The sermon titled 'Praying Against Satan's Kingdom' by Peter Allison explores the significance of prayer in spiritual warfare against the kingdom of Satan. The discourse begins with a reading from Luke 11, highlighting Christ's acts of casting out demons and the subsequent accusations against Him. The speaker emphasizes the vital role of prayer as a tool provided by God to engage in this battle. The sermon delves into the origins of Satan's kingdom, explaining that demons were once good angels created by God but fell due to pride and rebellion against divine authority. It describes Satan as the ruler of these demons and outlines their characteristics, such as their ability to communicate, strategize, and exploit human vulnerabilities. The sermon warns Christians to be aware of Satan's schemes, which aim to deceive, destroy joy, and attack the church's witness. Despite the formidable nature of Satan's forces, believers are reassured of their victory through Christ, who defeated Satan and his hosts. The sermon encourages Christians to use the tools of battle provided by God and remain vigilant against demonic influence, urging them to rely on faith and prayer as they participate in Christ's victory.

Please turn in your scriptures to Luke chapter 11. As we move forward in our study of this chapter from God's teaching, Christ's teaching on prayer, to something that is closely related, that of Satan's kingdom. For prayer is a critical part, the most critical part of our battle in this area. So here God's Word beginning verse 14. And he was casting out a demon, and it was mute.

So it was when the demon had gone out that the mute spoke and the multitudes marveled. But some of them said, He casts out demons by Belzebub, the ruler of the demons. Others testing him sought from him a sign from heaven. But he knowing their thoughts said to them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and a house divided against a house falls. If Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand?

Because you say, I cast out demons by Belzebub. And if I cast out demons by Belzebub, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges. But if I cast out demons with the finger of God, Surely the kingdom of God has come upon you. When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own place, his goods are in peace.

But when a stronger than he comes upon him and overcomes him, he takes from him all his armor in which he trusted and divides his spoils. He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters. When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places seeking rest, and finding none, he says, I will return to my house from which I came. And when he comes, he finds it swept and put in order. Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there, and the last state of that man is worse than the first." May Jehovah open our eyes this morning that we may see wonderful things out of His law.

Heavenly Father, we ask that You would open our eyes, that we may behold wonderful things out of Your Word. We ask that you would sanctify these sinful lips that through a vessel of clay the riches of your glory and your grace may be proclaimed to us this morning so that the glory is yours. I pray, Lord, that this word as we hear it might be mixed with faith within us, and that it would, that you would encourage us, that you would cause us to rejoice in you and in your power and in the victory that you have won. Pray this all in Jesus' name, Amen. Well, when I was growing up, I was privileged to grow up in a Christian home, but I did not hear a lot about demons and demonology, at least not that I can remember.

And so I naturally followed men such as J. Adams, who I greatly value and have learned more from him than as much from him as from anyone else in my Christian life. But I followed him also in his teaching that Christians are never harassed by demons. It was only much later, relatively recently, that I began to realize and learned how wrong that view really is. And I see now how much the Scriptures have to say, a lot, a lot they have to say about Satan and his hosts.

And this passage that we have read this morning has a lot to say about Satan, his kingdom, and the demons and the spirits that comprise it. Along with our own flesh and the world, we battle this evil one. And as Paul said, we are not ignorant of his ways. We should not be ignorant then of his ways by which he tries to deceive us, to defeat us, to bring us down, to destroy our joy and our witness and to attack the witness of the Church of Jesus Christ. If we are not aware of His schemes, then we are sitting ducks before them.

As Luther said, His craft and power are great, and armed with cruel hate, on earth is not His equal. On earth is not His equal. On earth is not His equal. But thanks be to God Christ has defeated Him and His hosts. And so there is greater than Him that is in our midst and we are as believers called by Christ to participate in that victory in reigning with Him and He has promised us victory over Satan.

But we need to know his ways. We need to be aware of them. And we need to use the tools of battle that God has provided for us for this victory. And so then this morning in this text, one of the very first themes that we encounter is That Satan has a kingdom He is described here as ruler of the demons And he's said to have a kingdom. He talks about his kingdom.

And his followers, those that he rules over. So I'd like to look first this morning at the origin of this kingdom. Where did Satan and his hosts of demons and evil spirits come from? Where did Satan get this kingdom and how did he become the ruler of demons? And then we'll look a little bit, Lord willing, at some of the characteristics that this text gives us, teaches us about Satan and his hosts and his schemes, his ways.

Well, I think as you know, demons and evil spirits were originally good angels. God created the angels when He created the world. They are finite beings. They exist in time. They did not exist before the beginning.

God alone existed before the beginning. Colossians teaches us that by Him, all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth visible and invisible. Demons and angels are invisible beings. Paul goes on to say, all things that are in heaven and earth are created by him, whether visible or invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things were created through him and for Him. And so angels are included then in this comprehensive description of God's creation.

Angels are created. And Genesis 2 says that the heavens and the earth and all the hosts of them were finished. The heavens, the earth and all the hosts. Well, angels are part of the hosts of heaven. Angels were the very first beings that God created because Job tells us that they sang at the foundations as the foundations of the earth were laid.

So they would have had to be created on day one before God said, let there be light. They were the very first because they are singing as this foundation is being laid. We learn in, that's in Job 38. And God is questioning Job about things that only God knows. He alone lays the foundations of the earth.

God says, who did that? Were you there? To what was the foundation fastened? And so on. And he says, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy." So God created these beings, and He created them as spirits.

They can't be felt. They're not palpable like we are, like a human body is. Psalm 104 says, God who laid the foundation of the earth makes his angels spirits, his ministers a flame of fire. He created the angels immortal. He created them holy and sinless.

And so they are powerful and fearsome beings who excel in knowledge. Angels are powerful spiritual beings who excel in knowledge and angels were created to execute to carry out God's commandments. I mean, some have gone so far as some of the Puritans have gone so far as to see the angels in everything that God does. As the leaves are rustling, it is God's angels that are moving the leaves. Psalm 103 describes them as, Psalm 103 calls the angels to bless the Lord.

The angels are called the blessed the Lord. You his angels who excel in strength, who do his word, heeding the voice of his word. Bless the Lord, all you his hosts, you ministers of his who do his pleasure. That's those a description there of the angels. They're those who do His word.

They're those who excel in strength. They're His ministers. They're God's servants, and they do His pleasure. But the angels were also created fallible. That means they were able to fall.

1 Timothy 5 speaks of elect angels. So some angels then were elect and others were not. And at some point then in the creation week, the reprobate angels, those that were not elect, fell. They fell. They sinned.

2 Peter 2 tells us that God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into the chains of darkness to be reserved for judgment. We know that there was no evil, there was no sin in God's creation initially. And so the demons and these evil spirits were not created as evil beings. They were created as good. God saw everything that He had made.

God saw the visible and the invisible, the spirit and the material worlds, the heavens, the earth, and the hosts that were in them. God saw all of that that He had made and He said it was good. It was good. So that's how Satan and these demons and evil spirits originally existed as good. They were created to be in heaven.

That was their proper domain. Satan was the Archangel Lucifer, the greatest angel of heaven. Isaiah 14 describing his fall. Now we looked at this passage earlier, and I won't repeat everything I said there a few weeks ago, but Isaiah 14 is speaking about the King of Babylon, but it is also describing the demon that is behind the King of Babylon, that he is being moved by Satan, that Satan is using him for his purposes. And so a lot of the descriptions there in Isaiah 14 are a description of Satan.

And it says there, How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning, how you are cut down to the ground So Satan was was originally called Lucifer. He was the greatest angel in heaven. God says of him in Ezekiel 28, You were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God, every precious stone was your covering, the Sardis, the Topaz, the diamond, the burl, onyx and jasper, sapphire, torquoise, and emerald with gold. The workmanship of your timbrels and pipes was prepared for you on the day you were created Satan was an exalted being, the greatest archangel for whom was prepared this ministry of music.

You were the anointed cherub who covers. So Satan is a fallen cherubim. These are the warrior angels. The mighty warrior angels that are described in places like Revelation as being warriors. They're fearsome beings.

Satan was a cherub. You were the cherub, anointed cherub. You were the chosen cherub who covers. I established you. You were on the holy mountain of God.

You walked back and forth in the midst of fiery stones. Remember that word, fiery. Fiery stones. You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created until iniquity was found in you. Satan fell when he desired to be like God.

Isaiah says, in verse 14, where we read before, Isaiah said that, Lucifer said in his heart, I will ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will be like the Most High." Revelation 12 gives us a little more insight into this, Satan's creation and his fall.

In Revelation 12, it says that his sign appeared in heaven. So remember this is a sign, speaking its symbolism. Sign appeared in heaven according to Jude. Heaven is the proper domain. Remember Jude says that they fell from their proper domain.

Heaven is the proper domain originally for Satan and the angels. And the sign that appeared in heaven, the proper domain according to Jude, The sign was a great fiery, same word there again, fiery red dragon. He was a very great and powerful being. A dragon is a very fearsome, awesome being. This is the creature that is of the ballads of the Middle Ages.

This is the creature that strikes fear into the hearts of even brave people. This is the creature that captures the imaginations of children today. Dragons. Dragons. Dinosaurs.

Probably were dinosaurs. God created some very great and incredible beings. And they're described in Job, some of them. The sea Leviathan, the earth behemoth. Very fearsome things.

And so the sign of Satan then is as this fiery red dragon. Very great. He's pictured as a very awesome or awe-inspiring creature because he was more powerful than all of the other angels. And Scripture says that even Michael the Archangel did not dare to bring a reviling accusation against him because Satan was more powerful, but he said, the Lord rebuke you. He's pictured in Revelation as this being with ten horns.

A horn is a symbol of power. Ten horns is a symbol of great power. He's pictured as having seven heads, this being. Well, a head is a symbol of authority, of rule. Seven heads is a symbol then of perfect rule.

Just like Ezekiel said, He had the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. He was a great being that God created. But this magnificent power was a temptation to pride, which led to his downfall. He fell because he became proud, and he wanted to be like the Most High. He had so many attributes of beauty.

He was the covering. He was the leader of the music of heaven, leading the morning stars as they sang as the foundation of the earth was laid. But He was filled with pride and He wanted to be like God. And so often when we fall, It's because we have become proud and lifted up. So that's the very first thing to remember in Satan's wiles is that we are pride.

And that We are so very vulnerable when we become proud. Some scholars such as Jonathan Edwards believe that God tested the angels by revealing to them that his son would become incarnate, would become human, and that the angels would be subservient to him. And Satan, being the greatest of these angelic beings, thought it was beneath him to be subservient to a mere man. And so, of course, his rebellion then brought to pass the very thing that he was despising, the incarnation of Christ and His exaltation over all angelic powers as the Messiah, the God-man." That's, don't know for sure, but that's an ancient speculation. In any event, Satan fell.

Satan fell. And, Satan fell. Satan fell. And in his fall, he took his tail, Revelation says, swept a third of the angels to the earth. He took a third of the angelic hosts with him.

Satan is real. And so are his general demons. And this text tells us a little bit about these general demons that are under Satan and over which he rules. Verse 24 says that demons can talk. Says that demons can talk.

And verse 26 indicates that they can communicate with other demons. When the unclean spirit goes out of a man seeking dry places and finding none, he says, I will return to my house from which I came. And in verse 26, he takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself. So we know that demons can talk and they can communicate with other demons. Other places in scripture show demons communicating with Christ and speaking to Him with the vocal cords of a human being.

But whether they have bodies, whether they are possessing someone or not, they are able to communicate. And so these demons are not just metaphors, they're not just powers, but they are actually created beings. They are creatures that have ability to think and to reason. They have language. And they use that ability to attack Christ's Kingdom.

They find things out about what's going on here. They know, they can find out when we have become proud or when we have given them a foothold into our midst or into our life. Acts 19 records an incident with seven sons of Sceva. These unbelievers saw Paul casting out demons by the name of Jesus, and so they tried to do it. They tried to do the same thing.

And so they said they wanted to exorcise these demons by Jesus whom Paul preaches. And the demons said, well, Jesus I know and Paul I know, but who are you? And so the demon tore them, defeated them, and they fled out of the house naked. But the demons there said, Paul, they knew. They'd heard about Paul.

They knew who he was. Because he was probably big news in their kingdom. He was a mighty man of God who waged spiritual warfare against them. And apparently with great success, great effect by the power of Christ. And so we can be assured that if we as a church are weak and ineffective that it could be very likely because demonic activity is in our midst and exploiting that vulnerability Communicating that to their friends Demons demons secondly we see that demons have they have a self-consciousness That can be seen in a number of ways.

In other words, they see themselves as a person, as an entity. They speak in the first person. In verse 24 it says, I, I, I will return to my house. He's speaking to himself. He's recognizing that he has an existence, a consciousness.

They can remember and make plans. This demon, verse 24, he goes out of a man, he goes through dry places seeking rest and finding none, and then he remembers where he was. He says, I will return. He can remember and he can plan. We can assume then that any demons that come against us have a memory, that they too can plan, that they can learn things, and they can strategize then.

If they can make plans for the future, they can strategize on how to attack us and where our weaknesses are. They can study us to see where the chinks in our armor are, where we are missing armor, where we are weak and able to be attacked. In fact, demons can even have been given access through ancestors. And if we have never renounced that, that access, then they may still be with us, even believing families. Where you see sin maybe in a generation showing up generation after generation, it might be a sign that demonic access has been given through and through prior generations, the sins of prior generation.

And nothing has been done to remove those demons and They will continue to be there until we ask the Lord to remove them. They can take advantage of that legal access that our forebears, our parents, our grandparents, our great grandparents may have given to them. It is something that you ought to do if you are a new convert, or even maybe even multiple generation Christian. If there are things that you see I'm aware I remember one man a very very godly man talking about anger now he had mortified it he ruled over it but he was saying was still there until he recognized this was a demonic presence from prior generations and prayed for the Lord to remove that influence. And God did, just like that.

He wasn't an angry person because by the grace of God he was ruling over it, but it was this continual having to rule over it that went away. Demons can get frustrated. Another aspect of personality is that when things aren't working right, we can become frustrated. So this unclean spirit goes out of a man and he goes to dry places seeking rest and He doesn't find any. He wants something.

He's looking for something to satisfy him. And he can't find it. So he's frustrated. And this is what we want to be doing, is to frustrate the plans of the wicked one, of the evil one. We can pray to the Lord to frustrate their plans.

Because when we are frustrated, then we are not as effective. We don't think very well. We do things that we might regret doing. Well, so it is with demons. We pray that God frustrates and confounds their plans.

Demons can travel. They can seek. They can find. This demon goes out and it travels around. It moves.

They're not limited here to just staying in your house or in this place or in this city. They can move around. They can move from continent to continent. In fact, I know of some people that are saying that they can even connect the spiritual gates and use them to move about in the earth very quickly. Very quickly, faster than we might be able to move.

Maybe almost instantly. But they can move. They can travel around. They can move in Jesus' day. There's no reason to believe that they may not be traveling in our day and moving around.

And so where we saw, if anybody has paid any attention to missionary labors in Africa or been over in Africa, then you know how prevalent demonic activity is over there. It's just, it's everywhere. But as that nation is Christianized, as those demons are frustrated and cast out and so on, they travel. They could be traveling over here. I think many of the things that we see happening in America today are evidence that we are being overrun by demons.

Anybody who has spent time in the legislative halls know how strong the demonic warfare, the spiritual warfare is in that setting. And it's spilling out of there. Demons know where the power is. They can strategize. And they aren't stupid.

They attack the centers of power. They attack the foundations. Our answers in Genesis had a really wonderful graphic years ago. I don't know if they still do. But it had these two islands with these two castles.

And one represented the kingdom of Satan, this world, and the other was the church and the kingdom of heaven. And the Christians were attacking all the balloons flying off the parapets of Satan's kingdom. All the symptoms, homosexuality and all these things that are flying the flags. On the other side, Satan's kingdom was attacking the foundation, the authority of the Word of God. And so they're undermining the very foundation on which this building is sitting.

It captures very well how they strategize. They're able to see what are the important foundations upon which a culture rests, and they attack those, and they undermine those. And of course, the authority of the Word of God. And they attack creation. That's not just, oh well, who cares how God made the earth?

It's a fundamental issue of the authority of the Word of God. Who's Word is true? Satan is very strategic at attacking these things. And so it's no surprise then that Central to one of the debates of our age is the age of the earth. How old is the earth?

Satan is very strategic in attacking how old the earth is, because in doing so he's attacking the authority of the word of God. Is God's Word true? God's Word says the earth is about 6, 000 years old. Or is man's Word true that says the earth is billions and billions of years old? See, this is the kind of strategizing that Satan and his demons do when they attack Christ's kingdom.

They look, they travel, they seek, and they find. They are seeking for a place where they can settle down. They are looking for an opportunity. If they see a division in the church or a family, a husband and wife letting the son go down on their anger, people not forgiving one another. See when they see that demons have been given a foothold to neutralize and defeat the witness of those people.

But as demons watch people forgiving one another, covering a multitude of sins in love, then they're defeated and they have to wander on, frustrated, looking for a place to set. When they see a child in rebellion, they have an opportunity. When they see that child repent and ask forgiveness of God and their parents, then that demon has to travel on, looking for another opportunity. That's what Satan was doing in Job. He was traveling to and fro throughout the earth looking for an opportunity.

And he had no opportunity against Job. Because Job was an upright man. Remember he prayed regularly. Every time his children got together, he prayed that God would forgive their sins, if they had done something in their celebration. And Job complained.

He said, have you not made a hedge around him, around his household, and around everything that he has on every side? There was no opportunity there. He had to go on looking. Demons also have separate identities. Every demon has a separate identity.

Verse 26 speaks of eight demons. The one that was wandering around then went and got seven others. So you have eight demons now that are communicating with each other, strategizing on how to take this person down. Verse 14 speaks of also specialties in demons. Also speaks of specialties in demons.

This demon had the ability to make people unable to talk, unable to speak. There are other demons that speak of uncleanness or deception. Demons in Hosea that lead to idolatry, demons who bring disease, various types of temptation. See, there's this massive army of these unseen beings that strategize in that plan, that have gifts and they seek how to use those gifts, those specialties to attack Christ and His people. Demons also have varying degrees of wickedness.

You notice it says He takes seven other spirits more wicked than Himself. They are varying levels of abilities and skills. When one demon is unable to penetrate our weapons, our defenses, another demon might be able to in a different area. And there's also a hierarchy. They are organized in such a way that there are rulers.

Some are rulers and some are followers. He casts out demons by bells above the ruler of demons. I think the exact structure of this demonic kingdom of Satan probably changes from age to age, certainly how it is organized here on the Earth. But it would seem that Today the demonic structure in this world is organized around five departments that I've mentioned before. The Mormon Church, the Catholic Church, the Masons, the Kabbalah, and the Luciferians.

See, the Mormon Church, Their theology is actually the original theology of Satan. They teach that we will become like God, and we will have our own universe. The Catholic Church, our confession calls the Pope the Antichrist. The Antichrist. The Masons, the Kabbalah, that's the Jewish organization.

That Christ called the Pharisees, he said that their father was the devil. The Luciferians are those who worship Satan. So There is a hierarchy and a structure to their kingdom. And that may change as the needs change. Demons also have possessions that they seek to capture.

This poor man was somebody that the demons had captured. They possessed him. So there is a difference between a demon possessing somebody, that's what we think of when demons are cast out, what Christ was doing, but then there's also demon demonic influence as they can move people like David was moved by Satan or Ananias and Sapphira, you know, were moved by Satan Well There's more here and I think but I think we'll leave this for next week and look at the scope and the power of Satan's kingdom. But I leave you this morning with this encouragement. Greater are they who are with us than they who are with them.

Greater are they who are with us than they who are with them. Satan took out one third of the hosts of heaven and cast them to earth. But that means that two thirds there, so twice as many. How many are there? Don't know for sure, but I don't think the Bible gives us a number.

But it does say in Revelation that there were 200 million of these demons that were coming from the river to attack us. 200 million. So we know it's far greater than that. Probably billions, maybe even more, Maybe more. But whatever that number is, as great as it is, billions, trillions, greater are those who are with us.

Greater are those who are with us. Elisha prayed that God would open His eyes and He would be able to see that greater was the army with them than all this army arrayed against them. Satan's power is indeed great. There is on earth not his equal, But Christ has defeated him. And we too, in that power, can share in that victory.

Let's pray. Almighty Heavenly Father, Almighty Heavenly Father, we thank you for the victory that you have won over Satan. And pray Father that where we have been ignorant of His schemes and His plans, that You would instruct us, that You would teach us that we might not be ignorant. Where we have let down our guard, we ask that you would give us vigilance. For you have said that Satan does walk about this earth as a roaring lion seeking whom He may devour.

We ask, Lord, for Your grace for us in Jesus' name. Amen.