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Satan's Sinful Strategy

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Satan's Sinful Strategy

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Satan's Sinful Strategy

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The Day of Atonement is a solemn and humbling day for the people of God. It's a day to recognize the sacrifice of our Savior, Jesus Christ. It's also a day to recognize that we have an adversary that hates us and wants to destroy us, Satan the devil. The Day of Atonement is the answer to defeating our enemy.

Transcript

[Steve Myers]: Here we are on the Hebrew calendar, the 10th day of the seventh month. And we know the significance of even those numbers, the number seven a fullness and completeness, and number 10, a number of trial and testing often associated in the Bible. But we also know it's a time we come together. This is a holy convocation, a sacred assembly. This is an opportunity to come together as commanded by God and assemble ourselves to worship Him. And so like every other feast day, this is a special commanded assembly. In fact, a special one in the sense that this is a day we do absolutely no work. We don't even eat today. We don't prepare food today. So we don't even do that.

This is the day we're supposed to set aside that time where we normally prepare food, we normally eat that food, to pray, and to study God's Word. He set a special time that we'd normally be doing those things, and we don't have to do that today. So He's built in this day, a special time just to do that, to feast on His Word, the Word of God. This is a day of fasting, a day that's set aside to do just that. And it's a day we afflict ourselves, and that takes it even beyond just going without food. The affliction, then, is both a physical but a spiritual thing, as well. We humble ourselves before God. We recognize that if we don't eat, we're going to die. That's what it comes down to. If we don't spiritually eat of the food of God, eat of His Word, spiritually, we will also die.

And so it's a good reminder of those things for us on this very special day. It was proclaimed to be a solemn day, a special day, in fact, one of the most solemn days of the year, for some of the reasons that we heard in the sermonette. This is a time where special sacrifices were given. And it was a Day of Atonement, recognizing the sacrifice of our Savior, Jesus Christ. He was represented in that goat that was killed. And so the atonement comes only through the sacrifice of Christ. And so we are humbled by that. And we are afflicted this special day, where we come together collectively, all together fasting, to honor God and His plan and His purposes, because God does have an amazing plan. He's called us to His way of life, and we recognize that He wants us to succeed, not just going the whole day without food, but, ultimately, to succeed in His plan and His purpose for us.

And so, He's given us the sacrifice of Christ so that we can have atonement, not just simply a covering, like, in the Old Testament, but, actually, sin can be totally and completely removed from our lives through the sacrifice of Christ. We can be justified and glad God has a plan then, ultimately, to bring us into His spiritual family. And so when Christ returns, we know not only will He establish the kingdom of God but at that time, Satan will be put away and will no longer be here to harass mankind. And yet, as we consider this, we recognize that as much as God's given us the sacrifice of Christ so that we will succeed, we can succeed, we know, on the other hand, there is a being who wants us to fail. And atonement certainly reminds us of that.

And as we consider our calling, we don't want to lose hope, we don't want to stop growing, we don't want to drift away from God, but the fact is, this evil spirit is the author of all of those things. He is the author of depression. He's the author of discouragement. He's the author of confusion. And he hates us. He hates God, and he hates us. And he knows we've been chosen for eternal life. And so that just adds to his hatred for us.

As we read through Leviticus 16, it certainly symbolizes how he has deceived God's people and has to take responsibility for his part in that. He is one of those that is to blame for sin because he wants us to sin. In fact, he tries to encourage us to sin, and he wants totally to destroy us, to devour us. And so as we read through those passages today, we recognize that's his mission. And his mission is to destroy us, to hopefully destroy God's plan so that he ultimately can be the one who would be worshipped. And so the Day of Atonement reminds us of that. But, you know, when we recognize what he's all about, it's not just a haphazard kind of a thing.

Turn with me over to Ephesians 6 and notice verse 10. Ephesians 6:10 gives us some powerful information about this evil being who, ultimately, this day symbolizes, will be put away. But, you know, for us, he's not put away. He is not put away right now. We have to battle this evil being every single day because he wants us destroyed. And Ephesians 6:10 reminds us that this isn't just some haphazard being, because we could be taken in by thinking, "Well, he's the author of confusion, and so he just kind of goes around doing whatever." But that is not the case. Notice what Ephesians 6:10, says. It says, "Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and the power of His might.”

You see, Paul recognized we need the armor of God to succeed. And so he says, "Put it on." You have a responsibility to take that strength of God and arm yourself with that. So he says, verse 11, "Put on the whole armor of God." Why? "That you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil." The wiles of the devil. Now, we don't use that word a lot these days unless it's a cartoon about Wile E. Coyote or something like that. But even if you think about that cartoon, what was that coyote constantly trying to do? Trip up the Roadrunner, right? He would do whatever it takes.

And that does point to this specific word. In the Greek, the wiles points to deceit and deception. It points to trickery. It points to the fact that he has a plan. Satan is not just going around seeing whatever he might be able to do. He has a purpose and he has a plan. And the Greek in this particular word "wiles" is the word, methodeia, and it means a scheme. He has methods to his madness. He has a strategy, in other words. Satan has a strategy, and that strategy is to destroy us. And so Paul writes verse 12, "We don't wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places.”

And so there is no doubt, Satan is our enemy. He is our adversary. He is the one who opposes us and wants us to be defeated. And he's going to use every devious, deceptive, deceitful scheme in hopes that we will fall for it. And so he has method to his madness. So don't ever forget, Satan is a powerful being. And in our day and age, we have a tendency to put that off and say, "Ah, it's not that bad. It's not that big a deal." In fact, I'll never forget when I was doing some interviews for Beyond Today out on the street. I asked somebody, "Well, what about Satan?" He said, "There's no Satan, no way. There's no evil being out… Now, there's a lot of bad people," they said, "but there's no evil spirit out there.”

Well, let me tell you, the Bible is absolutely clear. There is an adversary. And he was an adversary and is an adversary that once was full of goodness, once was full of godly wisdom. You can read about that in Ezekiel 28. I won't turn there. It talks about how he was created, full of wisdom, full of beauty, full of everything that was good. But we know what happened. His pride got to him, and that wisdom became corrupted. Now, he's still wise, but in all the wrong ways. He's using that wisdom to undermine us. He's using his sinful strategies for our spiritual destruction. We don't ever want to forget that. When we forget that he is that kind of a being, we forget the power that he has.

Revelation 12 says he's used that wisdom in an evil way to deceive, how much of the world? The whole world. Revelation 12:9 tells us that. The whole world is deceived, so people don't even think he exists today. And even more than that, he is amazing at masquerading. He plays off the evil by looking good. He looks good. And that is so deceitful. What a scheme. What a scheme that is. 2 Corinthians 11. I will turn there, notice verse 12. 2 Corinthians 11, as Paul writes to Corinth, he's explaining to them this one who is deceptive, this one who is authoring the confusion that's among the church in Corinth, the one that's helped bring division to them. Paul describes this evil being. And notice what he says. He says, "Yes, there are those out here that are evil.”

Verse 13, it says, "They are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ." Now, that's those bad people that are doing… but what's the influence on them? Sure, they have choices. They choose to do evil themselves. No doubt, you can't put the blame totally on Satan. But he has a part. And look at the connection here. Verse 14, he says, "No wonder… No wonder! Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light." Now, of course, that's not a literal thing. He doesn't literally do that. He can't do that. But, boy, he knows how to use smoke and mirrors. He knows how to play the game. He knows how to make evil look good. And so he appears that way. He masquerades that way. That's probably a better… he's the great counterfeiter. So he counterfeits something that looks good but is actually evil.

And so he says here in verse 15, "It's no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness, whose end will be according to their works." All we got to do is look around. Has he been successful? Look at our world. What do you think? It should be obvious. The majority of people on earth don't believe in the true God. Has he been successful? Of course, he has. Most Christians, most people who claim to be Christian, don't know the true God. They don't understand. They don't live His way. They justify what they do because of Satan's strategies and his methods of madness. And so you know what? Does Satan have to spend a lot of time with them? He's got them. He's got them. He doesn't have to waste his time on them. They're already in his hip pocket. So who do you think he's after? He's after us. He's after us.

In fact, just a couple of chapters before this, Paul said, "Don't be ignorant of Satan's devices. Don't be ignorant of his methods, his strategy, his thoughts, and his evil purposes. Don't be ignorant, don't be taken back. Don't be surprised by this. Because these strategies are out there and they're devised to destroy us." So let's think for a moment about a couple of those methods that Satan uses. Let's zero in on Satan's sinful strategy, and consider them for a moment. And more importantly, how do we respond to those efforts? Now we know, Satan wants to be worshipped, he wants to be God. That was the first way that he tempted Jesus Christ. That "If You get down and worship me, I'll give You this world." He wants to be worshipped. And so Satan tested Jesus Christ, offering to give Him the authority that he was given.

And so when we recognize that very thing, we can see why Paul called Satan the god of this age, the ruler of this world because he can distribute things the way he wants. He wanted to do that to Christ, and he wants to infect us. In fact, more than that, he just doesn't want to give us the infection, he wants us dead. He wants to choke us and kill us. Notice Matthew 13:7. No, we're not dismissed yet. I guess that's the bell. There'll be another one in 10 minutes, so we'll try to ignore that one, too. This is a familiar parable, the parable of the sower. And the gospel is sown. It is planted in various areas. And Matthew 13:7 talks about where the seed falls. “Some fell on thorns. The thorns sprang up and choked them.” They didn't survive.

Now, that section of the Scripture is interpreted down in verse 22. Skip down to Matthew 13:22. It says, "Now he who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful." You see, this is one of Satan's strategies. He wants to choke us. Does God's Word truly bear fruit in our lives? I mean, we might look at this and say, "Well, I don't have to worry about being rich, because I'm not that rich. I'm not that rich, so I don't have to worry about the deceitfulness of riches. They're not going to suffocate me. They're not going to bring me down.”

Well, wait a second. If you think more money will solve your marriage problems, that's the deceitfulness of riches. If you think a job is more important than being honest, that's the deceitfulness of riches. You think a job is more important than obedience to God? That's certainly choking us, and we are deceived. And so we've got to see beyond what the evidence in this world is. We recognize Satan is the god of this world. And, of course, when the world persecutes us, do we love the world? No. Of course not. That wouldn't make sense.

But wait a second, on the other hand, when we're prospering, when things are all right, then it doesn't seem like such a big deal. And, boy, do we have that tendency to focus on the things of this world, the material things, our jobs, our houses, our cars, our things, rather than focus on the Kingdom of God? I mean, did we truly take the opportunity this morning to focus on the Word of God or not? We just slept in, we could be being choked and not even realize it. In so many ways, we have a greater enemy than the enemy that we just read about. You go back to apostolic times, yeah, that was bad. But I think in some ways, Satan is using his power in a way that undermines us even more so, in a way. You know why? Because the danger doesn't look that dangerous anymore. It doesn't look that bad anymore. That evil has lost its appearance of hostility, doesn't look like enmity, doesn't look like Satan's our enemy.

Because of the power and the wealth that we have today, because of everything the world has and its luxury, outwardly, we don't even think of it as an enemy anymore. Do we even look at it that way? And once we don't look at this world as an enemy, how much easier would it be to allow ourselves to be influenced by it, to be directed by it, to be, what, ruled by it? I think that's the problem. And so Paul tells us we've got to battle this method. We have to take on that strategy of Satan. And when Satan tries to choke us off with his deceitfulness of riches, we've got to counter with the principles of God. We've got our spiritual armor we read about in Ephesians 6. We better get our sword of the Spirit out, the Word of God, and we better get into that Word.

If you're still here in 2 Corinthians, look back to chapter 6. 2 Corinthians 6:16. Here's our answer to that strategy as he tries to choke us and deceive us and make us believe this world isn't against us when the world has lost the appearance of hostility. Notice what 2 Corinthians 6:16. It says, "What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols?" Oh, wow, Paul, that's an obvious one, the temple of God and idols, I don't have anything to do with that. I can see the difference between that, true God and evil. Yes, very obvious, very plain. He says, "We're the temple of God." All right, now if that's the case, as God has said, "I will live with them, walk among them. I'll be their God, they will be My people.”

So what agreement is there between light and dark, the temple of God and evil idols? There is none. When you walk into a room and you turn on the light, what happens to the dark? It's gone. Light and dark don't go together. Satan's way and God's way don't go together. So 2 Corinthians 6:17 says, "Come out from them and be separate." That's a big choice we have to make.

"Touch no unclean thing, I will receive you." And so Paul's quoting the Old Testament here. It's interesting that he says, "You've got a choice, either see the world for what it really is, or you don't." There's no agreement between good and evil, right and wrong, God and Satan. There's no agreement, so get away from it as far as you possibly can, and God will be our God. So we have a choice, we have to choose then to be separate. And God's given us every opportunity. In fact, He protects us and watches over us. He's built a hedge around us.

2 Thessalonians 3:3, just write it down. It tells us how faithful our God is who strengthens us, and establishes us, and guards us. And most specifically, it says, guards us from the evil one. And so you can imagine a hedge that's built around us, and God is protecting us. But we have the choice. Do we have to stay in that hedge? No, we don't have to. We have a choice. We're set off by a boundary. But we have the choice either to stay in bounds or go out of bounds to this world. This world is out of bounds, that's all there is to it. And so the world's way must be out of bounds in our thinking, in our actions.

And so, as we consider that concept of coming out, how much different are we? Or how much are we involved in things that are really opposite of God's way, opposite of His law? Have you ever made yourself a list of those things? What's the world like? Well, what's the world's entertainment like? Am I out of bounds or in bounds? What about the way we dress? How about the way we talk? How about the things that we do, our attitudes, and our values? You know, sometimes it's easy to skip over that. I mean, any of those things could be good or bad. They could be good or bad. They could be right or wrong. The question is, are our actions based on God's law or not? How much does my life really reflect my obedience to God's Word? How much am I really at one with God? It's not just this day. This isn't the only day I'm supposed to be justified and right with God and declared righteous. It should be every day. How much does my life really reflect the values of Satan's strategy? How much does it reflect that? I know I have to live in the world, but I'm not supposed to be like the world.

And so Satan would love to choke us off. And he starts by not even that strong of a grip, but that grip gets tighter and tighter. And so we've got to have different motivation. We've got to have different goals. We've got to combat his methods with God's value. So our response has to be to come out. It must be. I think another aspect of this world that we must battle, a strategy that Satan uses against us, is time. Time. He would love to monopolize our time. I mean, would you say your time is in Satan's grasp? I mean, if he can dictate how much we use our time or how we use that time, well, he's dictated his life, his rules, his way. We've got to make sure that's not the case because the way we use our time most definitely reflects where our heart and where our mind is at. If our time is used up by all those things that the world is worried about, he wins.

So if we're pursuing after all the important goals of the ways of this world… yeah, we talked about the pursuit of money, the riches. Yeah, if we don't put our money where our mouth is, we don't put our time where our life is, yeah, we're in his chokehold. And Satan knows if we don't ask, we won't receive. We won't receive the good things God has in store for us. He knows, if we don't repent, we won't be forgiven. He knows, if we don't resist, he doesn't have to flee. He doesn't have to. He knows if we don't draw close to God, we will fall away. He knows these things. He knows that if we drift, we're prime to be devoured. He recognizes these things.

We know that familiar passage that describes a little bit about Satan over in 1 Peter 5. I will turn there over to 1 Peter 5:8 because it does zero in on the strategy that Satan uses against us.1 Peter 5:8, certainly a reflection on this day, this solemn day that God established for us because we are hungry and we are tired. And sometimes we can feel that way spiritually. But we've got to counter that by instituting God's plan. So Peter writes in verse 8, "Be sober, be vigilant." In other words, be on the watch, have your guard up. Why? He says, "Because your adversary the devil walks…” how does he walk? Well, it says, "He walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour." You see, that points to the mission, that points to the strategy to destroy us and discourage us, to lead us away.

But think about this walking, this isn't just aimlessly going… this harkens back to what we read in Ephesians 6. He's treading. I mean, you've watched those nature shows. When a lion's on the hunt, what's he doing? Usually, they're crouching down in the grass, calculating exactly every move that its prey will take so it's a step ahead of them. This word can also mean to crush and advance. And so this illustration of the lion fits so beautifully. It's showing how deceitful and how on the hunt our enemy really is. And also interesting, he says, "He's like a roaring lion." Ever heard a lion roaring? Not one on TV, but anybody here heard one maybe at the zoo or maybe in person? It's scary. Especially those big male lions when they roar, wow. And what are they doing when they're roaring? They're saying, "This is my territory. I own this area. This is mine.”

And so that's what Satan’s… he's a roaring lion. Are we his territory? Does he own us? That's what he's saying, "You are mine." You see, we have to combat that. That's one of the ways that lions maintain their territory. And so when they're roaring, they're paralyzing their prey so that they can be that much an easier catch. We can't allow this spiritually to happen to us. And if we're going to overcome that strategy, we can't only think about the tactics that Satan uses on the Day of Atonement alone. He is the god of this world. He is the prince of the power of the air. He is the god of this age. He's the accuser of the brethren. He's the father of lies. And the titles that he has goes on and on and on, the ruler of the darkness of this world, of this age. He is diabolos. He is the devil. He is the slanderer. He is the Apollyon, the destroyer. He is Belial. He is that one that is totally worthless. And so he's out to get us because if he thinks he can destroy mankind and destroy us, he destroys God's plan. And somehow, he thinks he can win. And that's how disorganized he is in his thinking.

But he is organized for those very purposes. Because he's always planning, he's always scheming, he's always conniving and trying to control us as much as possible. And he's going to make use of every opportunity we give him to succeed. But he can only succeed if we allow him to monopolize our time. Think about the time that we spend. And one of the deceitful things about Satan is that if he even monopolizes our time in good things, that could trip us up as well. Is that possible? Well, if I put all of my work into the Church and my job and neglect my own family, I think there's a passage that says, "If I don't take care of my own, I'm worse than an unbeliever." Satan wins. Priorities are out of whack. We can be misled.

Do we neglect the weightier matters of the law? In other words, "Well, I studied my Bible. I studied the Bible, I know what it says." But if I don't put that into practice, my time was monopolized for all the wrong reasons. I'm not balanced. I'm not putting it to good use. And that can happen even within our families. We can be so busy doing all the things that we do, we can be running to dance class, we could be running to gymnastics, we could be doing all these things that are wonderful, taking them to extra study time. But if I don't pray and study and teach my children God's way, Satan wins. And there's so much to knowing, but are we really doing? And it's those kinds of subtle traps that are out there, that get us unbalanced. Unbalanced even by doing something that may be good. We could be neglecting our spiritual foundation. And if that continues for very long, the foundation is going to crumble, and those good works won't do any good in the end.

If you think about the world that we live in, if you had to come up with a couple of words that describe life today, two words I narrowed it down to. Overstimulated. Overstimulated. Now, you might not have thought those, but think about the world that we live in. I mean, we are surrounded by noise, by… we can't get in our car without turning on the radio or having the DVD playing in the back for the kids. We can't get away from the TV or Netflix or Prime or whatever it is. It is everywhere. It is everywhere. We have overload, overstimulation all around us.

And, of course, we've got our phones. We got our phones. Could you go a day without your phone? You got to pick it up. You got to have it. "Oh, I'm looking at my Bible on the phone." Okay, I hope so. I hope so. I heard it maybe said best a while back when they were talking about the Moon launch back in July. They said, 50 years ago, everybody was looking up. But today, everybody's looking down. How much do you look down? How important is that phone to you? You see, Satan's pretty smart with phones. He knows how to work that smartphone, no doubt. Sin is just a drag away. It's all it is. And so we have to reassess our lives. Are we really doing the important things? Are we really putting our calling first? Are we really putting our spiritual growth and our training in God's way? Our relationships with our families? Are we really stressing what's most important? Or are we getting so busy? And so… well, the other big word, break down that to one word, "distracted." We become so distracted. And when we do, something's got to give.

And so if we find our time being stolen by our phones, being stolen by all these other things that are out there, it's time to make a choice. Time to recognize there's a balance that we have to institute in our lives. It has to be this way. 1 Timothy 6:6. Such a simple passage here for both verse 6 and verse 7, but one that we can often overlook. 1 Timothy 6. Notice verse 6. It's not a real long passage, but it talks about how do we overcome this whole concept of having our time monopolized. 1 Timothy 6, notice verse 6, "Godliness with contentment is great gain." You mean I can be content without a smartphone, without a smart TV, without the internet? Really? Wow, that's usually the first question people ask, they walk into a hotel, "You got wireless here? What's the code? Because I got to get back on my phone." Well, if we're going to try to prioritize our lives, we've got to put godliness first. It's got to be first. It says we were brought into, and we brought nothing into the world, we can take nothing out of it.

Can we really simplify our life so we could focus on the important? I mean, the feast is a great opportunity for that. We're going out to the Feast of Tabernacles. How are you going to spend your time? Wow, there's so many things to do and so many things to see. I've got to go there, and I've got to do this, and I've got to do that. And, wow. It's kind of just a microcosm of life. Usually, what's one of the first things we say, "I can't believe the feast is gone so fast." Well, don't let it go by fast without putting first things first. Don't let your time be monopolized so we don't prioritize the things that are most important. They've got to come first, they've got to come first or our time will be gone before we know it.

There's another strategy that Satan uses that's a powerful one, that I think has really taken over our world, and we have to be so careful about it. That is the strategy for us to resent authority. Resenting authority. Now, why do I say that? What is Satan's frame of mind? He hates authority. Well, he hates God's authority. He wants to be greater than God. He doesn't want to be under… he will do anything it takes rather than be under God's authority because he wants his independence. He wants his own choice. What do you think he tries to encourage in us? The same thing.

Paul wrote a whole chapter about authority and the governing authorities in Romans 13. You might say," Well, I don't really resent authority." But let me tell you a secret, we're always going to be under authority. We will never be the authority. Now, we do have authority in our life. And I think that's where we've got to step back. How do we use the authority that we've been given? How do we use that authority? If I'm a husband, how do I use the authority that God gave me in the family? If I'm a wife, how do I use the authority that God has given me? How do I recognize my husband's authority? And even as parents, do we submit to the authority of Jesus Christ in the same way… now get this, parents, do we submit to the authority of Christ the same way we want our children to submit to us?

Oh, that's a hard one. You reap what you sow. You reap what you sow. You get back what your children see. They see it, they know. I mean, do we submit on the job, to the civil laws around us? Do we show respect? Do we show respect? You see, Satan would love us every time we don't show the respect. And it's by learning the proper use of authority and learning to apply it God's way, God's way. And that is so critical. We remember the story about the disciples who were arguing on who would be the greatest in the Kingdom. Who would be the greatest? They were arguing, "Who's going to be on Your right, who's going to be on Your left?" And Christ had an amazing response to that. He said, "Well, it's not mine to give." But do you remember the point that He made? I mean, here is God in the flesh. Do you think He had authority? Absolutely. But when the question came up about authority, what was His answer? "I am among you as one who serves." And you can look that up in Luke 22. That's what Christ's answer was.

So the authority that we've been given, we better be following the example of Christ and using it to serve others. We can't be ruling for selfish benefits. It's got to be for the benefit of others. And as we're learning to do that, that should help us in so many ways. Can I be so critical of someone else if I recognize, I've got a lot to live up to, I've got to do this the right way, I've got to have the right approach. You see, and Christ makes this connection that there is true benefits, true happiness from giving and serving. And, of course, what that does is it gets the focus off of me, and the focus on others. And that's part of what this day is all about. Get my mind off of me and be humble, be humble.

This solemnness, this affliction should help me to realize how dependent I really am on God. And so we learned that. We should learn that. In fact, there's a powerful passage, Ezekiel 44, notice verse 23. Ezekiel 44:23. Because we recognize the plan of God and, ultimately, for there in the Kingdom, we will be reigning and ruling with Jesus Christ. We're looking forward to that. What an amazing blessing that will be. Christ says we will rule with Him as kings and priests. But if we're going to do that, we've got to make sure we understand God's mindset when it comes to using authority and putting His way into practice.

Ezekiel 44:23, kind of an interesting passage that certainly speaks to us today. Ultimately, not just the priests back in Ezekiel's day, but here we see this applies to us in the future, as well. It says, "They shall teach my people the difference between the holy and the unholy." Well, if we're going to reign and rule with Christ in the Millennium, there'll be physical people that will be alive, and they're going to need a direction, they're going to need to be taught. “And they shall teach the difference between holy and unholy, and cause them to discern between the unclean and the clean.” It says, "In controversy they'll stand as judges, and judge it according to My judgments. They'll keep My laws, My statutes and all My appointed meetings, they'll hallow My Sabbaths." And so here we see, we're going to be helping and serving others, but in the meantime, we better know the difference. We should be able to teach God's way. All of us, every single one of us, every member should be using the authority that God gave you in your life to be able to teach yourself, first and foremost, and be able to help and serve others. That applies today.

So imagine the kingdom that God's given you today. The kingdom that you rule over, we all have any area in our life. How are you doing as a teacher? How are you doing as a priest in your personal kingdom? You see, that's the question, do we really discern the right values from the wrong values? Do we give the right advice? Do we give the right direction? Do we give wise counsel? I mean, we can only do that if we bring our thoughts and our opinions into the captivity of Christ. It's the only way it's going to be possible. And so working against us is Satan's strategy to reject authority and resent authority. But, ultimately, in all those ways, we show who the real authority is in our life. And so we reject Satan's strategy altogether, as we are learning to be a teacher.

I've got one last way I'd like to talk about for a moment, that Satan uses his strategy against us. And that's how he attacks the family. Satan's strategy is to attack our family. He hates family. It's not that he just dislikes it, he hates family. He hates it so much because it parallels God's spiritual plan. God's plan is for Him to have a spiritual family. And our physical families are representations of that. And our families also parallel that spiritual growth and, ultimately, that birthing process into the kingdom of God. And so as we consider those things, we have to recognize how our family should be a special place of protection from all of the wrong influences around us. Our family should be part of that hedge that God has built around us. And as we live God's way and talk about God's way, we recognize that that family is our life raft in this sea of a world that would love to sink us.

And so as we think about that, Satan is out to weaken us, weaken our families, and divide us, and separate us. And, of course, when we look out in society, boy, that's already happened, hasn't it? You see, if I can get the parents out of the home, how much harder would it be to raise godly children? Absolutely. With all the activities we have to go to if there's difficulties between moms and dads, brothers and sisters, parents and children, it pulls our families apart. Society today, we don't even know what a family is, we can't define a family. It's certainly not a husband and a wife, one man and one woman and children, that's not the way society defines a family. So they already are missing this connection between what God is doing. And so when there's difficulties between people and parents and children, divorces, all of that, it weakens us.

But the world accepts all of it, sex and morality and the LGBTQ agenda, all of that is all a mirage that undermines the family. And, of course, when you think about the solution, it's pretty obvious. But it takes so much to swim against the current, doesn't it? It takes so much. But that's exactly what we have to do. We have to strengthen godly families. If Satan can weaken our marriages, he can weaken the relationship between Christ and the church. But in order to be strengthened, we've got to have that genuine love.

And so if we're to overcome Satan, we must not be absorbed by this world. We can't be overly committed to outside interests. We've got to teach and be examples of God's way in our lives and strengthen our families. And, of course, that means strengthening our spiritual family, the Church, as well. Because there's no doubt, the Church has to be united. I mean, it's our name, the United Church of God, but it can't just be a name, it has to be who we are. Unity in the Church is a reflection of overcoming Satan. And if we love one another, we're going to be helping and serving one another, and Satan cannot take advantage of any of us then. And so we recognize that. We recognize how Satan is out to destroy the family. Let's not let him have a foothold. We can't allow him to do that.

And as we think about the family unit, it applies to our governments, as well. Everyone's critical of the government, everyone. We can't allow that to be a part of our families, though. And as we celebrate the Day of Atonement, we recognize that we have been given the solution to Satan's strategy. We've been given God's Holy Spirit, through the death of our Savior, which makes it possible for us to be justified. And so it's possible to strengthen our defenses. Because there is no doubt, there is an evil spirit world out there. And that evil entity wants to choke us and steal our time, force us to resent authority, and attack us. Don't forget, we are in a battle. It's not just the battle to see if I can hang on until 7:15 and eat dinner tonight. That's not the battle. But it should be a reminder. It should definitely be a reminder.

I need food if I'm going to survive. I need God if I'm going to survive spiritually. We are in a battle for our lives. This is our opportunity, and we can't do it on our own. We need that fit man to drive Satan away from us because he is a tireless adversary. But, you know, we have a tireless Father, a tireless Father who gives us the strength when we repent, when we change, when we reject Satan's power and we turn to Him, and we can then be victorious. And so we remember that Christ said all authority was given to Him. So if He's the authority in our life, God's given us the authority to overrule Satan and his influence in our lives today. Because there is no power on earth that can make you do wrong without your consent. So “submit to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” That's a promise. It's a promise. Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you.

And so the Day of Atonement reminds us, atonement takes sacrifice. And there's more than one. Not only the sacrifice of Christ, but we're to be a living sacrifice, as well. And so let's stand strong. Let's be strong in the faith. And through the power of Jesus Christ, we can stand and battle against Satan's sinful strategy.