Kennystix's podcast
The God of Peace Will Soon Crush Satan Under Your Feet
The following message is by Pastor John Piper. More information from Desiring God is available at www.desiringgod.org. Scripture text this evening comes from Romans chapter 16 verses 17 through 20. It's on pages 950 and 951 in the Pew Bible. Romans chapter 16, beginning in verse 17. I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught, avoid them. For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive. For your obedience is known to all so that I rejoice over you, but I want you to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil. The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Would you pray with me? Father I pray for the ability to apprehend the reality of Satan and even more the reality of his demise and eventual, absolute exclusion from the universe in the lake of fire. This is not mythology, this is reality. We look to the things that are unseen, so I pray for that kind of eyes. Grant us an appropriate seriousness and help me to be faithful to what is spoken here. Make it in the spirit, the same spirit that inspired it. In your hands I commit myself and all those who listen. Release our faith, grant us triumphs over unbelief and sin and Satan. In Jesus' mighty name I pray, amen. Up until now the Apostle Paul has not mentioned the devil in the book of Romans. Unless there is an allusion to him in chapter 8 verse 38. You remember what he says there? He says that nothing can separate us from the love of God including neither angels nor rulers. That is probably an allusion to demonic forces. That is all he has gotten so far in this book. And in view of how much is in this book about the doctrine of salvation and the Christian life, that is remarkable. I think it should caution us against making too much of the devil in how we fight the fight of faith. Those who think of all their struggles in terms of conflict with the devil to be fought face to face in combat must wonder how you can write as an inspired Apostle 15 chapters about salvation and about Christian living and not mention Satan. Paul's silence here doesn't mean Satan is insignificant and doesn't mean he should be cavalier about our warfare on this earth. But I think it does mean that in dealing with Satan mainly we do it indirectly rather than keeping him in our minds and going toe to toe with every temptation we do it the Romans way typically. But here we are at verse 20 and he gets his do, he gets one sentence, he goes like this, the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. That's all. Then mention his rage we can endure for law, his doom is sure, it's all he gets. When he's mentioned he's doomed, you will crush him under your feet. So let's step back, this is the main thing I want to talk about, I want to talk about Satan and his defeat mainly. But let's step back and get it in the flow of thought. So back up till last week verse 18 to commands, watch out for those who are leaving the apostolic doctrine and causing divisions and avoid them, those are the two commands and then come these reasons in verse 19 because they're smooth and they bless people, they think they bless people and they sweep away the innocent, that's the first reason and the second reason, this is not an intellectual problem, mainly these folks are in bondage to their bellies in their appetites, the smooth talkers in their private lives, it appears, are horny and gluttonous. That's what we saw last time. Now in verse 19, moving forward, verse 19, Paul commends the Romans for their obedience. For your obedience is known to all, it has two functions, you see what it's doing, it's introduced as a support for what went before, I think it goes something like this. Be vigilant that false teaching, not get the upper hand in your community because everybody knows about your obedience and if you go down, that will bring more disrepute upon the main and almost any church going down, and your obedience and everybody knows your obedience, so be more vigilant over false doctrine and belly worshipers in your church. And the other argument or use of their obedience is that it brings Paul joy, he mentions it, your obedience is known to all, we're in verse 19, your obedience is known to all so that I rejoice over you. Now Paul didn't start this church, he's never been there. This is all by reputation and he's heard, have a really good reputation, they're known as being obedient and it makes him really happy, it's not his church, he didn't have anything to do with starting this church, he's happy about it, which caused me to kind of step back and ask what makes me happy about churches, that they're big, that they have really great music or preaching, or am I wired like Paul so that what makes me happy is they're known for being radically obedient to Jesus. I want to be more like that, I want to think that way. How's your obedience factor at the church, that would be the way to get happy about churches, the way Paul gets happy about churches, and then keep moving in the text, then he gives one more warning in this little paragraph, one more warning like he did in verse 17 and he says in the second half of verse 19, I want you to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil. So even though you have a reputation for being obedient, can I give you one more caution, I'm going to criticize you, just want to give you one more caution, you have a great reputation, you're known for your obedience to the Lord, I'm going to give you one more caution, be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil. Now, he said something like this to the Corinthians, remember that, the way he said it there? He said, "Brothers, do not be children in your thinking, but be infants in evil." He's saying, "Be innocent as to what is evil," and there he said, "Be babies in regard to what is evil," and you know where he's getting this, don't you? He's ringing the bells, he's getting this from Jesus. Here's what Jesus said in Matthew 10, 16, "Behold, I am sending you out of sheep in the midst of wolves, be wise as serpents and innocent as dubs." I'm sending you out like sheep in the midst of wolves. Now, there's a link with our text, because the context for this admonition in verse 19, be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil, the context is these false teachers are smooth, they sound like sheep. They look like sheep, they bless like sheep, and they're wolves. You're ready to rend the flock when you're not watching. So can I give you one more exhortation, he says? I want you to be really shrewd, to be really sharp and discerning and wise about recognizing what is good. And I want you to be innocent. J.B. Phillips puts it like this, I think this is pretty good, in his paraphrase. He says, "I want to see you experts in good and not even beginners in evil," that comes pretty close, "experts in good and not even beginners, oh young people, how many pangs you can spare yourself if you're not even a beginner in evil." Don't ever dream about someday having a good testimony about deliverance from drugs. Don't even dream about someday having a great testimony about conquering alcohol after five years in the gutter. You need to dream that way. You don't have to even be a beginner. Oh, how many things. I remember David Michael used to stand up and give a testimony. He said, "God delivered me from drugs, and alcohol, and sexual immorality." When I was six years old, what a great testimony. Don't even be a beginner. Find that we come to verse 20 of the main point that I want to focus on. Don't be tricked and lured into any evil with false teaching or bondage to appetite because the great head of evil is going to be cut off. You don't want to go there. You don't want to become part of that. He's coming down, that's the argument, I think. That's one of the arguments. So it's not only a warning, don't get involved with evil. Don't even be a beginner in evil because the head of all evil is coming off. So it's an encouragement, I think, to press on in your discernment of false teaching, and the father of all lies is going to be destroyed. So be spotting them so that you don't get sucked into them. So the word in verse 20, first part of the verse, is "The God of Peace will soon crush Satan under your feet." Now I do not take that as a reference to any current event in Rome. Like there's some great conflict and soon it'll be over. And the reason I don't is because I don't see anything in Romans like that. I don't see Paul introducing a crisis which is coming to a head and will about to have a good resolution on the other side, you won't have to have that anymore. The kinds of problems he deals with in Romans is go on and on and on, deal with false teachers till the end of the age, dealing with divisions in the church. So nothing is handled as though it's coming to a big crisis and Satan's about to come down in this situation. Give me that if there were any evidence for that but I'm not inclined to go that route. I think rather that it is a big, broad, general, glorious promise that Satan will one day be crushed under the feet of God's people. So what I want to do with that promise is step back and get the bigger biblical picture of how that happens, how we should think about it. Genesis 3.15 is probably in view here, right? God says to the serpent, the devil, he, the seed of the woman, bruise your head and you will bruise his heel. One day there's going to be a crushing and a putting out of existence of this serpent. John 3.8 says this, first John 3.8, the reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. So from Genesis 3.15 it's coming, the defeat of the serpent is coming, you have the Messiah arriving and apostles saying the reason he came is to destroy the works of the devil. Not the only reason he came, it's a big one. First John 3.8. So now the question is how does he defeat the devil? And the answer is he defeats him in stages. This is very frustrating to us. We would wish he would just take him out on the first blow, which he could have done. He's God and he, he does it like this. Here, here are the three stages. Number one, Satan has been decisively defeated by the death and resurrection of Christ. It's decisively defeated, the decisive battle is over. The doom is sure, the doom is sure, the foot of Messiah is on the neck of Satan. Number two, stage two, he is being defeated now by Christ through Christians who wield the word of God and put on the whole armor of God. And third, he will finally be vanquished and thrown into the lake of fire as the last thing we know about him. Let me talk about each of those just briefly so that you know it, it's not just me talking. Number one, he was decisively defeated at the resurrection, the death and resurrection of Jesus. Key text, Colossians 2, 14 and 15, Christ canceled the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This, he set aside the record of debts against you with their legal demands. He set aside nailing it to the cross. So you wonder, what happens to the record that is being kept of my failures? Answer, they are nailed to the cross. That's a great verse, magnificent statement. Verse 15, "In doing this, he disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to an open shame by triumphing over them in him." That's pretty decisive. So what's he doing, roaming around like a roaring lion? Context here is the decisive blow against Satan as our great accuser, deceiver, murderer. The decisive blow against him was the nailing of our sins to the cross. Why is that a blow against Satan? Because the one weapon with which Satan can damn people is unforgiven sin. If he still has in his portfolio in the courtroom legitimate accusations against you that he can put on the table, which God would have to reckon with, he can damn you. He can destroy you. And that's the one weapon God took out of his hand at the cross. Now, I just thought of this, his fangs are gone and all he can do is gum you. He does have very powerful gums. In fact, they're so powerful they can strangle you, says that in Revelation 210, Satan can kill people, but he can't damn them. This is so important, practically this is so important for you to get because Christians get assaulted by the devil, they really do, in some really spooky ways as well as kind of normal ways, and some people come to me and they ask about these spooky ways. If you work among missions, you run into a lot more spooky ways than you do here. And I love to say to them, okay, I'm not denying the reality of what you saw in your ceiling or that your house is shaking or I'm just not going to deny any of that. I'm just going to say, so what? So what? He's just gumming you. His fangs are gone, he can't damn you, shake your house, make green things appear on the ceiling, just laugh at him, you're doing me sure, and I'm in Christ. So a decisive blow was struck at Calvary. Number two, Satan is being defeated now by Christ through Christians who believe and speak the Word of God, the sort of the Spirit, and put on the whole armor of God. Ephesians 6, "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places, therefore take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand in the evil day and having done all to stand." Christ's victory wrought at the cross, you by faith embrace, live in, and as it were, apply and wield. They don't face this foe in our own name or in our own strength. He is decisively defeated, his fangs are gone, in a sense his throat is slit, he's bleeding to death, he's got final death throws that he's trying to make much with and we have the victory and we apply it by the Word of God and the armor of God and the blood of Christ. Third, this is the one that's mentioned in our text, Satan will finally be vanquished and thrown into the lake of fire never to deceive or torment the world again, key text. First Corinthians chapter 15 verse 25, Christ must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. In this text, chapter 16, verse 20 of Romans, he's under your feet in the end. You see that? The God of peace will soon cross Satan under your feet. How does that work? It works because, as with so many other things, when we trust Christ, we are united with Christ and when he gets a victory, we get the victory. When he acts, we act, when he reigns, we reign. It is totally right to say Christ will one day finally bank with Satan and it is totally right to say the body of Christ, the people of Christ will put their foot on the serpent and put an end to him. So it is as certain as though it were done. You know how we know that? Because in Ephesians 1, 22, it goes like this, God put, past tense, all things under his feet, Christ's feet and gave him as head over all things to the church. He's already under Christ's feet. So when Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, he must reign until he puts all his enemies under his feet. That means that while he's under his feet, he does let him squirm. Sometimes we use the analogy of he's on a leash, jerk it, let it out, he can kind of just keep on his foot. He has reasons for letting Satan have freedom. I don't fully understand why he doesn't take him out. I wrote a whole article about it last year, but he does. But the day will come when he takes him out completely and we will be with him and we will have a hand in it. And until that day, what's the word for us at the end of verse 20? The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Until he's gone, I'll be with you. My grace will be with you. It will be new every morning. Great is my faithfulness. You will always have enough grace for this battle today. If he has any kind of attack on you, there will be grace for this. Don't ever doubt that the King will be there for you. You'll never have to face Satan alone, ever. My grace will be with you, with you, with you. Which leaves one last question. How long, O Lord? How long till the victory comes? How long, O God, is the foe to scoff? Is the enemy to revile your name forever? Paul's answer is, soon. Verse 20, "The God of peace will soon crest Satan under your feet." What does that mean? He said that 2,000 years ago. He said in Romans 13, 12, "The night is far gone, the day is the hand that has cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light." How are we going to understand that? Just ask the big question. How do you understand all those places in the New Testament that says it's going to happen soon? There's a lot of them. 2,000 years ago, he said it's going to happen soon. My way of dealing with that question is to go the safest route I know and ask this question. Is there any biblical writer who dealt with that issue? And the answer is yes, one, in one place. 2 Peter chapter 3, I'll read it to you, 2 Peter 3, verses 3 to 4 and then verse 8 and verse 9, explicitly tackles this problem. So I'm going to take my cues from him, scoffers, this is 2 Peter 3, 3, scoffers will come in the last day with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, "Where's the promise of His coming?" For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation. These people are mocking the delay, they're mocking the delay of the Lord, just like many liberal scholars do today. Verse 8, this is Peter's response, one of them, "Do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years and the thousand years is as one day, the Lord is not slow to fulfill His promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any of you should perish, but that all should reach repentance." So Peter's way of dealing with this scoffing says soon, "Ha, it's been 30 years, liberal scholars, soon, ha, 2,000 years, soon, I'm sure. His way of dealing with it is to draw attention to God's peculiar relationship with time. With the Lord a thousand years is as one day, so it's been two days since Jesus left. So here's the way I want to close, worked a long time trying to think, "Paul, Paul, why did you write it this way? Why did you say soon when it's now 2,000 years? What I want to do is taking Peter as my cue, enter into a conversation between Paul and the Lord Jesus as he begins to write this verse, this is John Piper's imagination penetrated with biblical truth, I hope, I'm going to close by letting you listen to the conversation between the inspired writer and the Lord Jesus, Paul, oh Lord, how long? How long till this great enemy is finally removed and the troubles of the church come to an end? The Lord, it's not for you to know. My father has the time fixed in his own secret counsels and he is infinitely wise and infinitely good Paul, Lord, could it be long? I mean like hundreds of years or even thousands of years, the Lord, and if it were a thousand years, would that be long? A thousand years is like a day with me, Paul, "Well Lord, how then should I speak of this coming triumph? What should I say about the time the Lord be true to me the way I really am?" And say, "What will help people be ready at my coming?" They must not think that they can presume upon my delay, for if they do, they will drift into patterns of indifference and be snatched away to destruction in a moment. Paul, so you mean, Lord, that I should say you are coming soon? Even though I don't know that from our side, I don't know that it will be soon. That would not be a mistake to say that, Lord, no, that would not be a mistake, say that. I will, it will, it will cause some to stumble like so many other things I say, scoffers will come and ridicule my promise, I know that, but if you give the impression that it will not be soon, you will do far more damage to the truth and to the souls of men than if you stay true to my timeless haste and help the people always be ready and full of hope. Paul, Lord, if a thousand years or two thousand should pass and you do not come, what should people think who read these words in those days, will they not think so many hundreds of years have come and gone, there's no reason to think it will be soon anymore, there's no reason to think our lives will be interrupted by his appearing, the Lord. They should remember that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night, it will be sudden and unexpected by almost everyone, the world will be going on as usual as it was in the days of Noah, the sudden destruction will come upon them, pray for them, Paul, that they not stumble over the word soon, pray that they will know that for me it will be soon, and for them it will be sudden, pray that they will understand that expecting it to be soon is the best way not to drift into the indifference and be snatched away in destruction, Paul, thank you Lord, you know, you know that I would love for you to come back while I'm still alive, I would love to be clothed with life rather than stripped of my body in death, come Lord Jesus, please, come quickly, the Lord, Paul, my dear servant, your desire for me and my quick return is a great honor to me, I would not want you to desire anything else, finish this book of Romans, Paul, and pray that those who come after you will have that same desire, and until then never forget, and don't let the people forget, when I come I will crush Satan under your feet, my grace be with you. Thank you for listening to this message by John Piper, pastor for preaching at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Feel free to make copies of this message to give to others, but please do not charge for those copies or alter the content in any way without permission. We invite you to visit Desiring God Online at www.desiringgod.org, there you'll find hundreds of sermons, articles, radio broadcasts and much more all available to you at no charge. Our online store carries all of Pastor John's books, audio and video resources, you can also stay up to date on what's new at Desiring God. Again our website is www.desiringgod.org, or call us toll free at 1-888-346-4700. Our mailing address is Desiring God 2601 East Franklin Avenue, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55406. Desiring God exists to help you make God your treasure, because God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him. [BLANK_AUDIO]
Satan gets one mention in the book of Romans just to remind us: he's doomed.