Watch Out for the Enemy!
By Pastor Matt Black
06 May
2007
Lord's Day evening
Isaiah 14:4-5
Introduction: Open your Bible to the prophecy of Isaiah. We’ll be looking at verses 4-15, but let’s start with verse 3 tonight. The title of this evening’s message is “Watch Out for the Enemy!”
Let’s stand and read Isaiah 14:3-4, “And it shall come to pass in the day that the LORD shall give thee rest from thy sorrow, and from thy fear, and from the hard bondage wherein thou wast made to serve, 4 That thou shalt take up this proverb against the king of Babylon, and say, How hath the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased!
As we come to these verses in Isaiah, I want you to notice certain characteristics of the Lord’s great enemy, Satan. He is God’s enemy, and if you are a child of God, he is your enemy too.
Now in context, these verses are written about an actual person, the King of Babylon. In verse 12, he is called “Lucifer” which in the Hebrew means “morning star.” Our enemy is an actual person, but he puts forth a deadly philosophy. His philosophy though is not always apparent. Sometimes when we think of Satan we think of mass murderers and the occult. Yes our enemy is certainly involved in blatant evil, but much of what he does is behind the scenes. He is called an “an angel of light” (2 Corinthians 11:14). He offers you everything. You have it for a little while, but he robs you of everything.
Illustration: He is like the sly fox in children’s story Pinocchio. Do you remember in Pinocchio that all the little children (including Pinocchio) go to Toyland where there were no classes or teachers, and only fun. You weren’t even allowed to whisper the word school! As the children are busy enjoying all of these pleasures, little did they know the real intent of Toyland. One by one the children would turn into donkeys, and the sly fox would sell them into slavery! They lost their lives for a few pleasures.
That is what Satan is doing in this world. This morning we learned about a God who loves us with an everlasting love. We learned of a God who is good all the time and every where. But tonight we learn about the very enemy of God who is the enemy of our souls. We are going to find out that Satan cares nothing for your soul. He is “the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:” (Ephesians 2:2). Peter says we need to “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8).
Ok, so if we’re going to watch out for our enemy, we need to be on the lookout. First let’s see where our enemy lives.
I. The Home of the Enemy.
A. Judah’s Song of Deliverance: the Fall of this Golden City. We read in verses 3-4, that there’s coming a day when the people of God will have no more enemies. They will be at rest from all their oppressors. Look at verses 3-4, “And it shall come to pass in the day that the LORD shall give thee rest from thy sorrow, and from thy fear, and from the hard bondage wherein thou wast made to serve, 4 That thou shalt take up this proverb against the king of Babylon, and say, How hath the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased!”
Of course, the direct context of this series of verses is directed to Judah who was so oppressed by Babylon. We read that they will take up a song—a proverb how their enemy had fallen, how a city that was so rich and powerful would come to an end. I want you to notice two things in these verses.
1. First, Babylon is called an “oppressor”, and
2. Two, Babylon is called “the golden city”.
Now Judah was really just a small group of people in comparison to the vast Babylonian empire. Yet God promises that one day they would sing a song of deliverance!
Illustration (national anthem): We have our national anthem is similar. The Star Spangled Banner tells of how the battle was strong, but the flag was still waving at the end of the battle. We sing about the flag…
Even through the rocket’s red glare, and the “bombs bursting in air” Francis Scott Key watched through the night as the USA made it, and they watched as the “broad stripes and bright stars” were “so gallantly streaming”. –they went all through the night and Key writes after all that “our flag was still there”.
Well, God promised that Judah would sing a song of deliverance! It would be like a national anthem. This anthem that Judah sang talked a lot about the King of Babylon’s home. Again the King obviously lived in Babylon. Babylon was a “golden city” not because she had fairly gained her wealth, but because whe was an oppressor. She gained her wealth by robbing the souls of conquered countries.
B. The King of Babylon, a type of Satan. Now the King of Babylon as we will see shortly, is a type or a picture of Satan in the Bible. It is not that this passage is literally talking about the devil, but as we look at other passages of the Bible, we realize that the King of Babylon exhibited the exact characteristics of Satan. And that is true of all lost people. The King of Babylon, like all lost people are controlled by “the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:” (Ephesians 2:2). Satan is the “god of this age” (2 Corinthians 4:4).
1. Satan reigning, but limited.
During this Old Testament time, before the cross, Satan was deceiving the nations. At the cross we learned that Satan’s head was crushed, and his power, though very active, is more limited now. The Spirit of God has been poured out on all flesh, and Satan’s power, though still vigorous and contentious is greatly diminished!
Mark 3:27 gives a story about Christ conquering the devil and says that Christ would enter into the strong man’s house (in other words, the devil’s world) and take the spoil of his goods (which in this parable are the people of the world). Of course Christ says before he can enter the strong man’s house, he has to first bind the “strong man”. Christ does that at the cross!
Hebrews 2:14 says that Christ came to “destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil;”
Colossians 2:15 says that Christ by His cross “spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it”.
We read in 1 John 3:8, “For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.”
None the less Satan is angry as we read in Revelation 12:12, “because he knows that he has a short time.”
2. The Devil’s home: the World.
So our text in Isaiah 14:4 says that Satan has built his golden city by way of oppressing people. He is the great adversary. He has the whole world in the gaze of his deception, and right now “the whole world lieth in wickedness” (1 John 5:19).
So the devil’s home is the world. He was cast down to the earth. We read in Revelation 12:4 that Satan “drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth”. Jesus said, in Luke 10:18, “I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.” In Job 1:7, we read that God calls Satan to His presence, and where did Satan come from? “From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.”
So Satan’s home right now is this world. He has built it up by robbing people’s souls and by deception. He is the oppressor of the lost and the accuser of the brethren. He is malicious.
That was also the spirit and attitude of the King of Babylon and all worldly kingdoms. They destroyed nations to rob their people.
3. The Devil’s Home will come to an end.
The Devil is a defeated foe. He cares nothing for you or for anyone on this earth, but himself. The time of his torment is coming, and his only goal is to take as many people as possible with him.
Application: What’s the application here? Don’t put any trust in this world. So don’t get comfortable in the “golden city” of this world.
1 John 2:15. “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”
And then two verses later…
1 John 2:17, “And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.”
So we’ve seen the enemies home. Now let us look at…
II. The Enemy’s Power.
We read in this song of deliverance that Judah is singing in verse 5, “The LORD hath broken the staff of the wicked, and the sceptre of the rulers”. The King of Babylon ruled the world, but who is it that lifts up kings and takes them down again? Proverbs 21:1, “The king‘s heart is in the hand of the LORD, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will.” It is God who is over all nations. It is God who took down the King of Babylon.
And it is God who cast Satan out of heaven immediately upon his sin, which we will look at later. When that happened Satan fell “as lightning fall from heaven” (Luke 10:18).
A. The Prince of the power of the air. He has influence, yet he is not a god, but a created being. Though Satan is called “the prince of the power of the air”, we have to remember that he is only a limited finite creature. He is at one place at one time. Yet he is called, “the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:” (Ephesians 2:2). The fact is that he has no attributes of divinity. He is not omnipotent, omnipresent, or all knowing, but rather limited in his power, limited to where he can go, and he only knows what he can learn. Even though this is true, he is still a dangerous enemy!
B. His Power will soon come to an end. Revelation 12:12 tells us Satan knows his time is short! There is very shortly coming a time when he will be cast into the Lake of Fire.
C. He also has no power over the believer whatsoever, unless the believer yields to Satan. He was defeated at the cross, and he has no power whatsoever over you as a believer. James 4:7 tells us, “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you”.
III. Now let us see the Enemy’s Defeat! We will get more to meat of verses 6-11 next week, but look at verse 12, “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!” Satan is a defeated foe! He has no power over the child of God. Because of the Cross our accuser in cast down. As Revelation 12:10 says, “And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.”
Conclusion: As I close, I want to read you a poem entitled “The Accuser”. Listen Satan has no power over you any more! Listen to this poem.
I sinned, and straightway, Satan flew
Before the presence of an angry God,
And made a railing accusation there.
He said, "This soul, this thing of clay and sod,
Has sinned. 'Tis true that he has named thy Name,
But I demand his death, for Thou hast said,
'The soul that sinneth, it shall die.' Shall not
Thy sentence be fulfilled? Is Justice dead?
Send now this wretched sinner to his doom.
What other thing can righteous ruler do?'
And thus he did accuse me day and night.
And every word he spoke, O God, was true!
Then quickly One rose up from God's right hand
Before whose glory angels veiled their eyes.
He spoke, ‘Each jot and tittle of the Law
Must be fulfilled; the guilty sinner dies!’
But wait!
Suppose his guilt were all transferred To Me,
and that I paid his penalty.
Behold, my hands, my side, my feet! One day
I was made sin for him, and died that he
Might be presented faultless at Thy throne."
And Satan flew away. Full well he knew
That he could not prevail against such love,
For every word my dear Lord spoke was true!"
That is the meaning of the blood of the Lamb. There is no way to handle Satan, and avoid the guilt and shame of which he accuses us, without resting upon the work of the Cross, the blood of the Lamb! When Jesus makes you a new creature. All that Satan accuses you of is PAST and Gone!!
Know your enemy! Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
Closing Hymn: 579 Onward Christian Soldiers