Jesus and The Devil

We are continuing our series on Jesus leading into Easter.

So far we have looked at:
Jesus and His Humanity
Jesus – Fully God Fully Man
Jesus and His Character
Jesus and Prayer

and in this post we are looking at Jesus and The Devil.

You might ask – why are we choosing to spend time talking about the devil – but if you check the scriptures God – it’s nto us choosing it’s God – it’s all throughout the scriptures.

Jesus calls him the evil one  and the ruler of this world, the Pharisees called him the prince of demons, Paul calls him the god of this age and at other times he is referred to the destroyer, the accuser, the murderer, the deceiver, the dragon, the serpent, the tempter and the father of lies.

In The Screwtape letters CS Lewis says “There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race could fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence, the other is to believe and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them.” In otherwords, when it comes to teh devil adn his demons – we shouldn’t obsess abouthem – but we shouldn’t deny them.

So what can we learn from Jesus?

When he was on earth he first encountered the devil just after he had been baptised which you can read about in Matthew 4:1-11.

There are then may situations where Jesus encountered demons that his cast out of people such as Mark 1:23-28

So here are 4 things we can learn from Jesus’ encounter with the devil in scripture.

1. If we are going to serve Jesus – we are going to face demons.
Check out what Peter had to say about that in 1 Peter 5:8

2. Jesus is more powerful and has authority over the devil and his demons
- we can see that in the scripture above (Mark 1:23-28)
- every time Jesus spoke to a demon they listened and obeyed
- therefore…

3. We are more powerful and have authority over the devil and his demons
- We need to be aware of the spiritual dimension in our world – our fight against the principalities and powers (Eph 6:10-12)
-  The devil knows how all this works – he understands God, the Bible, history and the future better than any of us
- We need to be prepared – which is about being aware and wearing our Spiritual Armour
- Realise that we have authority over the devil and his demons – check out how this happened for some of the early followers of Jesus in Luke 10:17 and Acts 16:16-18
 - they did what Jesus did – and used his name to cast demons out of people

4. Jesus set the perfect example of being tempted but never sinning
This is the most important point – and we will explore more in our next blog.
In the mean time check out Hebrews 4:15

Be aware of the devil and his demons.

Be prepared.

Walk in the power and authoruty that we have in Christ.

Use the Name of Jesus.

Be The Church.