Satan represents the spiritual adversary who tempts, deceives, and seeks to hinder believers' faith and witness, emphasizing the reality of spiritual warfare (Ephesians 6:11). Illustrations often depict him as a cunning deceiver, a hijacker of souls, and a tempter offering worldly allurements, while highlighting Christ's victory and believers' call to resist through faith and spiritual vigilance (James 4:7).
Humanity is hijacked by Satan but can be rescued only through Christ's sacrifice.
The human race is aboard a hijacked jet flying through time. God Himself directed its takeoff from the divine control tower. The initiator of all evil, whom we call Satan, managed to get a boarding pass. When cruising height was reached, he produced his weapons, threatened the pilot, and took control of the jumbo jet and all of its passengers. So it hopped on uncomfortably through history from airport to airport till it was caught on the tarmac at Jerusalem, an outpost of the Roman empire, in the reign of Tiberius Caesar, where the Son of God offered Himself as sole hostage in exchange for passengers and crew. The further you push the parallel the more fanciful it seems. But the basic idea of the human race aboard a hijacked jumbo flying through time is sound enough. The passengers must keep a wary eye on the hijacker, induce the pilot to take his directions from God's control tower, and be ready to accept rescue through the sacrifice of the willing Hostage. That is their only escape route.
Only God holds the authority to grant access to the heart, not Satan.
When the devil came to Martin Luther and asked him to open the door of his heart so that he could come in and discuss some very important matters with him, he said, "I don't have the keys to the door; God has them. Ask Him if you wish." Needless to say, Satan took to his heels.
Resisting the devil proves his reality and is essential for holiness.
A man came to Charles Finney, the well-known evangelist, and said, "I don't believe in the existence of a devil." "Don't you?" asked Finney. "Well, you resist him for a while, and you will believe in it." That's what the second commandment of James is: "Resist the devil, and he will flee from you" (James 4:7). A godly life is characterized by its conflicts with sin. The place most frequented by Satan is where holiness dwells.
Satan occupies empty hearts; being filled with God prevents his intrusion.
Suppose you had been house hunting in a development of new homes, and when you found an empty one you tried to get into it. If the house was full, occupied by people, you wouldn't dare try to get in. That's exactly what Satan does. He looks for vacuums. He looks for empty houses. They may be clean, but if God is not within you, having made you His temple, you can be sure the devil is going to occupy you. Be filled with the Spirit of God. That's the admonition and meaning of this parable of our Lord in Luke 11:24-26.
Satan's trick is to lull Christians into spiritual complacency instead of battle.
Luther says in one of his sermons: "The devil held a great anniversary at which his emissaries were convened to report the results of their several missions. 'I let loose the wild beasts of the desert,' said one, 'on a caravan of Christians, and their bones are now bleaching on the sands.' 'What of that?' said the devil. 'Their souls were all saved.' 'I drove the east wind,' said another, 'against a ship freighted with Christians, and they were all drowned.' 'What of that?' said the devil. 'Their souls were all saved.' 'For ten years I tried to get a single Christian asleep,' said a third, 'and I succeeded, and left him so.' "Then the devil shouted," continues Luther, "and the night stars of hell sang for joy." One of the tricks of Satan is to make us believe that submission to God means a spiritual stupor. Far from it. It is a battle; it is resistance and first of all to Satan himself.
Depression is Satan's most effective tool to control and harm believers.
An old fable says that the devil once offered his tools for sale, intending to give up his business. He displayed these tools-malice, hatred, jealousy, deceit, and several others, with the prices marked on them. One of them was set apart, marked with a higher price than the others. When the devil was asked why this was, he said, "Because that is my most useful tool; it is called depression; with that I can do anything with people." How true! Let us watch, therefore, when it makes its appearance and take our stand against depression; it is often from the devil.
The Devil constantly roams the earth seeking to devour and cause division among people.
The Devil is no idle spirit, but a walker, a vagrant runagate walker, like Cain, that cannot rest in a place. I have heard of travellers that have seen many parts of the world, but never any perpetual peripatetic, or universal walker, but Satan; who hath travelled all coasts and corners of the earth, and would of heaven too, if he might be admitted. He is not, like St. George's statue, ever on horseback, and never riding; but, as if he were knight-marshal of the whole world, he is ever walking. His motion is circular, and his unwearied steps know no rest. He hath a large and endless circuit. His walk is a siege, that goes about the fort to find the weakest place, as easiest for battery. "He walketh about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour." His walks are the circumference, and man the centre. The motive, cause, and main intention of his journey, is to win man. As he walks through the streets, there he throws a short measure, a false balance, into a tradesman's shop. He steps into a drinking-house, and kindles a quarrel. He shoulders to the bar, and pops in a forged evidence, a counterfeit seal. He dares enter the schools, and commence schisms and contentions; nay, climb up into the pulpit, and broach sects and divisions. He travels no ground but like a stinking fog or dying oppressor he leaves a scent behind him. T. Adams.
The Devil actively works through unbelievers to produce evil thoughts and actions.
And, in general, we may observe, that as no good is done or spoken or thought by any man without the assistance of God working together in and with those that believe in him, so there is no evil done or spoken or thought without the assistance of the Devil, who worketh with energy — with strong though secret power — in the children of unbelief. Thus he entered into Judas, confirming him in the design of betraying his Master. Thus he put it into the heart of Ananias and Sapphira to lie unto the Holy Ghost. And, in like manner, he has a share in all the actions and words and designs of evil men. As the children of God are workers together with God in every good thought or word or action, so the children of the Devil are workers together with him in every evil thought or word or work. So that, as all good tempers, and, remotely, all good words and actions, are the fruit of the Good Spirit; in like manner, all evil tempers, with all the words and works which spring from them, are the fruits of the Evil Spirit; insomuch that all the works of the flesh, of our evil nature, are likewise the work of the Devil. J. Wesley.
Some men embody the Devil’s evil nature, walking among us unseen but destructive.
Dark, profoundly hellish, as is the character of Satan in the Scriptures, and in human books of imagination, do you not think that there are men who are the Devil's masters in art, in craft, in lying, in every thing which is devilish? Have you not sometimes felt as though you could do his Satanic majesty reverence and respect in comparison with them? Talk of devils being confined to hell, or confined to inviability! We have them by shoals in the crowded towns and cities of the world. Talk of raising the Devil! What need for that when they are constantly walking to and fro in our streets, seeking whom they may devour! There they are: do you not see them? you do not recognize them, simply because they have not the foot or the tail.
Malevolence reflects Satan's misery and enmity against God and all goodness.
Malevolence is misery. It is the mind of Satan. He is the great enemy, an outcast from all joy, and opponent of all goodness and all blessedness. His mind is enmity against God; enmity against angels, fallen and unfallen; enmity against man, both redeemed and reprobate; and, because thus hateful and hating, utterly unhappy. And the carnal mind is so far satanic because it is enmity against God; just as the misanthrope is so far satanic because he is enmity against his fellows.
— Dr. J. Hamilton
Murmuring makes a person resemble Satan and is his own punishment.
Murmuring is the first-born of the Devil; and nothing renders a man more like to him than murmuring. Constantine's sons did not more resemble their father, nor Aristotle's scholars their master, nor Alexander's soldiers their general, than murmurers do resemble Satan. And as murmuring is Satan's sin, so it is his punishment. What a dreadful thing it is to bear Satan's image, and to be given up to his punishment! Brooks.
Even the wicked may hope for mercy from Satan, revealing ignorance of his cruelty.
A priest told a dying Spaniard how the Devil tormented the wicked that went to hell. The Spaniard replied, "I hope, my lord the Devil is not so cruel." Then the priest reproved him for calling the Devil "my lord."—"Excuse me," said the don: "I know not into what hands I fall; and, if I happen into his, I hope he will use me the better for giving him good words."
Satan cannot perfectly imitate truth; discernment reveals his deception and base nature.
It is observed by some, that God never suffered the Devil to assume any human shape, but with some character whereby his body might be distinguished from the true body of a man; and surely the Devil cannot so exactly counterfeit an angel of light, but that, by a discerning mind, he may be distinguished from him: as they say a beggar can never act a prince so cunningly, but that his behavior, sometimes sliding into the coarse way and principles of his education, will betray the meanness of his pedigree to one of a truly noble extraction. A base imitation will always fall short of the copy from whence it is taken; and though sin and error may take up the mantle of truth, and clothe themselves with it, yet he that is inwardly acquainted with truth, and an ingenuous lover and pursuer of it, will be able to find out the imposture, he will be able to see through the veil into the naked deformity of them. John Smith.
The Spirit’s sword exposes hidden evil like the angel’s spear revealed Satan’s true form.
Milton relates, how that, suspecting Satan to be in the garden of
Eden, two angels instituted a search. They found a toad at the ear of Eve, as she, together with her husband, reposed in one of its bowers, whispering evil in her ear. One of the angels (Ithuriel) touched the toad with his spear; and up rose, in all his fallen grandeur and malignity, the Tempter, the Devil. We are exposed to evil: when we would do good, evil is present with us. It is sometimes difficult to detect; but touch it with the sword of the Spirit, that is more powerful than Ithuriel's spear, and the evil will appear in its true colors.
— Biblical Treasury
Satan feeds on the corruption and spiritual death of mankind like a raven on carrion.
The raven croaks and flaps his wings above corruption, and riots in luxury on the carcasses of the dead; so Satan feeds his infernal appetite upon the corrupt and dead souls of mankind. Dr. Guthrie.
Satan is often misrepresented as ugly, but his true danger lies beyond mere appearance.
We remember hearing the late Bishop Villiers remarking on the dangerous tendency of those old pictures, so familiar to us all, and so often exhibited to children, in which Satan was represented as some grim, dark, ugly monster, the very sight of whom was terrible to behold. A broad-shouldered Scotchman, looking at Ary Scheffer's painting of the "Temptation of the Lord," said, as he pointed to the figure of Satan, "If that chief cam to me in sic an ugly shape, I think he wud hae a teuch job wi' me too."—"I could not," adds John de Liefde, the narrator of the incident, "help smiling; but I felt there was much truth in the remark."
— Biblical Treasury
Christ’s death on the cross decisively defeated Satan’s power and secured victory for believers.
When the devils saw Christ on the cross, there stood the exulting fiend, smiling to himself. "Ah! I have the King of glory now in my dominions; I have the power of death, and I have the power over the Lord Jesus." He exerted that power, till the Lord Jesus had to cry out in bitter anguish, "My God, my God! why hast thou forsaken me?" But, ah! how short-lived was hellish victory! how brief was the Satanic triumph! He died; and "It is finished!" shook the gates of hell. Down from the cross, the conqueror leaped, pursued the fiend with thunderbolts of wrath: swift to the shades of hell the fiend did fly, and swift descending went the conqueror after him: and, seizing him, he chained him to his chariot-wheel; dragged him up the steeps of glory; angels shouting all the while, "He hath led captivity captive, and received gifts for men." Now, Devil, thou saidst thou wouldst overcome me when I came to die. Satan, I defy thee, and laugh thee to scorn! My master overcame thee, and I shall overcome thee yet. Spurgeon
Satan’s promises deceive, turning hoped-for blessings into torment and destruction.
"I have read of King Canute," says an excellent minister, "that promised to make him the highest man in England who should kill King Edmund his rival; which when one had performed, and expected his reward, he commanded him to be hung on the highest tower in London. So Satan promises great things to people in pursuit of their lusts; but he puts them off with great mischief. The promised crown turns to a halter, the promised comfort to a torment, the promised honor into shame, the promised consolation into desolation, and the promised heaven turns into a hell." Whitecross.
Satan will not help if God does not aid, illustrating divided loyalty's futility.
"To offer a candle to God, and another to the Devil." This proverb is illustrated by a painting which Robert de la Mark caused to be executed, representing
St. Margaret and the Devil, and himself on his knees before them with a candle in each hand, and a scroll issuing from his mouth, containing the words, "If God will not aid me, the Devil surely will not fail me."
Satan's loudest attacks come amid spiritual storms, like a lion roaring in thunder.
Satan is compared to a raging lion. It is said that the lion always roars loudest in a storm, amid the crash of thunder and the flash of lightning. So it is with Satan when the storm of truth shakes the houses of the wicked.
Satan surveys our soul's weakest points to launch his most effective temptations.
An enemy, before he besiegeth a city, surroundeth it at a distance to see where the wall is the weakest, best to be battered, lowest, easiest to be sealed; ditch narrowest to be bridged, shallowest to be waded over; what place, if not regularly fortified, where he may approach with least danger, and assault with most advantage: so Satan walketh about surveying all the powers of our souls, where he may most probably lay his temptations, — as whether our understandings are easier corrupted with error, or our fancies with levity, or our wills with frowardness, or our affections with excess. Spencer.
Missionaries explained why God permits Satan’s existence despite his evil influence.
An islander in the South Seas, once proposed the following query to the missionaries:—"You say God is a holy and a powerful Being; that Satan is the cause of a vast increase of moral evil or wickedness in the world, by exciting or disposing men to sin. If Satan be only a dependent creature, and the cause of so much evil, which is displeasing to God, why does God not kill Satan at once, and thereby prevent all the evil of which he is the author?" In answer he was told, "that the facts of Satan's dependence on, or subjection to the Almighty, and his yet being permitted to tempt men to evil, were undeniable from the declarations of Scripture, and the experience of every one accustomed to observe the operations of his own mind.
standing the word of God—and many,
I trust, that they may obey it. We think that a deep interest is felt in consequence of all being together. The adults give character to the school. The younger members feel the importance of the study in which the older ones are engaged.
The happy effects of the Sabbath school in this town are perceptible in all classes of persons. The aged have opened their eyes upon a new world.
The Bible has become the delightful study of many who, till within three years, scarcely ever perused it: those who are past the meridian of life often remark to me that they find subjects of thought and inquiry which never suggested themselves to them till they studied for the purpose of teaching others, or to give answers to questions.
Our adult classes are on the plan of mutual instruction—and I think there is quite as much interest manifested among them as among the youth. This has had a very salutary effect on the younger scholars.
# AGENCY OF.
Such an one, it was observed, would often find himself exposed to an influence that could be attributed only to satanic agency; but that why he was permitted to exert this influence on man, was not made known in the Bible."
