SATAN

“The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.”

- From the 1995 movie The Usual Suspects

Satan is glorious. Attractive. Inviting. Agreeable. Charming. Brilliant.

And real.

Satan: “adversary” or “accuser.” That’s what the word means. It was a description, a position, a title, the Satan. But it has grown into a proper name.

We thought we had done away with him in the 20^th century. Science and psychology explained everything. We no longer needed a boogieman. Unexplained physical phenomenon would somehow be made clear by quantum physics, whatever that is. Evil was just the brains of men with a chemical imbalance. Our pharmaceuticals will save us once we figure out the correct doses.

We were wrong.

He’s back.

He never left. Wishing things away never works.

We can see his face grinning at us in the mushroom cloud and the viruses provided by science. Our science? Or did it come from somewhere else, from someone else?

We can see his cold, dead emptiness in the eyes of the serial killer who left bodies across twelve states, despite all the chemicals he was prescribed by the specialists.

We are a culture enslaved to pharmaceuticals. The New Testament translates the Greek word pharmakeia as “sorcery.” No kidding.

Who is this creature? Why does he exist? Where did he come from?

“You were the signet of perfection, 
full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.
You were in Eden, the garden of God.”   Ezekiel 28

“You were the first in the ways of God.”   Job 40

Imagine being the most precious thing in all creation. A vast cosmic intelligence. The stars step aside for you. You are THE guardian cherub of The Most High. The one that all others look through, to see Him. You are the door. The way. The light.

“You were the anointed guardian cherub.
I placed you; you were on the holy mountain of God;
in the midst of the stones of fire you walked.”   Ezekiel 28

But then, He makes a man. A Hu-man.

And He makes him in the image of His Son. Not you.

And He makes him from dirt.

This is not right. This is an offense against all that is spiritual, all that is glorious, all that matters. This man and his wife down there, made of dirt; walking on dirt. Naked, and not ashamed. Are they the ones to be in charge of creation?

This cannot be. You will ruin them, corrupt them. They will become unusable to Him. They will die. Then the worlds will be laid again at your feet, where they belong.

And so it was.

Men were corrupted. Women defiled. The image of God polluted and dying.

But in killing the image you had destroyed yourself.

“Your heart was proud because of your beauty;
you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor. 
I cast you to the ground.”     Ezekiel 28

Now what?

Now you accuse. That’s all you have left. Accuse the men. Accuse the women. Look at them. Look at their sin: the hate, the fear, the lust, the greed, the lies, the selfishness. They cannot be accepted. They must be condemned.

Look at them.
They sin.
They die.
They rot.
There is no future in them. 

Man is lost. 

But God kept meeting with them. He kept calling them.
Noah.
Job.
Abraham.
Isaac.
Jacob.
David.
It never stopped. What is He doing? Humans are a dry well. Empty vessels. They are as spiritual as a snail. 

Mortal.
Frail.
Mist.
A vapor.
That’s what men are.

Why bother with them when there are countless, glorious, eternal beings, almost as glorious as you are, yourself? So, you keep on corrupting. You keep on killing. You keep on accusing. You have no other cards to play. Then, one day, a birth:

“And the Word became flesh.”  John 1

He became one of them!
A Galilean. 
Dirt. 

Has the Creator lost His mind? The creation will be undone. The Heavens will be polluted. All glory will fade and die. Have all his accusations been for naught? They were certainly true. Surely God must see that. 

He will tempt the Galilean. He will corrupt the Galilean. He is the Son, but He is also a man. If that doesn’t work, then he will kill the Galilean. 

Heaven and Earth must remain divorced. 

The Galilean spends His days undoing all your corruption. Demons are cast out like chaff. Eyes are opened. People are forgiven. Sinners are saved.  He gives His students the power to do the same. He is bringing a Kingdom. He is bringing Heaven to Earth. 

And then it happens:

“I saw Satan fall from Heaven like lightning.”   

Jesus said that after He sent seventy disciples into the world to preach and heal. Seventy. The number that signifies “the nations” in scripture. He is claiming authority over all the people whom Satan has accused. 

Satan is cast down to Earth.
He can still deceive.
He can still kill. 
He can still dilute.  

But he can no longer accuse. 

Our sin has been laid on Christ. 
It has been taken into the grave.
It has been left there. 
We have been purchased. 
We have been redeemed.
We have been made clean. 
We have been made sons and daughters of Heaven. 

God no longer has room in His courtroom for the accuser. 
Satan is now a prosecutor without a case. 
The Judge has shut him down.
The Judge has cast him out.

Jesus is the reason we have a Heavenly Father, not a Heavenly lawyer. 

We hear the voice of Satan three times in the Bible: Once in the garden when he is slandering God to man. Then in Job when he is slandering man to God. Lastly, in the wilderness with the Galilean. There Satan encounters God and man together in one person. He is forced to flee. 

Satan is a liar.
Satan is a murderer. 
Satan is a dragon.
Satan is a god.
Satan is real.
That’s what the Bible teaches. 

“And the dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world - he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him…Then the dragon became furious with the woman and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring.”    Revelation 12 

You are not just on a battlefield. You are a battlefield. We are being fought on, and fought over by two kingdoms.

Satan sings soft materialistic lullabies to deaden the souls of men and women. Our technology caresses us all day, every day, with the original lie: You shall be as gods.

A casual glance at events on any given Tuesday will confirm the existence of intelligent evil in this world. We ignore the brilliance of the conjurer at our own peril. We cannot blame everything around us merely on human wickedness. It will not work. An objective evaluation of the reality of sin reveals that it is:

“too masterly marshalled, too subtly planned, too skillfully directed, too logically remorseless, for any such facile explanation. There is design; there is diplomacy; there is cunning; there are stratagems and campaigns. There must be a master mind behind these activities.”  
                        F.A. Tatford - The Prince of Darkness 

Why does God allow this creature to continue to exist? I do not know. Such decisions are above my pay grade. But why does He allow any rebellious creature to exist? Why me? Why you? 

For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been His counselor?  Romans 11

One day soon the dragon will be thrown into the lake of fire, and there shall be peace. But until that day we must be aware of his lies. We must resist his glory, and his wrath. 

Satan is not an ugly, goat-footed, horned beast. He is glorious, and he knows it. He does not come to us with horror. He comes with a smile; speaking nice words, soft words: love, kindness, inclusion, tolerance. Everyone’s truth is true. Everything is acceptable.

Except Jesus. 
There is no smile for that Name.
There is no love for that Name.
There is no tolerance for that Name. 

That is the one Name that must be shouted down; the one Name we do not mention in polite society. Have you ever noticed that? 

The one faith it is permissible to openly mock and ridicule. The one God who's name is used as a curse by this world. 

The one Name, the only Name, that all the powers reject, revile, and fear, is the Name of the Galilean construction worker. The dirt man. 

I wonder why.