Glad to be back with you! I just wanted to share some information I have been studying in my theology class. We are in a section of satanology. Who is he, how does he work....etcetera.
As important as it is to know God and how HE works, I think we need to know and understand our enemy. Satan is a real, created being. He was once God's most powerful angel named "Lucifer" meaning "beautiful".
He was filled with pride and wanted to become like God and fell from grace and took 1/3 of the angels with him in rebellion.
Just as God has angels and man to serve Him, satan also desires to have angels and man to serve him.
He's not the red devil with a pitch fork, as the popular image we have had burned in our minds suggests. He is "beautiful" and he is the master of lies.
So we will look at satan's work in relation to God, in relation to the nations, and in relation to the unsaved. Later we will look at his relation to the saved.
First in relation to God:
Satan is active and preoccupied with the task of imitating and counterfeiting God's work.
2 Corinthians 11:13-15
2Cr 11:13 For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ.
2Cr 11:14 No wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.
You see some are influenced to present "another gospel" Oh, they seem religious and they use the name Jesus. That is not their concern. A counterfeit bill looks like the original right? Very subtle twists lead the unsuspecting into hell. It says satan disguises himself as an angel of light.
He looks like an angel, not a devil! Beware!
Revelation 2:9,13,24
Rev 2:9 'I know your tribulation and your poverty (but you are rich), and the blasphemy by those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan.
Rev 2:13 'I know where you dwell, where Satan's throne is; and you hold fast My name, and did not deny My faith even in the days of Antipas, My witness, My faithful one, who was killed among you, where Satan dwells.
Rev 2:24 'But I say to you, the rest who are in Thyatira, who do not hold this teaching, who have not known the deep things of Satan, as they call them--I place no other burden on you.
See just as there are deep things of God we don't know, there are deep things of satan we do not know. Is ignorance bliss? Ask a sheep when a wolf in in the flock.
Next we see satan's work in relation to nations. Of course nothing happens outside the permission of God, so understand that God restrains satan and also allows his evil to take place for a time. It will ultimately be to God's glory.
Satan is the power behind many world rulers and government leaders. He deceives the nations the scriptures say.
Daniel 10 also Ezekiel 28 and Isaiah 14
Look at Luke 4:5-6
Luk 4:5 And he led Him up and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.
Luk 4:6 And the devil said to Him, "I will give You all this domain and its glory; for it has been handed over to me, and I give it to whomever I wish.
How could satan offer to give Christ all the earth's domain if he did not possess it? Who gave it over to satan? Adam and Even when they obeyed satan and not God. They handed the dominion of the earth over to satan.
Satan is called the prince of the power of the air. He is the power working in this world (but only to the extent God allows)
Mat 4:8 Again, the devil *took Him to a very high mountain and *showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory;
Mat 4:9 and he said to Him, "All these things I will give You, if You fall down and worship me."
Again here scripture mentions how satan deceives the nations
Rev 20:3 and he threw him into the abyss, and shut {it} and sealed {it} over him, so that he would not deceive the nations any longer, until the thousand years were completed; after these things he must be released for a short time.
How about in relation to the unsaved?
Satan's ministry in this area is to blind the minds of the unsaved so they can't understand or receive the truth of the Gospel.
2Cr 4:3 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing,
2Cr 4:4 in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
How does satan blind people?
2Cr 11:13 For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ.
2Cr 11:14 No wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.
He uses false apostles, he uses deceitful workers, people who claim to belong to Christ. Beware! Are you watching for the enemy from within?
In the parable of the soils it talks about how people hear the Gospel but satan comes and snatches it away from them.
Luk 8:12 "Those beside the road are those who have heard; then the devil comes and takes away the word from their heart, so that they will not believe and be saved.
What is keeping you from trusting Christ alone and never lifting up the work of a church or a man or anyone or anything other than Christ's death for your sins?
Act 13:6 When they had gone through the whole island as far as Paphos, they found a magician, a Jewish false prophet whose name was Bar-Jesus,
Act 13:7 who was with the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, a man of intelligence. This man summoned Barnabas and Saul and sought to hear the word of God.
Act 13:8 But Elymas the magician (for so his name is translated) was opposing them, seeking to turn the proconsul away from the faith.
Act 13:9 But Saul, who was also {known as} Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, fixed his gaze on him,
Act 13:10 and said, "You who are full of all deceit and fraud, you son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, will you not cease to make crooked the straight ways of the Lord?
False teachers distorting the way and leading people astray!
Make no mistake, satan desires to use men to distort the pure faith and turn it into religion. Religion feels good and sounds right, but will not save you from the hell earned by our sins. Christ has already purchased your soul from hell with His blood, you need no act, no work, no sacrament to save. No church, no man, no ritual, no prayers, no water....you need to believe in the death, burial and resurrection of Christ for the complete forgiveness of your sins.
2Ti 2:25 with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth,
2Ti 2:26 and they may come to their senses {and escape} from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will.
I will make no more argument of my own. I stand on God's word. Please study it, and examine you heart. Ask God for wisdom. Beware of possible devilish schemes around you. How will you know what is true? The Bible is true, know it and you will know fraud. Pray for wisdom. May the Holy Spirit fill you and give you the answers you seek.
God bless.
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