In this sermon, the preacher discusses the existence and actions of Satan as described in the Bible. He highlights Satan's desire to have power over people, specifically referencing a statement made by Jesus to Simon Peter. The preacher also mentions Satan's involvement in tempting Cain to kill his brother Abel, as well as his role in the corruption and violence that led to the flood during Noah's time. The sermon emphasizes the importance of seeking God's guidance in selecting the appropriate message from the Bible for the audience, rather than preaching based on personal preference.

Sometimes he selects a character of the Bible, and there are many, and he traces them through it and the lessons that can be learned from that particular person. Sometimes he selects a word, such as redemption, sanctification, and many other such words, and expounds on these. And tonight, I can't say I have selected to give you just one verse of Scripture, because you are aware of the fact that it is a very solemn responsibility for a speaker to stand up before an audience without asking God, what part of this wonderful book is appropriate for the audience that is before me? Who would know the answer to that question except God alone? And to miss what God wants the audience to hear by a preacher simply saying, I'd like to hear myself preach on this particular subject. That should never be it. And by the way, when you come to a meeting, do you ask God to take care of that preacher, that he will not give a message that is not appropriate, but that he will give just the right message for that particular audience? The last book in your Bible is entitled The Revelation of Jesus Christ, and that's a wonderful title for that book. But it wouldn't be wrong to write that title over the entire New Testament, because the first verse of the New Testament begins, the book of the generation of Jesus Christ. The last verse of the New Testament ends, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. So, Jesus Christ is the sum total of the whole of the New Testament. It is not. So, it would be nice to write over the entire New Testament, The Revelation of Jesus Christ. In the Old Testament, no, you don't have his name mentioned, but you have references made to him all through the Old Testament as well. I'm sure that you have heard sermons on the tabernacle in the wilderness, and the preacher told you that every stick of lumber and every piece of cloth speaks of a different angle of the beauties and the glories of our Lord Jesus Christ. You have heard sermons on the 23rd chapter of Leviticus, of the tabernacle, the offerings there, not the offerings, what is it? The Feast of Jehovah. And again, your attention has been drawn to the fact that all this is lovely pictures of our Lord Jesus Christ. You have heard of the offerings in the beginning of the book of Leviticus, the different offerings in Old Testament economy. And all of these combined bring to us beautiful pictures of our Savior. And while Jesus was speaking to Nicodemus, that religious zealot, he said, As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. So that even over the entire Bible, it wouldn't be wrong to write the revelation of Jesus Christ. Isn't that wonderful? He is the preeminent one, who is the whole sum total. God wants to present his Savior to us, his Son, and he does it in picture form in the Old Testament, and then in a clearer form in the New Testament. But it would be wrong to say that our Bible only reveals to us Jesus Christ. There are many, many characters mentioned in the Bible, and they are not put there just to occupy space. But God teaches lessons, as he tells us, of God dealing with this particular individual and praises him. Sometimes what God does with that one little name is very, very short. In some other cases, such as Abraham, Moses, and many other characters, there are chapters, following chapters, talking about one person and how God used him, or how God dealt with him. God is interested in more than just revealing to us his Son. Now, if I were to ask you, who is the second most prominent person in your Bible, I wonder what you would answer. I hope you would agree with me, because it makes me feel better when the audience does, that probably Satan is the second most prominent person found in your Bible. Some years ago, I was in the state of Georgia attending a children's meeting, and the preacher there had an old Bible with hard lids on it, and he drilled a hole through the center of that Bible, and he put a red cord through the Bible, tied a knot on each end, to illustrate to the children to whom he was speaking that the blood is mentioned all through the Bible. Without the shedding of blood is no remission. And he took his Bible, he opened it up in the beginning, there it was, a red cord. He opened it up a little further back, there it was. He opened at any page, and the red cord showed itself. Now, I think we should do the same thing, and open our Bible and say, Jesus Christ is mentioned on these two pages, somewhere. Maybe in picture form, but he's mentioned. And I'm going to give you some homework. I'm not sure if this is true, but there's a possibility that you can't open your Bible at any place without somewhere on one of those two pages finding a trace of Satan. Where shall we begin? Right in the very beginning of your Bible. You don't have to read very far, because he comes to the surface. Of course, one of the questions that eventually will arise in the mind of every Christian is, since we are told that God is the creator of all things, that nothing was made without him, I guess we have a right to ask the question, why did God create the devil? And the Bible should answer that question, and it does. And it tells us that he didn't. It tells us, and we have to go to Ezekiel and turn to chapter 28, and there we read about him, thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee. He did not create the devil. He created a being with the power to choose who had a will, and he became the devil. God doesn't create devils. He became, and if you want a little more details, you will find that in Isaiah chapter 14, where there was a day when this person, this being, was perhaps in heaven, and we read about him in chapter 14 and verse 13 of Isaiah, for thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation in the sides of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will be like the Most High. This undoubtedly speaks to us of Satan. Judgment had to follow as soon as this person lifted up his idea, his will, to say, I will be like the Most High God. And Bible scholars are fairly well agreed that perhaps what happened on the first page of your Bible gives us some details of that judgment. In the second verse of your Bible, you will read, and the earth was without form and void. And again you ask the question and say that's rather unusual, that God should create something that is without form and void. He's not in the habit of doing that. And so we are agreed, I think, that there may be quite a space of time between the first verse in your Bible and the second verse in your Bible. There is a possibility that that judgment affected the earth, and there is a possibility that that earth had creatures upon it, may have even had humans upon it. God doesn't bother to tell us all the details, but something happened that the earth became without form and void. And that helps us just a bit if an accredited scientist, and there are not many of them, most of them are not quite honest, but we must admit there are some accredited scientists. And if that accredited scientist tells me that he has a measuring stick such as carbon-14 or whatever he may mention, and he says we can prove that there were animals larger than the ones we know today, we have found the fossils and so on, the believer in the word of God can say, and my Bible doesn't deny that, because there may have been a long space of time between the first and the second verses of our Bible, and it may be at the time that this arch-anemone, this usurper was cast out of heaven, that catastrophe took place. Our Bible tells us about this being, his origin, his plans, his purposes, his subtle inroads, it tells us about his success, it tells us about his blunders, and thank God it tells us about his final doom. Since you are here on a vacation, I do not want to overtax your mind. In the King James Version, the verse that I read to you contains twenty words, and maybe you don't feel like memorizing those twenty words, so I will give you permission to drop the first seven words. And I will also give you permission to drop the last seven words, and we go right to the core of the text, and we have six words left. They were spoken by our Lord to Simon Peter, and this is what he says, Satan hath desired to have you. A statement of fact, because not only are we told that Satan had a fall, but some of the details that are a little more familiar to us is that visit that was made when Adam and Eve were found in a lovely garden. A serpent entered and had a conversation with Eve. It would appear that when he was cast out of heaven, he was enraged, and he said, it is my solemn duty now to spoil everything that God sets up. If he brings about a creation and puts man in there, I'm going to spoil it. I'm going to be against him. I'm going to get even with him. And if he sets a lovely garden and he has plans for Adam and Eve to propagate and to fill the earth with lovely people, I'm going to spoil it. And the first question mark that you find in your Bible was raised by this archenemy, Satan. So that we have not only his origin so far as who made him and so on, but also in relation to the human race. In the gospel by John, our Lord Jesus Christ tells us a few things about him, and he said this to people who claimed to be religious, who said, we have Abraham to our father. And Christ said, if you believed Abraham, you wouldn't be against me. Verse 44 of John 8, he says, Ye are of your father the devil, and the lust of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and a bode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own, for he is a liar, and the father of it. A murderer, a liar. These are some of the things that you should expect from this wicked person. In the next, in the tenth chapter of John's gospel, where our Lord Jesus Christ says, I am the good shepherd, in contrast to the good shepherd, you have again that arch enemy in picture form. And I read from verse 10, The thief cometh not but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. Verse 12, But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth. And the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep. In our Bible, the methods of operation that the devil uses are numerous, but I want to point out at least two of them. In 1 Peter chapter 5, we read about Satan, Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour. So one of the methods of operation of the devil is a roaring lion, seeking to devour. If God has plans of saving people and taking them to heaven, it appears to be the devil's ambition to desire them and to see that they do not get into heaven, that they are lost. How will he do it? Well, he may do it in a number of different ways, but if he can destroy them, and he has done that in many, many ways in the Old Testament. Let's go back to Genesis chapter 4. The devil was undoubtedly there. Cain is insulted because his younger brother, we would say his kid brother, offering was accepted, and his beautiful offering, that took a lot of work to present it, was turned down. And the devil, I think, whispered to him in a different manner than to Eve, don't you feel like killing him? Yes, I do. Go ahead and do it. It's the best thing you can do. And the roaring lion who jumps upon his prey is seen in the fourth chapter of that book. In the story of Noah and the ark, you will read that the reason God looked down from heaven and saw the condition of the earth, there were two things. There was violence and corruption. And if we are to give credit where credit is due, then I think we have to give credit to the devil for the violence that was in the face of the earth that time, and the corruption that was on the face of the earth. Violence, that again reminds us that he is a roaring lion. Today, he is still working as a roaring lion. He may do it in some subtle ways, but he seems to never forget that it worked down through the years, and he is still going about to destroying men's lives. I think of the news that we are hearing continually in our high schools and in our colleges, how that dope is being sold and being peddled, and young people's minds are completely destroyed so that they can't think straight. I'm going to kill them. I'm going to derange them so that they will not have the capacity to receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. The devil has always been and always will be operating as a roaring lion, but he is not limited to one method of operation. He has another method, and this is altogether different. I read in 2 Corinthians 11, verse 14, I guess the devil's idea is, if I can't whip them, I'll join them, and he draws near to deceive people. I wouldn't dare to say that when he approached Eve that he approached her as a roaring lion. He did not come to Eve and say, I'm going to destroy you. Not a bit. He came as a super salesman. Is it true that God has put you in this lovely garden, and has told you, you may eat of all the trees in the garden? And then he said, except. Did you ever raise the question why he made that prohibition? Did you? I'll tell you. He doesn't love you. If he loved you, he wouldn't have made any exception. He would have said all of them. The fact that he has reserved one tree in that garden proves that he doesn't love you. Besides, he's a very jealous God. He knows that if you were took of that fruit, you would be just like him, and wouldn't you like to be? But he doesn't want you to be. No, he wants that all to himself. He's trying to keep something good from you. Isn't that strange? He doesn't love you. You thought he did. He pretends, but he's not real. You partake of that tree that he gave you the prohibition, you would be just like God. And that's something to attain. I say, be wise. Take it. And she did. An angel of light. And we see the fall of man. And since that day, he had been operating primarily, I would like to think that perhaps he gets most of his work done as a clever super salesman who is trying to get men and women to distract them entirely from the revelation that God gives of his lovely son. I think if we were to pinpoint what is the devil's main ambition, it is found in those six words that I ask you to remember. Satan hath desired to have you. What does that mean? Well, first of all, I want you, instead of God getting you, if God offers, loves you and offers salvation, I want to offer you something better than salvation. I want you to listen to me. And in 2 Corinthians once more, I read these words. If our gospel be hid, it is hid for them that are lost in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds of them that believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them. Of all the things that the devil is most concerned about is to keep men and women from trusting his son as Lord and Savior. That is his number one business. Have you any idea how many people left this scene today, dropped into eternity? And then have you any idea how many of them went to heaven just in 24 hours time? And how many went to hell? And of those that went to hell, are you aware of the fact that most likely Satan had a part in convincing those people that you can go out into eternity just the way you lived on earth and there is nothing really important? He is doing that. Satan hath desire to have you. If misery loves company, then the devil wants company. Hell was prepared for the devil and his angels, but God must have a punishing house for those who do not want his son, and Satan wants to take with him as many as he possibly can. In the preaching of the gospel, we are aware of this, that Satan is working. He attends every gospel meeting. He has to, to protect his property. And we must give credit where credit is due, and the devil has been extremely successful. What methods does he use? Well, I think some of the ones that we are acquainted with is his message today is that all religions lead to heaven. I heard some years ago the book that was written, the title of it was, 500 Ways to Heaven. And when people close their Bible and keep it closed and resort to reasoning, they will soon come to the place that that sounds reasonable. Heaven must be, oh, similar like a city, Gainesville. Do you have to come in from the north? No. You can come in from the west, I presume, from the east, from the south, from the north. Who cares which way you come? There are many roads that lead to the city. And therefore, let's just conclude that there are many roads that lead to heaven. That sounds reasonable, doesn't it? And there are people who actually believe this. They would say, what God wants people to do is to be sincere. If you were raised in a certain religion, then be faithful in what you were taught, stick with it, obey it, and God will say, that man is sincere. And therefore, I think he is eligible for heaven. On the other hand, he may go to the other extreme. And I think he has done this with many young people who are raising the question and are saying, religion is a very confusing thing. One religion gets up and says, you listen to us. We will tell you the true way of salvation. And you listen to their argument, it does sound fairly good. But I go to the other place, and that man says, no, no, no. You'll never get to heaven if you listen to him. You listen to us. Lend me your ears. I'll tell you. And all the religious confusion in the world today, in a sense, I don't blame young people who say, what in the world are you going to believe? I'm going to wait till these people get together and bring one message. And when they do that, I'll listen. As long as they are saying, in effect, we are right and all the rest are wrong, I'm not interested. And there's a sense in which we feel a bit sorry for those young people, don't we? But not too sorry, because they do have a Bible. And they are responsible for access to that book. And if they listen to this Bible, and to the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, I am the way, the truth, the life, no man cometh unto the Father but by me. In the book of the Acts, Peter is preaching, and he says, there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. If there's one thing that the reasoning heart objects to, and preachers are considered fools when they say, there is only one way to heaven. And yet, we would be unfaithful to the word of God if we didn't say it. We don't say it, the Bible says it. God would be extravagant if he had two ways of getting to heaven. If he provided two saviors for us, that would even leave the inference that the first one may break down. That's why you carry a spare tire in your car, because there's a possibility one of the others will break down. When I think of the cost that was involved in providing our salvation, I think we would have a right to say, if God introduced two saviors to us, and sent them to the cross to die for us, it would be unreasonable to do that. It's hard for people to accept this. But when we present the word of God, we have to say, there is only one way to be saved. Now, I didn't say there is only one denomination in which you can be saved, because undoubtedly there are, in many of the once orthodox denominations, there are believers in Jesus Christ who are trusting him alone. But it is wrong to believe the lie of the devil, that if you are sincere in