The following "Question" was asked by a member of the congregation at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, and "Answered" by their pastor, John MacArthur Jr. It was transcribed from the tape, GC 1301-B, titled "Bible Questions and Answers Part 4." A copy of the tape can be obtained by writing, Word of Grace, P.O. Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412 or by dialing toll free 1-800-55-GRACE. ©1976. All Rights Reserved.
Question
Even though Satan sought to defeat Christ and destroy him (as in the slaughter of the babies by Herod), why did Satan, speaking through Peter, try to keep Christ from the cross?
Answer
That’s interesting. In other words, they’re saying, if Satan tried to kill him when He was a baby, why did he try to prevent him from being killed when He was an adult? Have you ever thought about that? Have you ever tried to figure out the strategy of Satan? It’s impossible to figure out. You know why? Because, unlike God, he is not omnipotent; he doesn’t know everything. And he really does some dumb things! And he contradicts himself. You don’t expect the same kind of consistency out of Satan that you’re going to have with God. Remember this: Satan is corrupt! I’m telling you, he is so corrupt, there’s no one more corrupted than he! And you know that with a corruption comes a corrupt mind faculty. Now, whatever kind of faculty for thinking these angelic beings have, his is really fouled up!
So, the one thing you never look for with Satan is consistency. He never is consistent. He’s got all kinds of things coming from all kinds of angles that really are inconsistent with themselves. The only explanation is this: when Christ the Messiah was being born, it was an obvious effort on Satan’s part to try to stop him from growing up. If he could kill that baby while He was still a baby, Christ could never proclaim his Messiahship, He could never do his miracles—He could never do anything… He could never announce that He was the King—nothing could happen! No fulfillment would ever occur. If He could get that baby and kill that baby, he’d be alright.
The first thing he tried to do was get Jesus to join him, right? In Matthew 4? “Come on and I’ll give you the kingdoms of the world; just bow down to me” and Jesus said, “Nothing doing. I’ll wait and the Father will give me what He wants to give me in his own good time.” Now, later on, then he just tried to destroy and disrupt and counterattack Christ’s ministry. Finally, in Matthew 16, Jesus announced that He was going to go to the cross, and Peter, who had an available mouth (a little earlier in the verse, God had used it), now Satan used it…it’s not unlike ours. In Matthew 16, Peter says, “Lord, don’t you do that! Don’t go to the cross!” and Jesus knew the source and said, “Get thee behind me,” what? “Satan.”
You say, “Why did Satan try to keep him from the cross?” Because Satan knew that the cross was the death blow to him. Satan had struggled with everything he knew. He tried to keep Christ from the cross because he knew what the cross meant. He knew the truth of Hebrews that He, through his own death, would destroy him who had the power of death. So he tried to stop him. Well, when he realized he couldn’t stop him from going to the cross—when the snowball was really rolling and it was inevitable and there was no way he could stop it—he decided to get in on it and kill him really dead! So he entered Judas, fostered the betrayal, and what I think he thought was, “I’ll do it in my way. Maybe Jesus has a different plan so I’ll get into Judas and we’ll mess the plan up. Maybe the death that I can bring about will not be the atoning, effective death that He’s planning,” see?
So he entered into Judas and then he got Christ on the cross and Christ died on the cross and then Satan did his best to keep him in that grave! I mean, he had the Roman guards there, he had that thing sealed, he had everything that he could possibly do, and you know that he was really upset when the morning came and he was gone.
But he hasn’t given up yet; he’s fighting tooth-and-nail and he’ll keep fighting in the kingdom. He gets bound for nearly a thousand years… He knows the end of all things. He’s listening right now and he knows; if his angels are listening, they’ll tell him what I said. He knows! I’m not giving him new information! He knows he’s going to be bound in the pit and cast to the hell that was prepared for he and his angels… He knows. But do you think that, like any dying man, he’s going to give up? He’s fighting. He wants to drag as many people into hell as he can. Even at the end of the kingdom, after he’s been bound for nearly a thousand years, he starts another rebellion to try to overthrow Christ; he’s a never-say-die character.
But one thing you never want to expect out of Satan is consistency. He’s total inconsistent. He’s just like a drowning man: he’s grabbing at straws. He thinks this might work, that might work—gambles on anything. Nothing works.
Just to give you an illustration of how confused Satan’s kingdom is (if it wasn’t so serious, it’d be hilarious), it’s in Acts 19. God was doing special miracles in reaching the people by the hand of Paul, in Acts 19:11, and in verse 12, it says that “from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons and the diseases departed from them and the evil spirits went out of them.” That’s where you get these faith healers today who say, “Send us 20 dollars and we’ll send you a healing handkerchief.”
So, they were casting out demons. Well, here was Paul casting out evil spirits, having a great time. “Well, certain of the vagabond Jews who were exorcists”—here were some professional exorcists. They were frauds, of course; they were demonic—“they took upon them to call over them who had evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus.” So they figured, “Hey, this thing, this little gimmick works real good for Paul. Let’s us use it.” So they’d say, “We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preaches (personally, we don’t know him, but Paul preaches him)…” And so they were trying to cast out demons in the way that Paul did. “And there were seven sons of one, Sceva, a Jew and chief of the priests, who did so and the evil spirit answered and said, ‘Jesus I know and Paul I know, but who are you?’”
Now, isn’t that amazing! Here were some demon-possessed exorcists trying to cast out some other demons and the other demons didn’t even know that the other demons were trying to do this! So, what happens? “The man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, overcame them, prevailed against them so that they fled out of the house naked and wounded.” One demon-possessed person beat up the other demon-possessed people.
You see, Satan doesn’t even cooperate with himself! You’d never expect consistency from Satan. And his demons? They don’t know what they’re doing; they’re just as corrupted in their minds and intellects as they are in any other area.
Added to Bible Bulletin Board's "MacArthur’s Questions and
Answers" by:
Tony Capoccia
Bible Bulletin Board
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