The Influence of Satan

As Christians, we hear many sermons and read many books that teach what God can, will, and has done for us.  While these teachings are vital and necessary, we often forget the influence of our enemy:  Satan.  We fool ourselves into thinking that Satan is an idiot, simply because he is our enemy and we seek to degrade him.  But I believe it is idiotic to claim that Satan is stupid.  Let me make it irrevocably clear:  Satan is not stupid; he is the evil genius of the world.  If this were not true, then so many people would not become entrapped within his dominions of sin.  Christians are still subject to that spiritual and psychological torment; many people can testify to that, even I can as a past victim of shame and guilt due to my own personal sins.  Let us identify Satan's being:  he is an archangel.  Not was — is.  Hollywood films and television shows portray demons as ugly, disgusting looking creatures.  The Hollywood portrayal is not only inaccurate, but also absurd.  Demons, including Satan, are fallen angels.  They're still angels with immense supernatural powers!  We understand archangels to be the most powerful of angels, and Satan is a fallen archangel.  As an archangel, he is so powerful that he can even "disguise himself as an angel of light" in order to masterfully deceive us (II Corinthians 11:14).  However, there is no reason to fear.  God and our Saviour Jesus Christ are infinitely more powerful than the fallen archangel Satan.

James 4:7 makes it very clear to "submit yourselves therefore to God" and to "resist the Devil, and he will flee from you."  If one has Jesus Christ within him or her, this is very possible.  Resist him with the Word of God just as Jesus did in the wilderness at the beginning of Matthew chapter four.  Satan is the master of deceit, and he will do whatever it takes to twist God's Word to bemuse you and eventually cause you to abandon your faith in God.  He often does this through unbelievers, actually.  Unbelievers themselves take God's Word and throw it at Christians to support their worldly beliefs and inexperienced Christians, or those who are not prepared for this, will fall under their trap.  What these unbelievers do is called proof texting, which is to grab a verse out of the Bible to make it support your belief.  Even Christians do this.  It is erroneous and causes misinterpretation and spreads misinformation because by proof texting, one takes it completely out of context — ignoring the rest of the scriptural context around the verse in which it relates to (and can even be connected from the New Testament back to the Old Testament to explain a verse even further, and vice versa), as well as not understanding its historical context.  Many people make the mistake that the Bible was written to us, but it was not.  Everything we read in the Bible was written to a very specific people in a specific culture at a specific time.  As soon as we understand what audience the words were written or spoken to and how they were to apply it and why, we can then know and understand how to apply it to ourselves in our own lives.  Those who practise proof texting are not intellectually honest with themselves.  It is utterly impossible to fathom the Word of God without God's wisdom, which one can only receive through faith in Him, and which also begins with fear in the Lord (Proverbs 9:10).

I must reiterate:  As powerful as Satan is as an archangel, he is no more powerful than God or our Saviour Jesus Christ.  Satan has a purpose on this earth, which we will never fathom.  God will not allow Satan to do more than He will allow him to.  We see this in the book of Job.  At the beginning we see that God and Satan are conversing, and God permits Satan to cause some suffering upon Job.  Critics of the Bible who are not objective will interpret this as God and Satan working together, but if one understands God's nature correctly we will see something entirely different.  As we read the whole book of Job, God makes a grand point through Job's experience to teach Job several things, and ultimately probably all who read the book.  God described Job as having perfect integrity, and although he had perfect integrity we read that Job's sin was that "he was righteous in his own eyes" (32:1), and that "he justified himself rather than God" (32:2).  But it is important to point out that in spite of Job's sins, not once did he ever stop believing in God throughout all of his horrible troubles.  So he was indeed a man of perfect integrity, therefore God proved Satan wrong.

Although God allowed Satan to cause Job trouble, it is extremely important to know that God would not permit Satan to do more than what He would allow (Job 1:12).  In effect, God was telling Satan, "I am the Master of the universe and of the earth.  There is nothing that you can do beyond than what I permit, for anything you do I possess the ultimate power and authority to disrupt, for I am Yahweh."  As troubling as it may seem, God can use Satan for His own good.  In the conversation between God and Satan, it was actually Satan who challenged God about Job's perfect integrity.  In response, God in His infinite wisdom orchestrated Satan to do what He permitted him to do in order to teach Job, and to teach us, numerous lessons.  Not only does this teach us that God proved Satan wrong and always will, but it also teaches us that God truly knows our hearts.  And in the end, God blessed Job double the possessions he originally had before he lost them (Job 42:10-17).  This was, of course, after Job had realised his faults and repented of his sins.

Never forget the influence that Satan has upon the world, and also never forget the infinite power that God and our Saviour Jesus Christ have over him.