God Is More Effective Than The Devil
- Jul 5
- 19 min read
Pastor Stan Mons
Sermon Transcription:
I want to take you, church, into the Word of God this morning. And the title of what the Lord has been really pushing on me, uh, the last week—I spoke somewhat on the heart of this message in a rehab facility, and the Lord just wouldn't let it go, and began to take me deeper and deeper, really sitting on this Word. And I'm so excited to share it with you this morning. The title is God Is More Effective Than the Devil. God is more effective than the devil. And when your heart begins to be taught by God's Spirit that God is actually effective, that God is more effective, incredible things began to happen, at least in my life, and I pray will happen in your life, that God is more effective when He has your life in His hands. In other words, when the devil had your life in his hands, and you were his puppet, and he abused you, and he stirred up your flesh and tempted you, and you were not able to say no, and you bursted out in anger, you said words to people that wounded and hurt them, and you did things that both hurt yourself and hurt other people. You were a sinner living in sin, probably hiding it most of the time so that you don't look as much as a sinner when other people look at you.
But in every case, when the enemy has your life, he seems awful effective. And sometimes our hearts become taught by the devil that when he has an area of our heart or an area of our life, that he is so effective at corrupting that and destroying it and breaking it, that it is, even after getting to know Jesus, that we believe we are forgiven. But the enemy was so effective at abusing and destroying this area of my life, I should just be grateful that I'm forgiven. But this is a mess that Jesus put back together. And now it's a put-back-together mess. The enemy messed it up. He broke it so severely that God kind of does the recovery work, but he almost has to work with what is left over. And what I believe the Holy Spirit wants to stir up in our hearts this morning is that God is more effective. However much damage the enemy can do with whatever you give him—whatever part of your life, whatever part of your body, whatever part of your marriage, whatever part of your journey—whatever you give and surrender to the enemy's will for your life, you begin to surrender that thing to God, He is way more effective than the devil. He will do way more and way grander things.
We just get so impressed by the power of destruction. I watch YouTube videos sometimes, and sometimes I watch them with my oldest boy, and, and one of the most interesting videos to watch is when they are breaking down a building or rigging it with explosives, and in one big bang, that whole building begins to crumble down, or a crane is just plucking walls away, and, and pieces of walls, and, and then stuff begins to fall. It's so intriguing to see stuff come apart and the destruction of it. And the enemy, you know, really rides that wave because when, when there are areas of our life that are falling apart or being destroyed by him, there's a level of intimidation that can kind of get plugged into the heart, kind of a fear of the enemy touching any area of our life, really. And when the Spirit of God and the Word of God begin to teach to your heart that God is actually more effective than the devil, an, an anticipation of joy and excitement really begins to come into your spirit. God goes so far that He even makes sin effective for good. He goes that far. The Word tells us, "Whoever's forgiven much—forgiven for much sin—whoever's forgiven much loves much."
When God comes into your life, even sin itself loses all of its effectiveness for sin's sake. And even sin itself now is turned around and begins to serve an effective purpose in God's intention of things. You begin now to love Jesus so much because you had a lot of sin. In other words, the enemy really thought he had something going, and God goes even harder. Even with the very thing that gave reason for our condemnation, God is able to birth something good out of it. He's more effective. It takes the devil's every fallen angel, every spirit—it takes Satan years to build deep darkness, thick darkness. It takes him years, sometimes, to build secrets. And he does that. He tricks you with the little stuff, and, and, and as soon as you get a taste of secrets, oh, doesn't he love that? If he can get you to taste secrets, and if the enemy can teach you, "If you keep things secret, you won't feel shame, you won't get hurt, you won't be looked down upon, you'll look pretty good," he trains you to begin to trust secrets. And the moment he has that done in your life, the secrets begin to grow bigger, more grave, more deep.
But it takes him years to build thick darkness, deep secrets, double lives into your life. It takes him years, and he takes the time. It's worth it to him. And one moment with Jesus. One moment with Jesus. And what the enemy built in years—it took him years to build it—in one moment, Jesus undoes all of that sinful stuff, all of that dark work. And then He begins to lead you into a whole brand-new life. It takes Him one moment to undo what took the enemy years to build. God is far more effective than the devil. And as we were celebrating freedom in this nation yesterday, and it was my grandfather's birthday, as we were celebrating freedom, I was just looking over the water yesterday and, and meditating on, on the freedom that, that Jesus brought us into. And I was like, "Man, I get to celebrate this every day." I love celebrating. I think it's biblical. The Jews really knew how to celebrate. They did weddings seven days straight. They were like, "Party. Cancel work. Cancel every responsibility. Partying is important." And that was God's people. He chose them. So they knew how to have a celebration. And then to celebrate every day that Jesus has won freedom for somebody that really shouldn't have it and definitely should never be able to enjoy it, let alone stumble and learn in their freedom, as they really should be messing up that freedom as they're stumbling and learning. And yet the freedom that Christ purchased is so effective, far more effective than the bondage that the enemy had.
This freedom is so effective, even when I make similar or the same mistakes. Now the consequences are not the same. I get to learn and get up. What does the Bible say? The righteous stumbles and falls, but gets up seven times. Keeps on getting up. The, the freedom Jesus bought is far more effective than the bondage that the enemy has. But the enemy will put so much effort into your heart because he knows that many people—get this—he knows that many people he's working on, he knows many of them are going to get saved. He knows that. He knows his time is short. And so there's a part of the strategy of Satan that is only there that is designed to affect your heart after you get saved. Just in case this person gets saved, let's begin to teach and train their heart these things. Let's begin to teach and train their heart to be fearful of demons and darkness and Satan himself. Just in case they get saved, they'll rejoice in Jesus. They may get saved, but let's put some things into the heart. Let's, put them through some stuff to make sure that they end up at heaven's gates alone and not bringing other people with them.
Let's put, let's affect their heart because if we can get them to be quiet, then at least fewer people will be saved. The devil will put an effort into having your heart believe that his work—the devil's work—has a lasting effect. A lasting effect. I met many people who, who slept together before marriage or slept with other people before marriage, and the enemy had them convinced that their sinful actions have a lasting effect—that under the enemy's rule, there are things in sin that are more effective than God's hand in our lives today. I'm going to take you to the very beginning of this journey, as Satan appeared as a snake in the garden. Genesis 3. We're going to read verses 3 to 15. I'm reading from the NIV this morning. "But God did say..." This is the woman responding to the snake. The conversation just started. You haven't missed anything big yet. Here's what she says: "You must not eat from the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die." "You will not certainly die." The serpent said to the woman, "For God knows that when you eat from it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it.
She also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they realized they were naked. So they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord called to the man, "Where are you?" And he answered, "I heard you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid." And he said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?" The man said, "The woman you put here with me, she gave me some of the fruit, and I ate it." Then the Lord God said to the woman, "What is this that you have done?" The woman said, 'The serpent deceived me, and I ate. So the Lord God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals. You will crawl on your belly, and you will eat dust all the days of your life." I love it when the enemy bites the dust.
Here's verse 15: "And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers. He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel." It's right there. God Himself says, "This offspring that will come..." We now know that this is speaking of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. This offspring that will come—yes, the enemy will do a work, even bruise the heel of Jesus, even affecting a pain and an attack of sorts on Jesus—but He is going to crush the head. In other words, his response, his attack is going to be way more effective. But what happens earlier in this story, I really want you to see that. See, the, the man and the woman, they eat from the fruit. And we don't read of Satan exactly what he was doing, but we know he stuck around because the Lord addressed him too, right there in the garden. And so he's watching this unfold. All of a sudden, the man and the woman realize that they're naked.
They're beginning to feel shame for the very first time in their life. And all of a sudden, I can just imagine the enemy speaking to himself these age-old lies that he's been whispering to us as well. "This is now... it's broken. Now you have a problem. Now it's broken. Cover it. Try to cover it." And, the man and the woman, they try to find some big leaves. It ends up being fig leaves. And they try to sew them together. I can just see them struggling in my mind to try and figure out how to, how to make something that kind of makes them feel less ashamed—anything that, that takes that horrible feeling of shame, that new feeling of shame, away out of their life.
And the enemy is just watching. "It's broken now. It's broken now. Cover it. Try to fix it. Try to hide it away. Try to make that feeling go away. It's broken now." And that's what the enemy does. He will have you engage in sin, and he'll, he'll catch you at the right time, in the right place, where it's easier for you to give in at least a little bit. Your flesh will gladly participate, but the enemy will have you engage in sin. And then he goes whispering as he watches from the sidelines, "Now it's broken. Now you've really broken her trust in your marriage. Now you've really done it. You have really lied for the first time in your relationship. Now it's broken. Now you can never say that you never lied to her ever in your marriage. You've done it now. It's broken now. Even if you don't do it ever again, it's tainted. It's broken."
He does the same thing with sexuality, whether people sleep around before marriage. "Okay, now your virginity is broken. It's taken away. It can never be restored. You can never truly give yourself to the person you're going to marry. It is broken." Now, the enemy always seeks to teach your heart that, in sin, you giving him your life in sin is more effective. He is more effective than the restoration, the healing, and whatever God does with your life when you give it to Him—as if it is still broken, as if it is still cracked and just taped back together. "But if you look closely, you can see that this used to be broken." He does it with friendships. He'll get you to sin, and there he stands. "Now cover it. Now it's broken. Now try to fix it. It's broken. It will never truly be the same again." Anybody ever made to feel that way? "It will never really ever be the same again. You cannot take that back. You cannot go back. This cannot be restored."
Same goes for our body. The enemy seeks to have us sin in our bodies, to destroy our bodies. And he'll have us believe. He'll seek to teach our hearts that what, what we did with our body under sin is more effective than what God will do with our body after we give it to Him. It cannot be changed or restored. Same with your honor. The enemy makes us believe that because we had such dishonorable actions under sin, that we, we will always have some kind of a little side tag on our shoulder that reminds us of the kind of stuff we've done, the places we've been, the things that have come out of our mouth. He does the same with your day, your every day. He'll get you to take on some of the attitudes you're feeling. He'll come whispering, as he did in the garden. He didn't come like some great, grave, angry, scary-looking demon thing. It's just a regular snake. They'd probably seen snakes before in the garden. Not a problem. Nothing wrong with a snake at that point.
Just another snake in a tree. She didn't run. It didn't look like this was going to be a bad day.
And the enemy will just stir up some of the feelings you have. And you snap or snare at your parents or your, your spouse or your brother or your sister or your loved one, and you're just a little short and a little cold-hearted. And you can tell that maybe you hurt someone, or you can tell that you did it to your colleague at work. And here comes the enemy whispering this, maybe tomorrow: "But this day is broken now. This day—you can give it to God all you want—but what you did, you did, and the effects are here. It's broken now." He'll try to destroy your every use of every day, your every joy in every day. He'll try to lead you into sin and make you feel shame again and condemned again. And even though you run to Jesus, there's something he wants to keep over your head. "That day, that day has been broken. This day is not clean. This day was not victory. This day was not success. Maybe tomorrow, but this day belongs to me. This one is broken. I'm more effective. What the things I have done with your day are more effective and are going to outlast you giving anything to God. It's not going to make a change for this day."
He tries to steal, rob, and destroy. And he whispers, "Cover it. Make it look better. Just put on a smile. Just behave when you get to church. You may have had a fight in the car on the way here. Just make it look good. Cover it up, and make it look good when you come in front of people. It's broken. Don't let anybody see that it's broken. Just cover it up. Do some work because I'm so effective at breaking stuff in your life. You can't expect that much from God. He'll forgive you. He'll welcome you back. But you are walking around with broken stuff now." He'll seek to convince you that when your heart is broken, even though you're forgiven, even though you run to Jesus, you have to treat your own heart as a broken heart. That's what the devil tries to get you to do: to not trust people as easily anymore, to not fully be genuine, open, vulnerable, touchable again with people, to believe that what the enemy had done in sin is more effective. "So I should be on guard, and I should be careful because he's so effective." God is more effective.
Let me read to you Genesis 3:21: "The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them." Right here, we read the tail end of what would have been the first sacrifice for sin, pointing forward to how Jesus was going to show us that God is far more effective than the devil, no matter what he does. God seeing Adam and Eve put those fig leaves together, God knowing that they're feeling shame right now, and they're feeling regret, and they're feeling all these things, and, and God makes the first sacrifice and out of that sacrifice makes proper clothing and says, "Here, I'm going to properly cover you," as He's pointing forward to a sacrifice that would come, that would be brought so that you would be clothed in righteousness by the blood of Jesus Christ. So that everything the enemy thought he had going in your life is proved to be ineffective, and God's effectiveness begins to take over your life.
The righteousness of God upon you, making you a son, making you a daughter, showing you to your heart that God is far more effective than the devil all the days of your life. Many of you know that so early on in my life, I literally sold my soul to the devil. I literally gave him permission. I gave him my all if he would just give me some things in this world. And when I gave my life to the devil, he sure seemed very effective with it. But God is far more effective than the devil.
2 Corinthians 5:17: "Therefore, if anyone..." Would you say anyone with me? Anyone. "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. All things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new." And that is the confidence that Jesus wants you to walk around with. That is the celebration Jesus wants you to walk around with every single day. You cannot have a bad day because you wake up realizing, "It is celebrating my freedom day today. I am in Christ. Look at me. I'm a new creation. All things have become new." That's what Jesus desires for you to feel and experience and know and understand in the heart—that all things have become new.
Not repaired. Not just put back together barely. Brand new. That you would be able to get up in the morning and say it: "Look at me. Behold all things. Can you believe it? After everything the enemy did, after all the effective works of darkness, look at me now. All things have become new." Can you actually say that this morning? "All things have become new."
God is far more effective than the devil. That's what I began to experience. I gave Jesus my life. Look at it now. All things have become new. He makes it new. God is more effective. Psalm 147:3: "He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds." That's what God does. He heals the brokenhearted. He doesn't just comfort them. He doesn't just help them. He brings healing. Makes that heart whole again. This is such good news, church. This means that no matter what any man, any person has put you through in this world, you will never be stuck having to treat the people around you as if they may be as bad as that person. You can have a healed heart. If you believe with all of your heart the Gospel of the living God and you give your heart to Jesus, He will give you a healed heart—a heart that can wholeheartedly trust again, a heart that is not skeptical, a heart that is not suspicious, a heart that is not guarded, a heart that is not careful, a heart that is pure and healed and not wounded.
Yet it is going to be an experience in life as if no one has ever wronged you or hurt you or been negative towards you or had manipulative thoughts when they dealt with you. You will have a healed heart. God is more effective. Psalm 23:3: "He restores my soul. He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake." He restores my soul—body, mind, spirit. He restores all of it. That's what the psalmist is saying. He restores my soul. He touches all of my life. He restores all of it. Nothing stays broken. Nothing of the enemy remains effective. Nothing of sin remains effective. Nothing of sin still has an effect on any part of my being. God is more effective. Psalms 103 verse 1-4: "Bless the Lord, oh my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, oh my soul, and forget not all his benefits. Who forgives your iniquities, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from destruction, who crowns you with loving kindness and tender mercies." One of my favorite promises for the new life, especially since my journey with the devil affected so many other people, hurt so many hearts. I was so mean, so angry, so violent so many times. And here God's good news tells me that He redeems my life from destruction. And God is more effective than the devil.
Whatever the devil was able to do with you and through you, God can do much more and far greater things, even in the lives of the same people that you wounded and hurt and, and you broke their hearts. God is able to do far more. God is far more effective than the devil. The enemy just tries to be so intimidating that, that you wouldn't even pray. You wouldn't even step out in faith. You wouldn't even pursue some of those things that God says: "Listen, I will redeem your life from destruction. Whatever destruction you brought into the lives of others, I will redeem all of it. I will rebuild all of it. I will make all things new." So that you can say: "Behold, look what God has done. All things have become new." That's what God wants you to be able to say in the morning. It's celebrating freedom day today. All things have become new. Church, God is more effective than the devil. Your righteousness is far more effective than, than sin.
The blessing that your life will bring everywhere you go—you need to understand this. The, the blessing of the Lord is like an incredibly large bubble all around you.
You know, when, when, uh, I have a whole group of friends, we all share locations on the phone, um, partially because nobody can ever get a hold of me. But when, when I try to see if my wife is home or wherever she's at, I can see her location too. But when the phone is not fully getting it, there's like a big blue radius. Everybody that's ever tried it knows what I'm talking about. But the rest, yeah, don't start checking everybody's location. But a large blue bubble is kind of like around where they're probably roughly at. And that's really what the blessing of the Lord does in your life. The curse that you walk in, the separation from God, the negativity, the pain, the sin, the darkness also kind of bubbles around you, and it affects everyone you come in touch with. But God's bubble is bigger. The blessing that you begin to bring into the lives of others, even when you don't do that much, the, the radius, so to speak, is far greater. It can reach deeper too. It's 3D. It doesn't just only stretch out further. The whatever the curse through your life caused in the lives of others—the pain went quite deep in the lives of others. The blessing goes deeper. The Lord always outdoes the enemy, church. And you don't have to do that much. You didn't have to do that much with the devil. He did a lot for you. Made it all happen. Set it all up. All you did was, "Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure," and you just walk through life sinning. You may not have been that aware that it was the devil. And then the Lord takes it a step further.
See, sin kills our life on earth. And so God says, "I'm more effective. I'm going to give you life eternal, and you're going to be with Me. I'm going to outdo the devil at every single turn. The life you're going to get from Me—far greater, far better, and eternal—compared to the life that you lose because of sin." God is more effective than the devil. Church, would you stand with me for a moment? See, there's things in our life—for us online and here in the house alike—there's things in our life that the enemy tries to make us believe: "This is not really going to become new." "It's better that this stays hidden." And maybe you're still walking around with a fig leaf trying to cover something that you're just not that sure if it will be really restored, if it will be really made new, if it will be really changed around, if it will ever be actually presentable. It can be the smallest things. It can be the greatest things. But the enemy always tries to make you believe that in this area he's been more effective than God will ever be in your lifetime. "God is not going to do it. God is not going to outdo in goodness what the enemy did in that area of your life with evil."
That's what he seeks to convince you of. And this morning, we're going to change our mind. We're going to change our mind. And if you say, "I want to say to the Lord, 'Lord, I believe You're more effective than the devil,'" that can mean something different for all of our lives this morning. Whatever the Holy Spirit may be addressing in your heart or mind: "Lord, I believe You're more effective than the devil. So I'm going to give it to You. I'm going to trust You. I'm going to believe. I'm going to believe that You're going to be more effective with this than the devil has been. I'm going to believe, Father, that You're going to be more effective with this than my sin has been. I'm going to believe, Lord God, for my life, for my sins, for my problems. Lord God, I'm going to believe You are more effective, and I can begin celebrating my freedom every day. I'm going to have that song that says, 'All things have become new.' You can look at me. There's not a fig leaf here. Not a fig leaf trying to cover something up. All things have become new." That's the song that God wants us to have. If you need to say to God in the face of whatever the enemy has been screaming at your heart, "God, this morning, I believe that You are more effective than the devil," if you want to say that to Him, would you join me here at the altar as we get ready to worship Jesus?
-Pastor Stan Mons
