Accused - Evicted - Defended: A Guide to Overcome Satan's Lies - Kostika Vangjeli

Uh for those of you that don't know me, my name is Costica Vangeli.

Um I'm just gonna put this here.

I feel like I'm a very fun.

Alright.

So my name is Costika Vangeli, and uh I'm really happy to see you guys.

It's been a while.

It's so great to see some old friends.

And um I don't know about you, but I could not have a sermon today because what we just witnessed with that play was amazing.

I I can never top that.

Uh just putting up there.

And my favorite part, my favorite part was when the Ravens were being fed McDonald's.

That was uh you kind of patented, you know, that was beyond Hollywood was amazing.

I love it.

Um I I brought my crew with me, and even my dad said I'll try my hardest not to fall asleep during your service.

Uh thank you so much for uh just having us over.

It's truly great to see everyone uh here.

And um, today we are going to discuss something that has been on my heart, and I have kind of talked about it with uh the singles ministry.

My wife and I help work with that group at the Wooster Church.

And uh we're gonna talk about kind of along with what Richie was saying, how Satan lies to us and how to overcome that.

And uh before even we get to the practical part of it where we say, like, okay, what does this mean for me?

How do I kind of counter Satan lies and the thoughts and uh the guilt and the shame?

Uh we're gonna kind of look, pick into the curtain and see what actually transpired in heaven first and foremost.

Because sometimes it helps our faith to be like, you know what, God has actually set us up for success.

Right.

That it's not like we are in this battle on our own and somehow we have to figure out Satan's lies.

I think we have someone on our corner greater than we realize.

So without further ado, I'm gonna try my best to keep this under 30 minutes because I don't want it to be like a very long service.

But uh, we can uh the first point of the day is called accused, and we are accused by Satan, and Satan loves accusing, especially people of God.

And we can turn to the first scripture, we can uh read it in Job, Job chapter 1.

Job 1 · chapter mention

Starting in verse 6, he says, One day the angels came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came with them.

The Lord said to Satan, Where have you come from?

Satan answered the Lord, from roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it.

And the Lord said to Satan, Have you considered my servant Job?

There is no one on earth like him.

He is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.

Does Job fear God for nothing?

Satan replied.

Have you not put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has?

You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land.

But stretch out your hand and strike everything he has, and he will surely curse you in your face.

The Lord said to Satan, Very well then, everything he has in your hands, but on the man himself, do not lay a finger.

Now, I don't know about you, but if God said, Have you considered your servant Tika?

I'll be like, Can you consider someone else?

That's my first question, that's kind of my knee-jerk reaction to that question.

I don't want to be caught up in the middle of Satan on one side and God on the other end.

And uh and you get this sense that it's almost like God gives him the green light and he goes after Job with impunity.

He goes after his possessions, he goes after his family, he goes after his reputation.

I mean, at some point, even his wife cannot stand him.

And his friends go there to comfort him, but they end up kind of passing judgment on him, saying, like, surely, you know, if you were, if you had not messed up, this wouldn't have happened to you.

And so you see the eye of Soron, if for those of you that are Lord of the Rings fan, like staring at him and picking apart everything that Job ever did, and saying, like, let's accuse him of everything he did, everything he said.

You don't want that kind of attention in your life.

Because trust me, no one of us is perfect.

But yet here is Job kind of stuck in this position.

I'm like, what did I do wrong?

kind of thing.

And I had a brother one time ask me this question, he said, Don't you find that just kind of in our fellowship discussing this?

And he said, Don't you find it interesting?

He said, that a holy, righteous God can tolerate the presence of an arguably the most evil entity come and kind of present this attack to him?

That's kind of interesting.

And it made me think, I'm like, oh why, why does Satan have this kind of access to God in that way?

You know?

Because you makes you think for a second to like just ponder and think about that.

And I don't claim to have the right answer, but perhaps this could be one of the reasons.

Maybe we gave him the reason to be there.

Maybe we gave Satan the reason to accuse us the moment we sinned, back all the way to Genesis.

Maybe that's how if you consider, for example, God's judgment throne room as God being the judge, and he's the accuser, he's the prosecutor, and he has a right to be there because of our sin.

He's saying, You messed up, you messed up, you messed up, and he's constantly bringing accusations to God to incite, just like he did with Job.

And today, uh, just like this story kind of depicts that scenario of what is happening in heaven, uh, there's another one because you kind of see a track record throughout the scriptures of the same kind of story repeating over and over and over again, but there is a turning point.

So let's go to the second passage.

Second passage in Zechariah chapter 3.

Zechariah 3 · chapter mention

And sorry, verse 1, it says, Then he showed me Joshua the high priest, standing before the angel of the Lord and Satan, standing at his right hand side to accuse him.

The Lord said to Satan, The Lord rebuke you, Satan, the Lord who has chosen Jerusalem, rebuke you.

Is not this man a burning sticks snatched from the fire?

Now Joshua was dressed in filthy clothes as he stood before the angel.

The angel said to those who were standing before him, Take off his filthy clothes.

Then he said to Joshua, see, I have taken away your sin, and I'll put rich garments on you.

Then I said, Put a clean turban on his head.

So they put a clean turban on his head and clothed him, while the angel of the Lord stood by.

Again, same story, repeating again.

Now, this is in the book of Zechariah, you have the high priest.

Now, for those of you that maybe is like, what is the high priest?

This guy was chosen from the community of believers, and arguably he was the most humble, the most meek, he carried people's burden.

He was the closest point of contact between the community and God in the Old Testament.

So if the community sinned, guess where they went?

They said, We need to present our sacrifices to the high priest so he can appeal our case to God.

This is the high priest, and he is the one standing between the angel of the Lord and Satan accusing him.

Have you seen those cartoons sometimes when you hear like the good guy and the bad guy on the other side?

But he's not an ordinary guy.

This is the high priest, he would enter the most holy of holies.

So, in some ways, this is the most spiritual guy in the room.

So if he didn't have his head together, then no one did.

So let's say who is the most spiritual guy in this room here, like Oscar, Oscar, someone, but an elder, a deacon, think of someone who you really respect spiritually, right?

And he has in his visions that Zechariah has, he's wearing filthy clothes.

That's Bible code language for he had sin in his life.

Just like in Revelation, uh, people are given white clothes, as you know, these are the deeds of the saints, but he has dirty clothes.

And Zechariah connects it immediately with his sin.

It says, like, take off his clothes, and it says his sin was taken away so that Satan could not accuse him anymore.

Amen.

But the same thing is happening, just like with Job, you have it with Zechariah, and like I said, this is not just like someone who is like notorious, murdered.

This is the high priest.

This is the closest contact that people have with God.

And the story continues.

I'm trying to build like a case study here.

Stay with me.

So the third the third passage is on Luke 22.

Luke 22.

There you go.

And uh starting in verse 31, it says, uh, this is Jesus speaking, Simon, Simon.

Satan has asked to sift you as wheat, but I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail.

And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.

This is right before kind of what Rich was talking about transpired when you have the passion and he gets arrested, and he's prophesying his own betrayal, denial, crucifixion, and everything.

And he turns to Simon and says, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat.

But I prayed for you, Simon.

So this word asked, Satan has asked, is the only time it appears in Greek there, the Greek word.

And it's kind of hard to capture the meaning of it because it's more like demand, it's like an aggressive, forceful demand, saying like, no, he's mine.

He's demanding things.

And the other thing, too, when Jesus says, I have prayed for him, it's not just pray like I'm praying to God about something.

Literally, the word means begged.

So let's reread this again, but with those words kind of changed, so that perhaps it hits you differently, right?

It says, Simon Simon, say Satan has demanded to sift you as wheat, but I begged for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail.

And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.

So, what do we see here?

Like, I love how the word of God is consistent.

You see the same agent having the same purpose.

I'm just gonna accuse day and night, day and night.

And you see that with Job, you see that with Zechariah, even uh with Simon here, and actually something interesting with English we cannot differentiate between you plural or you singular.

Right.

It's actually when he says Simon Satan, Satan has asked for you, it's plural.

He's saying all of you.

All of you.

Oh, okay.

It's hard to kind of differentiate that, but if you read it in any other language, that they differentiate you from plural versus singular, literally saying he has asked for all of your faith to be wiped out.

So when you think about our faith, what we struggle with, that's when that's what Satan wants.

He just wants to have guilt, to have shame, for us to believe his lies.

And the first moment you mess up, that's it, you're done.

But Jesus is interested in the redemption story.

Jesus is interested, is like, yes, you know, sin brings guilt, but I'm more interested in how you turn it around.

Come on.

We can be stuck and create a jail in our mind of our guilt and thoughts for things that maybe God completely has already forgiven us.

That's so true.

And that is detrimental because it does a disservice to ourselves, to our families, and it creates this like spiritual ceiling.

It's like, well, I'm still struggling after five years, ten years, fifteen years with this recurring guilt and shame in my life, and those are very different, by the way.

Guilt is like, I feel bad for what I've done.

Shame is like you stay long enough with guilt, it becomes part of your identity, and it's very hard to kind of get rid of it.

And that's exactly where Satan wants us to have to be.

He wants us to be in this place where man, I I have believed his lies were way too long.

Because we think that somehow there is, and that that was the case, that there's this entity in heaven that's enticing God against us.

But there was a turning point, right?

There's a turning point, and a lot of Christians unfortunately think that Satan is up there in heaven accusing Kayla, accusing Oscar, accusing Rich.

But something amazing happened when Jesus rose from the dead.

And it was almost like the tables were turned, and something significant took place.

So please go with me in the book of Revelation.

Revelation 12 · chapter mention

Chapter 12.

We'll start, we'll start a little bit earlier than this because we'll start on verse 1.

Okay?

So if you are on Revelation chapter 12, start on verse 1.

Revelation 12 · chapter mention

And this brings me to my uh second point.

He has been evicted.

He has been evicted.

A great and wondrous sign appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and a crown of 12 stars on her head.

She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth.

So then another then another sign appeared in heaven, an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on the head.

His tail swept a third of the stars of the sky and flung them into the earth.

The dragon stood in front of the woman who was about to give birth, so that might he might devour her child the moment it was born.

She gave birth to a son, a male child, who will rule all the nations with an iron scepter.

And a child was snatched up to God and to his throne.

The woman fled in the desert, a place prepared for her by God, where she might be taken care of for 1,260 days.

And there was war in heaven.

Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back.

But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven.

The great dragon was hurled down.

An ancient serpent called the devil or Satan, who leads the whole world astray, he was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.

Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say, Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of God and the authority of Christ.

For the accuser of our brothers, who does what accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down.

They overcame him by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony.

They did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death.

Therefore, rejoice you heaven and you who dwelt in them.

But woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has come down to you, is filled with fury because he knows his time is short.

Now, if you feel a little bit overwhelmed by all this symbology, stay with me for a second here.

I'm gonna ask you a question.

When he says this woman was giving birth to a child that was going to rule the nation, who is it?

Who is it talking about?

Jesus.

It's very easy.

So the book of Revelation is built on symbols.

Nonetheless, it portrays real historical event in symbology.

So when he says the dragon representing Satan, and this woman represents the nation of Israel, the 12 stars, the 12 tribes, that the Messiah was going to come from the nation of Israel.

Right?

Make sense so far?

Yes.

So it says, in the moment the child was snatched up to heaven, it says war breaks out in heaven.

Interesting.

Think of the entire human history.

Satan came with impunity, saying, like, everyone has sinned, God, everyone curses you, everyone breaks your law, no one respects you, no one follows you until Jesus proved him wrong.

Until Jesus went up to heaven and said, I'm gonna clean house.

And from that point on, this is he got evicted.

Because at that point, it seemed like he had this unrestricted access to God's throne room.

He got evicted.

Now, he said he was hurled down, and in the end of the book, it says that he is filled with fury because he knows his time is short.

He lost his battle in heaven, so he goes after me and you.

Yeah, the children, the people that are truly trying to follow God's word.

Now, if you're a parent here, how do you feel if like an entity like that goes after your children?

Because he knows exactly where to touch God.

Right?

But don't you think for a second somehow now you still have an entity up there in heaven accusing you, accusing you just like Job did, or Zechariah with the high priest or Peter.

He has been heard down.

In his place, he's been replaced with the defender, with Jesus, with the ultimate high priest.

So about 10 years ago, how am I doing with that?

Good?

I'm doing good.

About 10 years ago, I was driving Parquet, Ulster, and uh this was after having a very long shift at work, probably I worked for 16 hours, and as I was driving, uh I get pulled over by a police state trooper.

First of all, I didn't even know state troopers had jurisdiction in places outside the highway.

But I I get that state is like you know, you have jurisdiction, the entire state of Massachusetts, but I always see them in the highway.

So he pulls me over and he said, Well, you were going 45 on a 30 or something like that.

I'm like, hey, I I wasn't trying to do like grand theft auto here, I was just mindlessly trying to go home and I said, you know, I wasn't trying to speed, but I completely get it, and he gives me a Red Me ticket.

Now, being a cold Bro college student that I was, uh, I said, like, I'm gonna appeal this so that my insurance premium doesn't go up.

Right?

And uh I'm not gonna lie about it, because some people try to be argumentative.

I'm like, no, I you know, I was speeding, that's okay.

I'm gonna try to be truthful and hopefully they have grace.

Right.

So that was my approach, right?

And uh I set up a date, uh, I appealed the case, and I I show up in front of the uh I believe the clerk, the magistrate in the USA courthouse.

And he says, you know, he says, you don't have a track record of this, so like I'm completely okay with letting go of this.

And I was being honest.

I was like, the state trooper is correct, I messed up, like I wasn't trying to speak, but not happened.

And he said, No, no, he said, I completely get it.

I'll let go of this.

However, he said the the state trooper has decided to appeal the case.

Now you have a court date.

Why why is that so important?

And so, okay, now I have a court date.

Right?

And I appeared before a judge, whatever date that it was, and there were about like seven or eight other cases in front of me.

And I'd never been in a courthouse in this situation.

And there was like, this is not like criminal court, it's just like petty things people do.

And I was like, this is kind of entertaining.

I was the last case.

And I could hear everything that was going on.

I'm like, wow, this is like a soap opera, you know, like uh I was like, wow, like these people go in court because someone didn't pay them for like a hundred bucks.

I'm like, that's crazy.

Anyway, but my case comes, I'm the last one.

So the judge calls my name and he says, so I got up the long line, I shopped like just like this, and the judge was standing there, and he says, like um, he says, Wait, uh, is a state trooper here?

Is the other side here?

And uh I looked around and I didn't see him, and he says, like, please dismissed.

He's like, the other side is not here.

And he hit me.

He's evicted, the accuser.

I'm not describing the state trooper as the accuser.

You get the prosecutor, right?

You get what I'm saying?

Yeah, he's evicted.

He's not there.

Case dismissed, it's like, well, Christine, she did this, she did that.

I don't want to hear the case.

Dismissed.

Case dismissed.

He's been evicted, and so many of us as Christians, we don't quite realize how good we have it in terms of who we have on our side.

We can I be honest with you, we don't even need Satan to accuse us, we do a very good job ourselves.

Yeah, sorry about that.

We do a very good job at it ourselves.

When God is saying, like, there's no one up there taking aim at you.

Now don't get me wrong, he's out there trying to destroy our faith.

But don't you think for a second that somehow he's facing God and saying, like, Kayla messed up, this person messed up, that person messed up.

And sometimes we buy into his lines where God is like, I don't want to hear the case because you have to quite understand my third point is defend it.

So something amazing happened when Jesus rose from the dead.

He put into motion this plan that undoing the work of Satan, sin, ultimately death.

But even as Rich was uh reading today, he said, You will see the Son of Man sitting at God's right hand.

Interesting.

You see that everywhere in the New Testament after Jesus dies, in multiple places, in the Hebrews, Ephesians, Jesus is described as sitting in God's right hand, defending us.

So if Zechariah was this imperfect high priest, still sinning his life, Jesus is the ultimate high priest who paid for our price for our sin once and for all.

Very different picture.

You don't have the same setup as Job did, very different picture.

You have Jesus defending us.

As a matter of fact, Jesus is described everywhere as sitting on God's right hand.

There's a passage where I don't have it in the slides, Rich.

But when Stephen, the first martyr, gets martyr, and he's staring into heaven, and he says, That's the only place that says this.

It says, I saw Jesus standing on God's right hand.

Not sitting, standing.

It's almost like the defender stood up and judges calls, the first martyr of the church.

And you see this theme running throughout the New Testament almost to highlight the confidence that us as Christians should have in God.

So the scripture that I want to share is in 1 John.

It says, My dear children, children, I write this to you so that you will not sin.

But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous ones.

We can go to the next one.

This is one of the most beloved passages where more than conquerors, it says, Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen?

It is God who justifies.

Who then is the one that condemns?

No one.

There is no prosecutor, no one.

The only way how literally we can mess this up is like, no, I'm gonna stay stuck in my guilt and shame because somehow I don't believe that this took place.

That's the only way how we mess this up.

There is this only way, and I know sometimes with disciples we can even have a bigger guilt reading consciences.

True.

He says, Who is it that condemns you?

No one.

He says, Christ Jesus, who died more than that, who was raised to life, is at the right hand of God, who is interceding for us.

Again, the same, I'm trying to reinforce the same principle here.

You don't have Satan accusing you in front of God, you have Jesus defending you.

Very different approach.

So, did Jesus also look at it from like now that we look at what happened in heaven, look at it what happened on earth.

And I have this one more story, and I'll conclude it with this.

In John chapter 8, if you guys want to turn there, we would often John chapter 8.

John 8 · chapter mention John 8 · chapter mention

Promise I know where John is.

I'll sing the song.

I know, maybe.

Uh John chapter 8.

John 8 · chapter mention

Uh, actually, let's start verse 1, so kind of give context what I'm reading.

But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives, and he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him and sat down to teach them.

The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery.

They made her stand before the group the group and said to Jesus, Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery.

In the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women.

Now what do you say?

They were saying this question as a trap in order to have a basis for accusing him.

But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger.

When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, If any of you is with us in, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.

Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.

At this those who heard began to go away, one at a time, the older one first, until only Jesus was left, with a woman still standing there.

Jesus straightened up and asked her, Woman, where are they?

Has no one condemned you?

No one, sir.

She said, then neither do I condemn you, Jesus declared.

Go now and live your life of sin.

Once you see a pattern, the pattern repeats everywhere.

You have the accusers, they are not interested in any redemptive like qualities about the woman.

They're like, She is wrong, she sinned.

Judge her according to the law, no mercy.

Just like Satan, he has his agents.

Jesus is interested in her redeeming, in her in her the other side of the story.

And he acknowledges that she sinned.

And also, one point, I suppose when Jesus defends us, it's kind of fun to think about it.

What do you think is telling the Father in heaven?

It says, like, you know, you should forgive Tika.

He had a bad day, you know, he was too tired.

I don't think that'll fly off in a court of law.

I think he's pointing to something else there, right?

I think he's pointing to what he accomplished on the cross.

I paid for that.

Yeah.

Okay?

I paid for that.

So, and I'm gonna get to the story in a second, but instead of thinking, I'm not a good father, I'm not a good mother, I'm not a good husband, this, that, or maybe we should hear a different voice.

Maybe what Jesus is saying is this why do you concern yourself with that which has been paid?

Let me let me repeat that again.

Why do you concern yourself with that which has been paid?

That's right.

You can't leave it.

Think of Jesus asking the question, why do you concern yourself with that which has been paid?

Yeah, yeah.

Because in this story right here, he's not excusing our sin.

When Jesus defends us, doesn't mean like you do whatever you want.

You get like get out of jail free cards anytime you want.

That's not what he's talking about.

Because right after he says, like, no one is condemning you, and neither will I, it says live your life of sin.

So we've been given this freedom in Christ.

Right?

Right, yeah, and we're standing there, and I I don't quite believe that we truly appreciate how good we have it.

That we have the perfect defender up there.

That there's not a case against you, case dismissed, that he's out there, maybe working to divide us and and create problems and wreck our face, fix, but we have the perfect defender, just like he defended this woman there, it's like a perfect recreation of what happened behind the sins in heaven, in heaven on earth.

Fully guilty.

He never said like she's not guilty, but he said, like, guess what?

You also have sinned, that's why they all walked away.

They all walked away.

You want to use the law?

I can use the law.

The law says eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth.

You have sinned, therefore you deserve to die too.

Do you want to play that game?

I don't think you want to play that game with Son of God.

But I want to leave you with this.

Uh you we were accused.

Something pivotal happened when Jesus rose from the dead and he cleaned the house.

And instead of an accuser up there, being replaced with the ultimate defendant, Son of God.