Dear brothers and sisters of our “Baroda Bible Club”,
Loving Greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. I like to give some details on “Satan” our enemy so that we can have some basic understanding about him and deal with him carefully in our life.
Satan does really exist.
The devil is real. He is not a figment of one’s imagination or a mere symbol of evil; he has personal existence! He had a beginning, he is at work now, but eventually God will judge him. How do we know he exists?
Since it is our firm conviction that the bible is a supernatural revelation from the true and living God, correct in everything it affirms, we can go to the Bible and see what it says about the devil and his plans.
The evangelist Billy Sunday was once asked, “Why do you believe the devil exists?” he replied, “There are two reasons. One, because the Bible says so, two, because I’ve done business with him.”
The Career of Satan
The career of Satan begins in the distant past. God created a multitude of angels to do his bidding. In the angelic rank there was one angel who was given the highest position, guardian to the Throne of the most high. His name was Lucifer.
Lucifer:
Information about Lucifer is revealed to us in Ezekiel 28:11-19. This passage is addressed to the prince of Tyre, a man who was vain because of the wealth he possessed and thought himself to be God. While God is rebuking the prince of Tyre for his vanity, he introduces another character called the king of Tyre, the real motivator of the prince of Tyre. Again the word of the lord came to me saying, “son of man, take up a lamentation over the king for Tyre and say to him, ‘Thus says the lord god, you had the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was your covernign: The ruby, the topaz, and the diamond; the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper; the lapis lazuli, the turquoise, and emerald; and the gold, the workmanship of your settings and sockets, was in you. On the day that you were created they were prepared. You were the anointed cherub who covers; and I placed you there. You were on the holy mountain of God; you walked in the midst of the stones of fire. You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created, until unrighteousness was founding you” (Ezekiel 28:11-15,NASB). [In his doctrinal treatise, “Satan”, Lewis Sperry Chafer comments.]
According to the Scriptures, the supreme motive of Satan is his purpose to become like the most high, and, though that purpose was formed even before the age of man, tit has been his constant actuating motive from that time until now. It is also the teaching of the Scriptures that Satan is in especial authority in the present age; he being permitted the exercise of his own power in order that he, and all his followers, may make their final demonstration to the whole universe of the utter folly of their claims and of their abject helplessness when wholly independent of their Creator. This is definitely predicted 2 Timothy 3:9 as the final outcome of the attitude of the world in its independence toward God; “They shall proceed no further: for their folly shall be manifest unto all men” (Lewis Sperry Chafer, Satan, Philadelphia, PA: Sunday School Times Co., 1972,p. 73).
The king of Tyre is Lucifer. He was perfect in all his ways, the highest ranking celestial being, the most beautiful and wise of all God’s creation. Lucifer, long with the other angels at this time, was in perfect harmony with God. There was no rebellion. There was not any dissent; there was only one will in the universe, the will of God. Everything was beautiful and harmonious.
The Fall of Lucifer
Everything was harmonious until one day Lucifer decided to rebel against God. The prophet Isaiah reveals the unrighteousness in Lucifer: “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart,” I will ascend into heaven I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds: I will be like the most high” (Isaiah 14:12-14 KjV). [Donald Grey Barn house states concerning the fall;]
The next verse in Ezekiel’s account gives us the key to the origin of evil in this universe. “Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee” (verse 15). What this iniquity was is revealed to us in some detail in the prophecy of Isaiah, but there are already interesting indications in our passage that we may not pass by. The fact given here is that iniquity came by what we might term spontaneous generation in the heart of this being in whom such authority and privilege had been given. Here is the beginning o sin. Iniquity of sin. Iniquity was found in the heart of Lucifer (Donald Grey, Barnhouse, The Invisible war, grand rapids, MI: Zondervaan publishing house, 1965,p.30). He then comments on Satan’s fall in the Isaiah passage: Comparing this passage with the one in Ezekiel, it is evident that the origin of sin in the pride of Satan was soon followed by the outward manifestation of a rebellion of his will against the will of God (Ibid. p.41)
The Emergence of Satan
The sin of Lucifer was rebellion. Five times Lucifer said in his heart, “I will.”
· I will ascend into heaven;
· I will exalt my throne above the stars of God;
· I will sit upon the mount of the congregation;
· I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;
· I will be like the Most High.
This rebellion brought the downfall lf Lucifer, for when Lucifer fell he was transformed into Satan. By bringing another will into the universe, a will which was antagonistic to God, the once harmonious universe was now in disharmony. When Lucifer rebelled, many of the angels rebelled with him attempting to overthrow the authority God. This resulted in Lucifer and his cohorts being banished from both God’s presence and his favor.
It needs to be stressed at this point that God did not create the devil. We are often asked, “Why would a good God create the devil?” the answer is, “He didn’t.” God created Lucifer, the highest ranking of the angels, giving him beauty and intelligence and a superior position to every other created thing. He also gave Lucifer a free will to do as he pleased.
Eventually, Lucifer decided to stage a rebellion against God, and it was at this pint that he became known as the devil or the adversary. He was not created for that purpose, nor did God desire for Lucifer to act independently of his will. However, Lucifer did rebel and consequently became the enemy of God and his work.
The creation of the universe.
After the angelic revolt God created the universe, as we know it today. We are not told what things were like before God created, so all we can do is speculate. The Bible says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:) Genesis 1 reveals God’s creative efforts. The last and greatest of his creation was man.
The creation of man
The Bible makes it clear that man was created by God in his image; “Then god said, ‘let us make man in our image, according to our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky, and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So god created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him: male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:26, 27, NASB).
Man was God’s crown of creation. He was placed in a perfect environment with everything conceivable going for him. He was in harmony with God, nature, his fellow man and himself.
The fall of man
However, Satan was envious of that special relationship God had with man. In Genesis 3 there is an account of what transpired when Satan appeared to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden in the form of a serpent. Now the serpent was craftier than any beast of the field, which the lord god had made. And he said to the woman, “Indeed, has god said, ‘you shall not eat from any trees of the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, “Form the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is I middle of the garden, god has said: you shall not eat from it or touch it, lest you die. “And the serpent said to the woman, “you surely shall not die! For god knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like god, knowing good and evil” (Genesis3: 1-5 NASB). The result of the yielding to temptation was a break in that special relationship between god and man.
After the fall of Man.
Since the Garden of Eden episode, God and Satan have locked into one great cosmic battle with man as the prize. God is attempting to bring mankind back into a rift relationship with him, while Satan is trying to pull man away from god. Moreover, the scripture says that Satan blinds unbelieving man spiritually in an effort to keep him from coming to Christ.
And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God (2d Corinthians 4:3,4,NASB).
Satan has been given other titles in scripture
This passage is highly instructive. Satan is called the “god of this world” hiding the gospel of Christ, from the minds of the unbelieving people. He will do anything to keep people from knowing God. Besides being called “the god of this world,” Satan has been given other titles in scripture, which describe his character and his methods. These include:
1) Devil (John 8:44) is a Geek word meaning “the accuser and slanderer. By calling him this, one is saying that he makes a false accusation against another, one whose aim it is to harm god and man; one who will tell lies of any kind to achieve his end. The popular phrase, “The devil mad me do it, “ (popularized by flip Wilson) is really a cop-out. You did it because you made the choice to follow your old, sinful nature. The devil tempts!
2) Satan (Mtthew 12:26) is a Hebrew word meaning “the resistor or adversary.” By calling him this, one is saying that he reigns oer a kingdom of darkness organized in opposition to God. in the Bible, the Super natural and the Jew, McCandlish Phillips says: “Satan I is a living creature. He is not corporeal. He is a spiritual being but that does not make him any less real. The fact that he is invisible and powerful greatly serves him in the pursuit of his cause. The idea that satam is a term for a generalized influence of evil instead of the name of a specific living personality is a strictly anti biblical idea… the less you know about Satan, the better he likes it. Your ignorance of his tactics confers an advantage upon him, but he prefers that you do not even cred his existence.”
3) Tempter [Mtthew 4:3] describes the enemy’s manner of acting. Not content with denouncing before God the faults of men, he seeks to lead them into sin, because he himself is a sinner. For that reason he is called the tempter. He tempts men by promising them, as a reward for disobeying God, delights, or earthly power, or a knowledge like that of God.
4) Father of lies (john 8:44) describes one of his many tactics. To accomplish his task of tempting men by promising him things, the enemy must lie. Therefore, because he makes great use of lies, he is rightfully given this title. He is not just a liar, he is the father of lies. He hates what God loves and loves what God hates.
5) Lord of death (Hebrews 2:14). The enemy has the power of death because he can accuse sinful man. When the son enter mankind and confronts the enemy with a human righteousness which the enemy cannot accuse, the enemy is destroyed and man is set free.
6) Beelzebub (Mark 3d: 22, 23) ascribes to the enemy a name meaning “lord of the dunghill” or “Lord of the files.” The word is generally believed to be a corruption of Beelzebub, the name of a Philistine god who was considered by the Jews to be very evil (2 kings 1: 2,3)
7) Belial (2 Corinthians 6:s15) is a name, which originally could be applied to any wicked person. Here it is used as a synonym of the enemy. The “word itself means, “worthlessness, here used as the embodiment of all “worththelessness.
8) Evil one (1d John 2:13). The total effect of all the biblical references is to present the picture of the enemy as one who is the supreme evildoer.
9) Ruler of this world (John 14:30). Since the world, according to the bible, is mankind in opposition to God, the enemy as the inspirer and leader of that opposition is given this title., and because his power and might are operative in the present world, he is accorded this title. Similar to this, I 2 Corinthians the enemy is even called “the god of the is World. The two titles should give us some idea of the tremendous scope of Satan’s power and activity on the earth.
10) Prince of the power of the air (Ephesians 2:1, 2) the enemy‘s power, in our age is operative not only on the earth, but in space (David W. Hoover, How the Respond to the occult. S. Louis, MO: Concordia pub House, 1977, pp. 13, 14)
In the Dictionary of Satan mention is made of various names given to Stan:
Malleus Maleficarum, a fifteenth-century treatise by Heinrich Kramer and Jakob Sprenger, indicates that Satan may be invoked under several names, each with a special etymological significance:
As Asmodeus, he is the Creature of Judgment. As Satan, he becomes the Adversary. As behemoth, he is the beast. Diabolus, he Devil, signifies two morsels: the body and the soul, both of which he kills. Demon connotes cunning over Blood. Belial, without a Master. Beelzebub, lord of files.
Here are the names by which he is generally known in various languages:
Arabic: Sheithan
Biblical: Asmodeus (or Biliar or Apollyon)
Egyptian: Set
Japanese O Yama
Persian: Dev
Russian: Tchort
Syriac: Beherit
Welsh: Pwcca
(Wade Baskin, Dictionary of Satan, NY: philosophical Library, 1972, p. 233).
Satan‘s Strategy:
One of Satan’s plans is to convince the world that he does not exist. Denis deRougemont makes the following insightful observation. Satan dissembles himself behind his own image. He chooses to don a grotesque appearance which has the sure effect of making him in offensive in the eyes of educated people. For if the devil is simply the red demon armed with a large trident, or the faun with goatee and the long tail of popular legend, who world still go to the trouble of believing in him, or even of declaring that he does not believe in him? … What appears to be incredible is not the devil, not the angel’s but rather the candor and the credulity of the skeptics, and the unpardonably sophism of which they show themselves to be the victims: “The devil is a gent with red horns and a long tail: there fore I don’t believe in the devil.” And so the devil has them precisely where he wants them (Denis de Rougemont, the Devil’s share, pp. 19-21, cited by D.G.Kehll in Demon Possession, ed., John Warwick Montgomey, Minneapolis, MN
May the Lord help us to know our enemy and all his tricks so that we can win him in our life. Jesus advised us to always resist the devil then only he will flee from us. Amen.
Your Web-Site Pastor,
Rev. T. Marcus Devasahayam.Your ‘web-site’ Pastor.
Rev. T. Marcus Devasahayam.