Has Satan Hindered You?

Alba 11-12-2023

HAS SATAN HINDERED YOU?

I Thessalonians 2:17-20

A mother and her boy went to an ice cream store. It only had vanilla and chocolate. "Why you don’t have more flavors?" the mother asked. The guy behind the counter said, "Lady, if you knew how long it took people to make up their minds between chocolate and vanilla, you’d only have two flavors too."

Satan offers many flavors to distract and deceive us. And that is something he continues to do. The comedian from several years ago, Flip Wilson, made famous the saying, “The devil made me do it!” If we use that phrase, it is more often an excuse than reality.

That is not to say that the devil is not active around us. He will stop us from doing our best if he can. In fact if we are really trying our best to follow Jesus, there are times it seems we could say, “The devil wouldn't let me do it.”

Does he have that power? Let's be sure about this, the devil's power is limited. But even the apostle Paul said that the devil got in his way and caused his plans to change.

That is recorded in I Thessalonians 2:17-20 where Paul writes to the church and says, “But we, brethren, having been taken away from you for a short time in presence, not in heart, endeavored more eagerly to see your face with great desire. “Therefore we wanted to come to you—even I, Paul, time and again—but Satan hindered us. For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Is it not even you in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at His coming? For you are our glory and joy.”

Paul says he had plans, sincere, earnest plans to visit the church in Thessalonica, but “Satan hindered” him. Whatever was the reason, he saw it as something, not from God, but as the devil's work against him.

Wouldn't you like to think that right after that verse, Paul had said, “But it worked out for God,” or “God turned it around.” But that is not what he says. We would all like that wouldn't we, for things to turn out better. And sometimes it can.

Maurice McCarthy is a minister who said that while he was working on a message about Satan's hindrances he left his office to get a coffee. And, he got locked out of the church. It made him think that Satan was trying to hinder his work on his sermon.

His secretary was away on vacation that week. So he called a couple in the church who lived nearby to get their key to the church. He got a key from them, and they surprised him with a bag of oatmeal raisin cookies; his favorite!

It made him feel it was God’s way of saying that even though Paul was hindered, God still worked it out for good even though Paul didn’t say that in connection with this passage.

So he figured that while Satan may hinder, God will work even that out for some good. And that Paul probably preached somewhere else, and people got saved there. All of that is probably true, but look how earnest Paul was in his effort to come visit these people.

Look at the end of verse 18 where it says he tried time and again. Some who opposed Paul were busy saying he was not sincere when he was there and that was why he left so quickly and why he has been so slow in returning. Paul assures them that he had been trying hard to be with them. He did not forget them, and he was not lazy about trying to reach them.

Paul used the word “hindered” as part of Satan's work against him. That word has the meaning “to cut into, impede, or detain”. It also had a military use. It referred to a tactic of cutting up or destroying a road so as to make it impassable, or putting out obstacles to prevent anyone from moving forward.

Have you been there? You are really trying to do your best, and nothing works. It just doesn't come together. You may keep trying, and you are left with frustration. It is a hard place to be. You are “hindered”.

Now there are several reasons that might happen. Like what Maurice McCarthy said, it could be that God has other plans for you that you don't see at this moment. That there is something else for you to do. The apostle Paul experienced that when he was trying to minister to more towns in Asia.

In Acts 16 it says that at that time the “Spirit did not permit them” to go to the towns where they wanted to preach the gospel. Why was that? Well right after that, Paul received a a vision. In it he heard, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” That led to taking the gospel into Europe. Apparently it was not in Paul's plans, but it was in God's plan.