are being deceived because they have received no love of the truth that they might be saved.  In fact, they themselves become the instruments of Satan himself, who can and does use men in high places to accomplish his wicked business!  He completely deceives them, so that they even believe that they are serving the cause of peace, and love.  And we can only hope, and pray, that our gracious God will continue to preserve our civil rulers from the same delusion, and that he will send a mighty revival of the cause of Biblical Christianity before these men succeed in leading the people of this nation – and other nations likewise – to their destruction!

Now I do not mean to suggest that the problems of the world today are simple to understand!  Neither do I believe that it is the business of the believing Church to try to formulate civil or military policy for the government.  But what I am saying is that the Bible believing Christian – and he alone – can understand what is going on in the world.  For he alone understands that there are two great powers at work in the world – the Kingdom of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of Satan.  And so he realizes that behind all the varied manifestations of wickedness stands one being with one purpose, which is to destroy the gospel of Christ and his true Church.  Just as the Apostle Paul did, so long ago, when he wrote to the Church in Thessalonica, saying: “We, brethren, being taken from you for a short time, in presence, not in heart, endeavoured the more abundantly to see your face with great desire.  Wherefore we would come unto you, even I Paul, once and again; but Satan hindered us.”

I.  The Existence of Satan

We see, then, that the Apostle Paul firmly believed in the reality of a supernatural being, or person, called Satan.  And behind all the opposition from whatever source it came – that he experienced in doing the work of Christ, he saw the master hand of the Devil himself.  (1) In other words, the Apostle Paul firmly believed in the teaching of the Holy Scriptures.  And as far as he was concerned there was nothing mythological in it at all.  Modern theologians speak about the mythology of scripture, and they say that what we need today is a version of the gospel that has been de-mythologized.  They say that the story of Adam and Eve and the ‘talking serpent’ is only a myth, a symbolic story, pointing to a psychological truth that we each find in our own experience.  For them, the Devil is not a person, but only a mythological symbol of the fact that we are able to be tempted by evil in our own experience today!  But with Paul it was different.  He believed – as we do – that the Bible does not need to be de-mythologized for the simple reason that it has no mythology within it.  No, it is simply the truth.  It tells us what actually happened, because there is a Devil, who has been out to destroy the human race from the beginning, and has never deviated since that first encounter with Adam and Eve in his diabolical determination to see that evil work through to the bitter end!  I say “bitter end” because the scripture itself tells us that Satan has already been overcome by Jesus Christ.  “For,” as scripture says, “the accuser of our brethren is cast down.“  But it also says, “Woe to the inhabitant of the earth and of the sea!  For the devil is come down into you, having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time.”

It is this fact which lies at the basis of all the turmoil and wickedness in the world today.  Satan fights as a defeated tyrant, acting ever more desperately with the passing of his limited time.  Just as Hitler commanded his faithful lieutenants to carry out a last reign of terror upon the German people themselves in the hour of defeat, so Satan works with what might almost be called ‘reckless abandon’ in his desperate fury against the Church of Christ.  It is for this reason that none of us is safe from his wrath and malice.  And for this reason also, we must take unto us the whole armour of God that we might be able to stand against the wiles of the Devil.  For none of us is immune to his savage enmity, and none of us can expect that we shall serve our Lord without encountering the enmity, of the evil one!

This, it seems to me, is the missing element in so much of Modern Christianity.  Satan has deceived vast portions of the visible Church, so that people today actually believe that the normal state of affairs for the Church in this world should be one of peace!  They believe that controversy is unnecessary.  They believe that all view-points should be able to dwell together in harmony and unity.  And they seem to think it strange when there is trouble, or persecution, or affliction on account of the faithful preaching of the word of God.

But Paul was of another opinion.  He expected opposition.  The more mightily he worked for the cause of Christ, the more he anticipated the opposition of the kingdom of error and wickedness.  And so it was at Thessalonica.  He was driven out of that place by the malice of the devil, and now – after endeavouring again and again to come to Thessalonica again – Satan hindered him.

(2)  And may I point out that this only made the Apostle’s determination all the stronger!  You see, the Apostle Paul was not confused as some people are by Satan’s opposition.  When opposition came, on account of his work, he did not begin to doubt the word of God.  He did not say to himself, ‘Well, this must not be God’s work after all, because of the trouble, discouragements, and frustrations.’  Some people look to circumstances as the means of knowing the will of God.  They say that when we are in particularly difficult circumstances, it may then be necessary – and right – to do what God forbids in his word, or not do what He commands.  But with Paul it was not so.  For he believed what is written in the Old Testament, where it says: “The secret things belong unto the Lord our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever.”  The path of duty is to be determined by the word of God.  And circumstances cannot make right wrong, or wrong right.  Since God had commanded the Apostle to preach the gospel, no amount of opposition could make it right for him to cease doing just that.  So Paul did what God had told him to do in his revealed word, and he left with God the secret mystery of his sovereign will.

And that secret will of God is indeed a great mystery.  For no one can fully explain – now – how God can foreordain whatsoever comes to pass, how he can rule all things by his sovereign will – and yet be not the author of the sin and wickedness that we actually see in the world.  We might well wonder why God does not put an end to the work of the Devil.  We may well be amazed that God has permitted him to do the evil work that he does do.  But this is a mystery that we cannot unravel.  We cannot explain how a good God can control all things, and yet permit the work of the Devil until that great day when His works will be put down for ever.  But we do know that it is so.  We do know that God controls all things, including the Devil.  We do know that God is good, and that he is not in any way the author of moral evil.  And we do know that Satan alone is the author of all evil that sets itself in opposition to the kingdom of Christ.  And so we ought to do what Paul did.  We ought to set our-selves to do the things that God tells us to do in his revealed word, and then to believe with all our hearts that everything that stands in the way of our accomplishing what God has commanded, is due to Satan’s hindering.

II.  The Devices of Satan

In another place the Apostle says, of the Devil: “We are not ignorant of his devices.”  And by this statement we gain an insight into the ways in which Satan hinders us.  We may not be sure just which of these the Apostle may have had in mind at the time that he wrote to the Thessalonians, but we may be sure that what he had in mind was among these varied devices that we find in scripture.

(1)  One of these devices, is of course, the opposition of Apostate religion.  For it was through the agency of the Jews, who had once been the people of the Messiah, but who had ceased to believe in the Messiah of the Bible, that Paul had been driven out of Thessalonica in the first place.  Of these people, John, in the Book of Revelation says, that they “say they are Jews, and are not, but are the Synagogue of Satan.”  “For he is not a Jew,” says Paul, “which is one outwardly…But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly… whose praise is not of men, but of God.”  “For we are the circumcision,” he says, in yet another: place, “which worship God in the Spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.  These people hindered the work of Paul, because they claimed to be the Church when they were really no part of it.  They accused the Apostle Paul of being a trouble-maker, when in actual fact he was only preaching the true gospel of Jesus Christ.  And among all the agencies used by Satan to hinder the cause of Christ, none was more effective in the days of Paul than these apostate Synagogues of the Jews.

(2)  But this was only one of Satan’s devices.  Another thing that he did to hinder the work of Christ was to raise up all manner of sects, and false religious teachings, so as to confuse the minds of men.  Jesus warned of this in His parable when He said that the work of the sower of good seed is always hindered by those who follow right after them to sow the evil tares.  And so, in Paul’s day, there were “false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ.  And no marvel,” he said, “for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.”  Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness: whose end shall be according to their works.  So in addition to the ‘old denomination’ of the Jews, who had turned away from the teaching of the Bible, there were also many cults’ and ‘isms’ that were nothing more than clever imitations of the Church of Christ.  And in some cases, at least, Satan even provided strange signs and wonders in order to attract men to these religions.  As Paul said to Timothy, “Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses (these were the Magicians who worked signs and wonders in Egypt) so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith.”

(3)  And then Satan also carried on his work within the Church of Christ itself.  For there was hardly a Church in the Apostolic age – perhaps there was not even one – which did not have some kind of discord, controversy, or error that greatly hindered the work of God therein.  Into the Church of Galatia the devil managed to bring “another gospel” which was the work of men who did “pervert the gospel of Christ.”  The Church of Smyrna had in it those who taught the doctrine of Balaam, and of the Nicolai tans, which the Lord hates.  And in the Church of Thyatira there was the evil teaching of one called Jezebel, known as the “depths of Satan.”  So that we see quite clearly why the Apostle warned Timothy against those times when men shall “depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils.”  For one of Satan’s devices is to raise up men within the Church itself who “speak perverse things, to draw away disciples after them.”  This is indeed one of Satan’s most effective devices, against which no Church can keep itself except by constant vigil.

People sometimes speak as if there were no great need for constant vigil and concern lest error enter in!  They do not like to hear about such things as heresy and discipline.  They seem to think that the Church will just ‘automatically’ keep to the glorious doctrines of the word of God.  But let me just say that this very attitude itself is the beginning of Satan’s delusion!  For those who think this way have already allowed themselves to be fooled.  They have allowed themselves to be fooled into thinking that Satan is not the evil and determined foe that the Scripture says that he is!

But of course there are other ways in which Satan may hinder the work of God.  We do not have time to do more than merely mention a few.  (a)  Satan can hinder the work of God by putting us to sleep with a false sense of peace.  (b)  He can hinder the cause of God by creating discord among believers, as he stirs up the lusts of the flesh and the desires of carnal nature.

Satan has many devices.  And he is eminently skilled in the use of them all.  Thousands of years of dealing with the sons of men, has enabled him to develop a vast reservoir of knowledge and ability.  And his insight into human nature is indeed a formidable thing!  How needful it is, then, that we should know of his devices, and take unto us the whole armour of God that we might be able to stand against his wiles!

III.  The Conquest of Satan

But let us now pass on to consider, briefly, the conquest of these hindrances.  And the assurances of this conquest is implied in the very terms of our text itself.  After all, the Apostle does not say “Satan defeated us,” but only that “Satan hindered.” And what a difference there is between these two!

No one can fully explain the mystery of God’s secret will, whereby the work of Satan is decreed as a part of God’s plan for the world.  But there is at least one aspect of the matter that is made clear in the scripture.  “For what glory is it,” asks Peter, “if, when ye be buffeted for your fault, ye shall take it patiently?  But if, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God.  For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, and that ye should follow his steps.”  Just as the Lord God sent many trials upon the Israelites in the wilderness to prove them, and to know their hearts, so it is God’s good pleasure to bring us to glory through the conflict of faith!  It is this conflict which puts a division among men.  And it is this conflict that is good and necessary “that they which are approved may be made manifest among you,” says Paul.  And so, let us consider the way in which the Apostle Paul countered the hindrance of Satan.

(1) Paul says, “being taken from you for a short time in presence, not in heart, (we) endeavoured the more abundantly to see your face.”  In other words, the hindering activity of Satan did not change the Apostle’s determination to do what the Lord had commanded in His Word, To the contrary, it is only increased his determination.  Every time Satan hindered him, he simply “endeavoured the more abundantly” to do what he knew was right!  And that is exactly what we should do.  For the first rule for the overcoming of Satan, is to remain in the path of duty.  King Saul had originally intended to do what was pleasing to God, but then Satan hindered him.  He hindered him by delaying the time of the arrival of Samuel at the place of sacrifice.  Because of this hindrance.  Saul changed his determination, and went ahead and did the ‘next best thing.’  But God was not pleased, and Satan had the advantage.  For, as Samuel said, “To obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken, then the fat of rams.”

(2)  Another way in which the Apostle overcame the hindrances of Satan was by his own diligent use of the means available to him for the attainment of the desired goal.  In other words, when Satan hindered the Apostle Paul so that he could not achieve his objective by one means, he immediately set to work to seize upon another.  So, when he himself was prevented from returning to Thessalonica, he sent Timothy in his place.  And when Timothy returned and still he was prevented from going to Thessalonica by yet another hindrance of the devil, he took pen in hand and wrote the words of this portion of the scripture!  How different the Apostle was from many of those in the Church today who know perfectly well what the scriptures require of them, but who permit the hindrances of Satan to completely silence them and keep them from effective action.  For example, there are Evangelicals in some of the large denominations who know very well that is is wrong for them to live in peace with Modernists who deny the Word of God.  And because the opposition is so strong – – because they are so effectively hindered by Satan in other words – they simply content themselves to pray that God will do something about the situation.  But Paul too was hindered quite powerfully by the evil one.  There were times when he too was effectively prevented from doing what he had originally planned to do.  The difference is that when the devil hindered him from doing his duty in one particular way, he did not for that reason cease from doing his duty.  Rather did he “endeavour the more abundantly” – in some other way – to accomplish the desire of his heart.  And the point is that he always did something that went right against Satan’s hindrance.  Paul says that he prayed exceedingly night and day – that he might actually see these people in Thessalonica face to face.  But while he was praying he was also doing something to overthrow the hindering work of the devil.

(3)  And that brings us to the most wonderful thing of all in Paul’s conflict with the Devil.  “For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing?” he asks, “Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming?  For ye are our glory and joy.”  Now those are the words of confidence, not the words of defeat, They are the words of one who believed that the Devil could be overcome in spite of all his hindrances.  They are the words of the ultimate optimism of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  In other words, the reason that Paul boldly counter-attacked when Satan sought to hinder him, was that he really believed that he was dealing with a defeated foe.  Writing to the Romans he said, “The God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly.”  To the Ephesians he wrote that if they would take unto them the whole armour of God, they would be able to stand “in the evil day” and with the shield of faith “quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.”

And how greatly needed in our day is the supreme confidence in the power of Christ, and the cause of his righteousness and truth.  Does it not seem painfully clear that many lack this confidence today?  It is one thing to say that we believe in the almighty power and sovereign will of God.  And there are many today who do say this.  They even pray that God will cast down his foes and revive and renew the Church of Christ in our day.  And to be sure, God alone can do it, and God most surely can!  But let us never forget that God never has done so except when men have been raised up by him with the courage and faith to challenge the hindrances of Satan in the sovereign name of the Lord.  Luther called the Pope anti-Christ, not because he thought it was safe to do so, but because he believed that Christ was able to bless his faithful witness to the confusion of the enemies of truth!  And if men today really believed that the cause of Christ and his truth could not fail, they would no longer wait for a more convenient season, but would rise up even now and challenge unbelief and spiritual wickedness in high places in their own denominations in the name of the Lord.

And so, Paul believed in the existence of Satan.  He believed that all the varied forces working against the advancement of the gospel were dominated and controlled by the master-mind of darkness and deceit.  And he saw them all working together to one end – the hindrance of the work of Christ and the proclamation of his word.  But because he believed in the victory of Christ over the devil, he saw in all this only the occasion for a more determined attack against the kingdom of evil itself.

“For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, ” he said, “but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds… and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God.”  May our fight against the hindrances of Satan be the same as his!

Amen.