Satan Shows Up (MP 9)

Before the Garden was, Satan was there;
Unseen, watching all that the Lord God did;
He smirked to see Man made with such great care,
Noting weaknesses in him not e’en hid!
He hated Adam and the race of men,
For God made them to be higher than he;
To snatch them away by their love of sin,
Became his plan, the more Satan did see!
With their unaided wills, men must oppose
The tempts and tests the devil throws at them!
Satan could assume any form he chose,
But God knows just what’s going on with him!
He makes evil most attractive to men;
Few will resist or with success contend!

Scripture Quoted: 1 Peter 5:8-9 (NIV)
“Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same sufferings.”

Commrntary

Lucifer began as God’s chief angel in heaven, but as we have seen in an earlier blog, he rebelled against his Creator, tried to topple Him, lost, and got cast out of heaven. He and millions of supporting angels were hurled to the newly formed earth. Lucifer’s name was changed to Satan. Instead of giving up his foolish idea of fighting God for supremacy, he continued opposing God by trying to ensnare the souls of men and women, that they might be condemned as he and the other fallen angels were. Knowing that God detests sin, cannot abide it, and has decreed that the “wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23), he surrounds human beings with opportunities to engage in sinful actions. He and his helpers, called “demons”, furnish the evils by which people are tested while living on the earth.
You may wonder why God did not execute all of the traitors instead of allowing them to continue doing damage against His effort to create the human race and adopt them into His family to dwell with Him for eternity. Had God executed them, the earth would be happier; there would be no evil and no temptation to do evil. But if that were so, how could God be sure that those who He adopted chose the good? If there was no evil in the world, man would not be forced to choose between evil and good. Lucifer was created for the express purpose of providing evil. I must say he does a wonderfully “good” job of providing evil to the world. Most men and women prefer his “broad road” to hell rather than God’s “narrow” path to heaven (Matthew 7:13-14). The battle between God and Satan, far from being cut short, as would have happened if God had slain him by Satan’s abrupt eradication, started in heaven before time began; resumed in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve were tempted; has continued growing with the human race; is now raging, even in visible warfare, as the Middle East conflict between Muslim nations and tiny Israel; and will continue until the end of Time; at which point Satan and his demons will be thrown into the Lake of Fire, along with all the human beings that have chosen sin over God (Revelation 20:14).

In the Scripture quoted above Peter graphically describes Satan as a roaring lion devouring people; of course, that is not literal, but a person who ignores God and fills his or her time with worldly pursuits is certainly “devoured” by condemnation to hell. Modern-day culture frowns on Christian gospel by its philosophical stance against anything which is not inclusive of all religions as “truth”. “There is no other name under heaven given to men through whom we must be saved than Jesus Christ,” Peter told the Jewish Sanhedrin (Acts 4:12); in postmodernity (the philosophy that governs today's society), this statement is a no-no, because it is dogmatic and absolute. It is true though.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him will not die, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)

“That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord’, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9)