Truth Unites - Satan: Answering the Biggest Questions

Episode Date: January 6, 2025

Here I answer twenty common questions about Satan (also called the devil, Lucipher, etc.). Sorry for the clicking noise! I was accidentally clicking my highlighter without realizing it! Other videos referenced: Why Envy is the Most Miserable Sin: https://youtu.be/pXp5_412HA8?si=IraiuMhh6nyUzbKZ The Apostles Creed: EVERY Word Explained: https://youtu.be/VJvzSEElvj4?si=rJEoPBx6qOMypfOa Did Satan's Fall Corrupt Nature? https://youtu.be/p0G-3eFHeq8?si=bSzltcakKqijPxoc Christ is the Victor! (A Sermon on Colossians 2:15): https://youtu.be/xc_U_jzpZro?si=ImQ7CyzczndKCOQd Truth Unites exists to promote gospel assurance through theological depth. Gavin Ortlund (PhD, Fuller Theological Seminary) is President of Truth Unites and Theologian-in-Residence at Immanuel Nashville. SUPPORT: Tax Deductible Support: https://truthunites.org/donate/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/truthunites FOLLOW: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/truth.unites/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/gavinortlund Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TruthUnitesPage/ Website: https://truthunites.org/

This video is designed to be an introduction to Satan. Basically, what I would hope every person knows about what the Bible teaches about who Satan is. A Christian view of Satan. The one-stop shop for everything you need to know. Maybe not everything. Can't cover everything in a video. But try to be as comprehensive as we can be. On the screen will be 20 questions.

You can see we're going to work through. The first 10 are more metaphysical questions. The second 10 are more practical. Some of them are pretty normal like you'd expect. Others are really interesting that I had a fun time researching because I've worked hard to try to make this video worth your time. We'll talk about things like, does Satan have a personality? Can he read your mind? Is he afraid? Is he happy or unhappy? Can he predict the future? It's an interesting question. My favorite is number 17. Jesus has defeated Satan. That is, if you get nothing else, I hope that resoundingly remains with you after watching this video. There will be nothing spooky or sensationalistic in this video. The goal is just theological accuracy. Just very plain talk about who is Satan according to Christianity. And this is healthy and good because for the truth about Satan to be exposed is a good thing. So I've worked really hard to organize this, try to convey what the scripture teaches in dialogue with historic theology.

We're going to shy away from speculation, though it's amazing how much we can say about Satan from Scripture. That's one of the things I learned in my research here, is just how far we can go. And unfortunately, there is a lot of ignorance and misunderstanding about Satan, including among Christians. So hopefully this video will help and just address also. What I will address is the fascination with Satan, unhealthy preoccupation with Satan that's increasing today as well. So we'll address that. Before I dive in, let me give a pastoral word to two types of viewers, and this is informed by this wise statement from C.S. Lewis, basically saying there's two equal and opposite errors we can make about demons.

One is to disbelieve. the others to believe but feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. He calls this the materialist error or the magician error. For those, first of all, let me address those who have an unhealthy interest in Satan. And I'll address this again with question 19. I just have a burden for people to say, don't, you know, flee, run away. So the first thing out of the gate I want to say is that I hope this video would drain any sense of admiration or respect for Satan. And even I hope it would promote a kind of careful contempt for him, maybe even a little bit of guarded and intentional and sober mocking of Satan. I want to be careful here because I don't want to be flippant about this serious topic,

but I think it's appropriate for us to realize that Satan is a fool. And to emphasize that fact, all evil is folly, and the font of all evil, Satan is the ultimate fool. If you're ever watching a video clip, like someone pops up in a little Facebook short or something and it's somebody doing something really dumb, and you find yourself just saying, what were they thinking? That's, if nothing else, what we should think about Satan after we finish this video, because you have to say, what kind of a fool do you have to be to fight against omnipotence? What kind of a fool do you have to be to choose hell over heaven? And I think it's appropriate for us to have kind of a rolling of the eyes attitude about Satan,

like, man, he never learns, you know, so on and so forth. So anytime you feel that during the video, I think that's appropriate. But ultimately, then the redirect is to be fascinated with Jesus, to love Jesus, to be grateful for Jesus, to think much of Jesus. That's the ultimate goal of this video. And we'll have more pastoral counsel to that end at the end of the video. Second pastoral word to certain kinds of viewers here at the beginning, before we dive right into the 20 questions, for those who don't believe in Satan, remember C.S. Lewis said there's these two different errors that the demons welcome, the materialist or the magician. I am very aware a lot of people who watch this will be people who are more in the materialist camp who don't believe in Satan or demons and maybe even find this absolutely bonkers and maybe will make fun of me and other Christians who believe this and so forth.

I would say first of all, belief in angels and demons really comes in the larger package of theism. So if you believe in God, an infinite spirit, it's really not going much further to suppose that he created other spirits. There's a lot about that that's intuitive. It's in most of the world's religions. And so to puncture the contempt a little bit, I can say there's really good reasons to believe in God, things like contingency, fine-tuning, consciousness, morality, these testimonies of God, the creator, around our world, and frankly, in our hearts. And angels and demons kind of comes in that package. That's kind of how I argue for this? I will say, I do think people who are smarter and more aware than I am can make a sociological case for demons directly, because it explains a lot about human history, but I tend to

argue more inferentially. Argue for God, and then belief in Satan is seen to be not irrational in that light. But I will just say that I think the opposite, the other thing I can observe is that opposition to belief in a literal personal Satan and other demons and other angels is more of a mood than an argument. It's less frequently argued for and more just kind of mocked. And I will say, I think it's often a form of prejudice. And the reason I say that is because it's very Western and very modern. You know, almost all human cultures have believed in supernatural evil. So if we think that's ridiculous, we have to, you know, realize we're kind of saying most of humanity has been ridiculous. us. Here's one benefit to believing in Satan. You don't have to attribute all evil in human history

only to human agency. So in other words, this is a reason why believing in Satan could actually be a relief. You can look back at the utter horrors that happen, unfortunately, a lot in human history, the ritualistic sacrificing of infants in religious contexts as an example. Something the Bible says is satanic. That happens. And if you believe in Satan, you can say, okay, that's not just human beings doing that and so many other horrors in human history as well, something to consider. All right. Let's dive in. 20 questions. Number one, what is Satan? Let's start right out of the gate. And whenever I can answer these questions really briefly, like as a form of catechesis, give the question, give the answer, and then just develop the answer. Believe me, I have a pastoral

burden as I make this. I've worked hard on this to try to make it responsible. nothing sensational, but I will be interesting, I think, but trying to give what I really think is pastorally and theologically needed for people to understand. So I'm going to try to be as clear as I can, and I won't shy away from controversial or even potentially silly questions that are a little embarrassing to answer. Well, you'll see some of those. So the brief answer to this, what is Satan or who is Satan? Is Satan is a fallen angel? In the medieval era, Anselmnodot treatise called on the fall of the devil. And the first thing he says, right out of the gate is there are two things, two kinds of reality, creator and created. Everything falls into one of

those buckets, and Satan is in the latter category. He is a creature. He is not eternal. This is the most important thing to understand right out of the gate. And it's so important because we have to avoid, we're stepping back here, by the way, because right now there actually is a lot of interest in Satan. There actually is a lot of interest in these other, other completely different ways of looking at reality and so, and even other options other than like Christianity, atheism, and other traditional religions, there's a lot of like neo-paganism floating around right now. So one of the things we want to distinguish Christianity from is manichaeism, which has this idea of good and evil as like eternal opposites. It's kind of a dualistic worldview that the early Christians completely

rejected. Christianity is very clear, very firm on this point. Good is original. Evil is an invasion into reality. Evil is ultimately a parasite. Ultimately, it's a privation. It's a non-entity. It's just a twisting of good. And that's a Christian way of looking at the world. So according to Christian theology, Satan was originally a good angel. God created him as good, and then he became evil. He's a fallen angel. This is very clear in scripture. You can see the word angels underlined in these two passages on the screen, which reference a fall into evil among the angels, just like there has been one among the human beings. And Jude 6 really clarifies the nature of the fall. Note the words position and proper dwelling that I have emboldened here.

There was a place that was proper for Satan, we can say. He had a position within created reality, but he left that place. He abandoned his post, so to speak. He found. He abandoned his post, so to speak. He fell. Perhaps the simplest and most direct assertion of the satanic fall, Satan as an angel becoming evil, is in Luke 10 from the words of our Lord. And so much is fascinating about these eight words that I have emboldened in red font. Believe me, I've been, what I do is I do my devotions over and over in the same passage. Lately, I've been doing that. And I've been in Luke 10 lately reading through this passage and the context over and over. I see new things every day. There's so much we could unpack in these eight.

words. I'll put it back up here. First, just the simple words, I saw. Amazing to think that the fall of Satan was in some sense a visible event. That also implies the pre-existence of Christ. The verb fall is significant, and that's when we will often use. The language from heaven is significant, but the metaphor of lightning, what a comparison. One of the themes of this video will be that we should avoid speculation in the sense of being dogmatic when we're going beyond scripture and beyond what we have warrant to know. But it's okay to invite speculative questions that are simply interesting to think about as long as we're clear that we don't know what the answer is. So it's fine to do like a thought experiment and sort of have speculative questions and then

just say, well, we can't know for sure. So we can ask a question like, you know, because sometimes just an unanswered question can itself be helpful and illuminating and clarifying. So we can just ask, you know, what was that event like? What did it look like? If Jesus said, he saw it, and it was like lightning, you know, what does that mean exactly? How should our minds conceptualize that? Lightning is very fast and very bright. If you've ever been close to a massive lightning strike, you know, you understand the power of that. How fascinating that our Lord would use this image to convey the suddenness and the power of Satan's fall. No, I think we need to be careful. we can't fully understand and conceptualize it in our minds. But it's also interesting that Jesus

references the fall of Satan in this context of the disciples driving out other demons. That's one of the things that struck me as I'm reading this passage of my devotions. It's like, we have authority over demons. Jesus says, I saw Satan fall like lightning. This brings up the question that we'll return to is one of our questions in this video. It's going to be a long video and a lot of good stuff, hopefully to work through here from the scripture. But it brings up the question of the relationship between Satan and other demons. More complicated question than you might think will return to that. But perhaps the most interesting passages about Satan's fall that make it clear he's a fallen angel are Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28. Now, whether these passages are just about Satan

is disputed today. I'll put them up on the screen in a second, by the way. Isaiah 14 originally was about the king of Babylon in its context, or one of the kings of Babylon, and Ezekiel 28 about the Prince of Tyre, and so people a lot of times say, well, no, those aren't really about Satan. But all throughout church history, people have seen a reference to the Satanic fall here. And I don't have time to fully make the case, but just two reasons why I think that historic instinct is correct. First, not everything in these passages can easily apply to a human ruler. Much of the language here seems more cosmic in scope.

And in any event, it's actually not clear which Babylonian king and Isaiah 14 is in view, for example. people don't agree about that. Second, in the Bible, there are various ways that a passage can have a dual reference or kind of a complicated reference in some way or another. There's lots of different categories for this. So I think it'd be unwise for us to come along and say, well, that's actually about this, it has this more historical reference to this particular Babylonian ruler. Therefore, it has nothing to do with Satan. Biblical prophecies very complicated and subtle. It can often reference more than one reality. For example, you can find prophecies that are about both the corporate people

of God and her Messiah as her representative together. And it's not one or the other. It's a both and. There's lots of other examples like this. One way you can read these passages, which are, it's important to say this because these are really significant passages, Isaiah 14, Ezekiel 28, is that they're describing a particularly evil and Satan-like ruler in terms of the narrative of Satan himself. So in other words, a human evil is being described in a kind of poetic flashback to the original evil. The lesser evil is described in the imagery of the greater evil. It's like in the prophetic vision, a particular historical expression of pride and brutality is conflated with the ultimate. original pride and brutality. Think how you, if you hold up a candle to the sun, now you're looking

at both the candle and the sun, and they kind of have one light from your vision. That's sometimes how a prophet will see things. So I think we can learn from these passages about Satan, even respecting their complexity. And these passages also refer to an angel or a guardian cherub who is in the Garden of Eden. That's especially clear in Ezekiel 28, and it's is probably also reflected in Isaiah 14 with the reference to the day star here. Michael Heiser in his book Unseen Realm argues that this is a reference to the serpent, and he translates this little phrase, shining one, son of the dawn. What a phrase.

Isn't it poignant to imagine Satan in his pre-fallen glory? This glorious creature shining in the light. You know, one of the things Thomas Aquinas argues is that he was the greatest angel. we'll get to that. So it's like, imagine the most powerful angel you can imagine. Even if you disagree with Thomas, he's certainly a powerful angel, glorious, bright, righteous, good, and then like lightning, zap, snap, falls down, you know. It's such a fascinating thing to think about. More on those two passages later. The point for now and this first point is just simple, just to say, Satan was originally an angel. He's a fallen angel. He's not eternal. He is a creature. He was originally good. And this is so important because it helps us

understand what is one of the most common questions about Satan. That's why would God create Satan? You'll hear people ask this all the time. And the answer is, well, God created him as a good creature. And then Satan of his free choice rebelled against God. So C.S. Lewis has a great line where he says, someone once asked me, why did God make a creature of such rotten stuff that it went wrong? But the better stuff a creature is made of, the cleverer and stronger and freer it is, then the better it will be if it goes right, and also the worse it will be if it goes wrong. And he applies that to a superhuman spirit as well. This is the great emphasis in Anselm's book on the fall of the devil, that free will is not evil. It was good that God gave Satan free will. It's the misuse of

free will that is evil. It's not God's fault for giving Satan free will and Satan misusing the free will any more than it's your fault if your girlfriend cheats on you. Now if you want to ask, well, okay, why doesn't God immediately destroy Satan? Like as soon as he fell, why didn't he immediately extinguish him or something like that? That'll be the very last question we address here. Okay, question number two, why did Satan sin? We can answer this one briefly in one word, pride. The original sin appears to be an unwillingness to accept his place as a creature. and you see this a little bit with the language of Jude 6 again will put up left their proper dwelling. That adjective proper implies that Satan had a kind of role that was fitting to him, but he rejected it for something else.

And there's a long-standing tradition of reflection in the church that regards the original sin of Satan being pride, with envy also closely involved. These two vices, pride and envy, have often been seen as kind of the foundation of the original act of evil. Here's how Thomas Aquinas puts it, such is precisely the sin of pride, not to be subject to a superior where subjection is due. Consequently, the first sin of the angel can be none other than pride. After the sin of pride, there followed the sin of envy in the sinning angel. Thomas is drawing from St. Augustine, who in the city of God taught that the flesh is not the cause of all sin. Ultimately, the spiritual sins are the worst, and the soul is the ultimate cause. and so he says the devil is not a fornicator or drunkard, but he locates his chief sins as pride and envy.

If you wanted to step back from these particular terms, you might just envision this as Satan saying, I want to be God. Or something like, I want to play the role of God. I want to be like God in defining my own reality. I don't want to live as a creature underneath God. I want to set the shots myself, you know. Now, there's a lot of discussion in Anselm and Thomas about in what sense Satan may have wanted to be like God and they cash out different options, but that's the general idea. It's very clear. Here's how Anselm puts it. He willed inordinately to be like God. So the idea of pride and wanting to be like God comes up, by the way, in Isaiah 14. If you note what I emboldened here. You said in your heart, I will ascend to heaven above the stars of God. I will set my throne on high. I will make myself like. the most high. You know, a simple application point. I'm going to try to be pastoral in this to

draw out application points along the way. I actually think, for some reason, I don't even fully have the intuition of why, but I suspect this is true. I wonder if you agree with me. Something is good about, it's edifying to just remember that Satan exists and that demons exist. Something about it is clarifying and sobering and reminds us of things we need to know, and there's a lot of application we can draw from this. One simple thing is just that we should hate pride. Pride is the reason, you know, we often don't locate pride and envy as the worst sins or we forget about them, but pride, that unwillingness to say, I'm a creature, I'm not God, therefore I cannot define my own reality, therefore I need to submit to God. That act is kind of at the base of all

evil, and we should just be terrified of it. I mean, we should just absolutely be terrified of pride. Ah, if in this video does nothing else, I hope it would strike that into our hearts a little bit more. This is the essence of sin, making ourselves God. I love this quote from John Stott, speaking about Genesis 3 and the sin there, but then the cross as our salvation from sin. He says, the essence of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man. So this should make us hate pride. It should make us accept, humble ourselves before God, and acknowledge. This is the start of all wisdom.

to acknowledge, the Bible calls it fearing the Lord to say, you're God, I'm not. You define things. I don't call the shots of what reality is. I've also addressed the sin of envy, by the way, in this video, why envy is the most miserable sin if you're interested in that. I think that's a particular terrible vice in a social media age, and we often overlook it. All right, third question, when did Satan fall? Well, the phrase we can say is from the beginning, because that's what the Bible says, but that's not obvious how to understand that. I think we can say in answer to this that we don't know for sure, but it was sometime early on in the history of creation.

So it's in these Yohanin passages we find this phrase. Jesus is speaking of Satan as a murderer from the beginning. And in 1st John, he says the devil has been sinning from the beginning. Now, it's not easy to interpret these passages, but it is fascinating to wonder about this. Again, even where we can't answer a speculative question, it might be illuminating to reflect upon it and pose the question. So we might ask this question,

was there a backstory to Satan's fall? Did it come about more or less spontaneously? Or was there some sort of context or narrative that led to it? Was there a turn of events? Did something happen? Did something, what was the thought process? Were the angels engaged in worship or service in some way in something happened that led to this? Was there some orchestrated coup among those who eventually became demons?

What was the nature of the cooperation and communication between Satan and the other demons? It's at least worth wondering whether there was some kind of warfare that was attempted in heaven in connection to the fall. The reason I say that is it would explain why Jesus says he was a murderer from the beginning, and it would also explain why Ezekiel 2816 references violence with respect to the angelic fall. But again, we can't be certain. I will mention that Thomas Aquinas developed an article of the Summa Theologica to whether there was an interval of time between Satan's creation and fall. And he mentions different views about this, but basically says it was more probable that it happened immediately, right after his creation. So that's interesting.

But again, let's think expansively, ask lots of questions, but only put our weight down on what is clear in script. So we can't say exactly when it happened. Third question, what are Satan's names? Just a simple question. This just starts getting us into the scripture. That's why I pose this. And actually, the sheer terminology that's used for Satan is itself incredibly illuminating. When I started charting all of these out, I was like, wow, that sheds a lot of light

on who Satan is and what he does. Here are 10 of the more common terms on the screen, though this is not an exhaustive list. Satan comes from the Hebrew word meaning the accuser or the accuser. the adversary. The devil comes from a Greek word, meaning something like the slanderer. It's amazing, by the way, how many of Satan's titles have to do with speech. Beelzebub is a term the Pharisees used for Satan in Matthew 1224, where he's also called the Prince of Demons, and that label Prince of Demons comes up in Matthew 934 as well. That's an epithet derived from Baal Zebub, Lord of the Fly, who is a false god of the Philistines that is referenced in Second Kings 1.

Lucifer is a term you will hear. That's from the word in Isaiah 14, and sometimes this will be used specifically to describe Satan before the fall. Belial is from a Hebrew word sometimes translated worthless and eventually applied in the New Testament to the devil. You see that only in one text in 2 Corinthians 615, which I will put up. Sometimes Satan is also just called the serpent. You see that a lot in the New Testament. Sometimes he is depicted as a dragon as well, especially in Revelation. And in the other animal metaphors would be a lion in 1st Peter 5 or a wolf in John 10. You can see why this is, the very terms and images convey something of who this person is. Sometimes he's described in terms of his activity. So other labels are also really telling. the enemy, the evil one, and the tempter are three common labels for Satan. I'll put up on the screen the last one,

which is one of Paul's descriptions here in First, Thessalonians 3.5. Now, the obvious question that will come up here, we want to think critically here. So we want to anticipate objections. And one is, how do we know that all these terms are talking about the same person? And we'd out have like 10 or at least seven or a few different reference here. And that will be partially addressed by our fifth question, which is, is Satan active in the Old Testament? The answer to that is yes. It's surprising how much people deny this, and you'll hear these claims in biblical scholarship about how these other terms are talking about something else, some more primitive other idea. You really don't get the idea of Satan proper until the New Testament or the intertestimental

period, and then it pops up in the New Testament. But I think we can see coherence to the Bible's unfolding portrait of Satan. Satan features very prominently in the Old Testament in passages like Genesis 3, obviously, in the fall of man. In Job 1 and 2, obviously a huge character there. But in other ways, too, where he's conducting a lot of the same activity as in the New Testament, like Zechariah 3, 1 to 2, where he's accusing Joshua, the high priest, or 2 Chronicles 211, where he tempts David. So he's doing the same kinds of activity. And I think we have a good reason to see a singular figure standing behind these various passages, because there's just coherence. he's doing the same kinds of things all the way from the beginning to the end. There's such so many

similarities in his activity and so forth, and then the identification is made. So in the New Testament, for example, the word serpent is used and explicitly identified with Satan or the devil in Revelation 12.9. So it's very clear that John is thinking of the serpent, which will draw to mind Genesis 3 as the same guy as Satan and the devil, which are synonyms. So ultimately, I don't really think we have a reason to reject a coherent portrait of Satan throughout the scripture, just using different terms, maybe different points of emphasis at times. Now, if we wonder, well, why doesn't Satan come up more in the Old Testament? Part of the answer to that is that throughout the Old Testament, gods are often, reference to the deities are often references to

angels and demons. It's actually very common, surprisingly common. An example would be Deuteronomy 3217, for example, but that happens all over. Now, if you, someone might wonder about this and say, well, is it really monotheism then? Monotheism means belief in one God. Would this be something more like henotheism, which means the worship of a single God, but not ruling out the reality of other deities? But the answer to that is no. This is still a rigorous monotheism because these other gods or the host of heaven, sometimes they're called, are very clearly creatures. They're created by God. You see this, for example, in the prayer of Nehemiah 9, verse 6.

And here is the Lord alone is God, which is a great theme of the Old Testament, especially a book like Isaiah, for example. And he creates the heavenly host and the heavenly host all worship him. So that's monotheism. It's just that the language of gods is being applied to these angels and demons. Another way you see angels and demons sort of going by another name, so to speak, throughout the Old Testament is with the depiction of the royal divine courts or the divine council.

Heiser talks a lot about this, Michael Heiser. This is all over, but one clear depiction is in the prophecy of Micaiah in 1st, Kings 22, where the Lord is sitting on his throne and the host of heaven are standing on each side of him. So you can just picture this, you know, people standing here, people standing here, the Lord on the throne. and you might say, well, that's just angels. That's not demons as well.

But it seems to be both. Most people think that the lying spirit here that I've underlined there in verse 22 is a demon. And that would fit with Job 1, where Job appears before the heavenly court as well. So it's not just angels in the divine court. So once you accept the diversity of names and terms, the point is you do see Satan all over the place in Scripture, including in the Old Testament. All right, question number six, does Satan have a personality?

The answer is, I think, yes. He is a fallen angel, and therefore he is a person, because angels are personal. Satan is not a machine. Satan is not a symbol. He has a distinct personality, even distinct from the other demons. However much evil may have warped his personality and made him kind of a drab person. Nonetheless, I mean, if that seems far-fetched to you, Think about the fact that human beings don't lose their personalities when we fall and the angels are not less personal than human beings.

So why shouldn't Satan have his own distinctive personality? And the key point, though, to emphasize here for what is edifying is just to understand that Satan is not just a metaphor for evil. He is a person, a real personal agent with a will. And this is important because this idea of an impersonal or symbolical kind of Satan is an extremely common view in the modern era. But that is a departure from the traditional way of thinking about Satan, pretty much all pre-modern Christians, including origin, thought of Satan as a real personal agent. So far as I can tell, that's pretty much universal.

I'm not aware of any exceptions to that throughout church history until the modern era. And this seems very clear in scripture, where he simply does too many personal things in the narrative passages to be less than a person. For example, even if you said, well, the book of Job is into literal history or something like that, which even that I think we can push back on, but just take a passage like Matthew 4, you know, all throughout the Gospels, which are historical narratives, Satan is doing things, and it's very hard to see, you know, like, you know, you just wonder, like, well, who is Jesus talking to if this isn't a real person? Now, I recognize it's unpopular in some circles to believe in a literal personal Satan, but, you know, but

I don't really think there's any good arguments against it. I think it's just more unpopular, but that's not a good reason not to believe something, just because it's unpopular. You know, I think as Christians, we just need to be comfortable with being derided and mocked for certain aspects of our belief, which are at times unpopular. There's always going to be something we believe that's unpopular, though I will say. Fascinatingly, the Church of Satan, which is a religious group founded in 1966, also denies the existence of a literal Satan.

So they tend to think of Satan as kind of just like an archetype or a symbol who represents things like pride and self-assertion and carnality and enlightenment and these human instincts that they regard the Abrahamic religions to have been suppressing wrongly over the centuries. Now there are other Satanists who do believe in a literal personal Satan and who worship him. And sometimes those people are called traditional Satanists or theistic Satanists. But isn't it interesting that a lot of self-professed Satanists don't believe in Satan? And of course it makes you think of the quote from the movie The Usual Suspects, which actually goes back to a 19th century book that the best trick of the devil is to make us believe he doesn't exist. Now, I won't try to argue here for belief in a personal Satan. I do think someone can make a case for the reality of demons on sociological grounds. It explains a lot.

But I would just say that for Christians who, believe the scripture is true, this is a required belief. This is a historic belief of the church. This is very clear in scripture, and it is extremely spiritually dangerous to reject it. I mean, at least consider this. If Satan exists, certainly he would desire that you not believe in him, right? The only other danger, again, would be to become obsessed with him. Remember, C.S. Lewis's two errors here. And if that scares anybody, one of my pastoral pieces of counsel is going to be at the end of this video, no one who has fled to Jesus and is living in submission to Jesus needs to be afraid of Satan. More on that at the end, but I would just want to keep saying that

throughout as well. Question number seven, this is an interesting one. Is Satan happy? And the answer is no. He is absolutely miserable. The demons are filled with grief. They are gloomy. Thomas Aquinas has an article in the Summa Theologica on the sorrow of demons, and he talks about how part of their punishment is a deprivation of happiness. So in scripture, we see that the demons will be punished on Judgment Day, but also are currently undergoing punishment, even while they await a future full punishment. And so part of that current punishment is unhappiness. We find references, for example, to prison and chains. These passages I've quoted before, Jude 6 and 2. Peter 2.4, and then we can take note of Christ's proclamation.

to demons in 1 Peter 320, more of that on my video on the Apostles' Creed, where Peter references the spirits in prison. So this is interesting. What does it mean to be in chains and in prison and so forth? And for that to start happening immediately after their rebellion against God. It's not easy to picture this and understand this. Certainly it is not a literal prison, but minimally, this seems to be a way of describing banishment from God's glory and God's presence. Now, it doesn't involve complete inactivity. Okay? So you can compare this maybe to Satan's being bound in Revelation 20 verse 3 during the millennium time.

It's not a complete confinement. Now, I go into this more when I talk about Angelic Fall Theodicy, which I also have a video on. There, what I'd say drawing from Thomas Aquinas and Augustine and others is this world is the prison. But whatever else, okay, you know, I'm trying to. to focus on the main things here, whatever else we need to say about this and whatever it means for demons to be in chains, however you understand that, it certainly means misery. It certainly means supreme unhappiness. And the reason is the word gloomy. Put up these verses again. It's amazing how when you're studying the scripture, sometimes you just notice things that you never really

noticed before. I'd never noticed this little word before. Gloomy. Gloomy darkness. What an amazing way to describe demonic existence. Gloomy chains of gloomy dark. I think we can safely say, because this is a very logical idea, too, that if God is the source of all happiness, then therefore the further you are from God, the more unhappy you are. And on that basis, I think we can project to say no one is more miserable than Satan. He is the most wretched person in all of reality. However, we should not pity him on that account, because every indication is that Satan is obstinate in evil. He's not repentant or remorseful in the slightest, just as the good angels are now confirmed in obedience, so Satan and demons are set

on their course. Their misery does not slow down their malice. Think of an evil character who is defiant to the end, even in defeat, refusing to relent, even till the last moment, you know? Think of like Sauraman in Lord of the Rings when he's offered mercy and he utterly despises the offer at the end of the book. or, you know, I think we could actually have good grounds to think that in Revelation 20, when Satan is cast into the lake of fire, he will go out cursing the light and cursing God. And I wonder if Satan's misery is related to his malice. Okay, remember that Satan is filled with the vice of envy.

Some theologians have speculated that Satan is envious of human beings. That's a very common view in church history. And you see it in the book of wisdom or the book of, or the sometimes called the wisdom of Solomon. This is a book written in Greek. It's not a part of the Hebrew Bible, but it was included in the Septuagint and generally dated to like the mid-first century BC, and it describes envy as the motive for the devil's activity specifically in Genesis 3. We can certainly say at the very least that Satan is malicious toward humanity.

He wants us to be miserable with him. Have you ever known a sore loser? You know, someone that's like they're playing, you're playing Settlers of Katan, the first person out and they just smash the board over or something like this. If they can't win, everybody's got to lose. That's Satan, okay? He wants to drag everybody down to hell with him. He's the ultimate sore loser. Take all of the miserliness and pettiness and vindictiveness and self-pity and just sheer hatred from all the villains of all the movies you've ever seen and novels you've ever read. From Ebenezer Scrooge to inspectors of air to Jafar in Aladdin to Fernand Mondego in the Count of Monte Cristo and just pile them all up together, roll them into one, and you get something of the sense of this character. I imagine, in my mind, Satan against all human happiness and all human peace. His absolute worst nightmare would be a joyful Christian on their way to heaven, or someone

becoming a Christian, or someone on their knees in humble prayer. That really upsets him, I'm sure. But I suspect he's even annoyed and maybe a little envious at just, you know, random human beings being genuinely happy about things like good music or good food or something like that. For example, I think we can safely say that Satan is anti-marriage because in 1st Timothy 4, you have this idea that one of the doctrines of demons is the forbidding of marriage. And it just makes sense, you know, you think marriage and all the joys of marriage, love, having children, companionship, mint, all the things that just make marriage so good. This makes it holy. Marriage is a holy thing. It's pleasing to God. It's beneficial to society. It's good for us. Marriage is a wonderful thing.

Not everyone's called to be married. I always want the single people to know that I see you out there, and it's also good to be single. And we forget that sometimes. God calls people to that holy vocation as well. But marriage is just simply marriage is a good gift of God. Surely Satan hates marriage and he wants to destroy it, he wants to, you know, tear it apart and so forth. I wonder if he envies these things. I wonder if he even envies little things like our ability to sleep. Surely he'd rather, you know, I don't think Satan sleeps. Surely he would rather deluge us with constant anxiety like he experiences. All right, speaking of Satan's anxiety, that leads to the eighth question, does Satan feel fear? The answer to that is yes. We've ever reason to think Satan is terrified. We've ever

reason to think Satan is terrified. I'll justify that biblically, but let me first give this anecdote. Do you remember the scene in Batman Begins where Thomas Wayne is comforting Bruce Wayne when Bruce is a little child and he's at another nightmare about bats? He's afraid of bats because he fell in the cave. And he says, you know why they attacked you, don't you? They were afraid of you. And Bruce is like, afraid of me? And his dad says, all creatures feel fear. And Bruce says, even the scary ones? Remember how his father responds, he says, especially the scary ones. Okay, the principle here is that which is scary is often itself scared. We are often afraid of the dark, for example, but the dark is way more afraid of the light. And that is true at various levels of human beings and so forth. It's true of the

demons, and it is actually very clear in Scripture. Satan is terrified. It's amazing, again, You know, it's amazing how much we can say from the scripture. For example, in the gospels, we see the demons terrified of Jesus and sensing his authority over them. You know, in Luke 8, you find this. Just imagine what a statement here. What do you want with me, Jesus, son of the most high God, so he knows who Jesus is on some level? And he says, I beg you, do not torment me. What a thing to say?

You know, you wonder, what was the tone of voice in which this was said? Was it said with a snarl or a whimper? I don't know. But the thing that is shiningly, wonderfully clear here is Jesus is the one in control in this conversation. Same thing in Mark I, where the demon asks if Jesus is going to destroy him, because again, he recognizes who this person is. And he's like, you know, the demons know that Jesus has authority over them and can destroy them. But my favorite reference to demonic fear is James 219. I just love the fact that James added this word and shudder. The demons just picture this. Satan suddenly remembering the way the glory of God that he used to behold as an angel

blazes on undiminished, unperturbed, nothing can ever affect it in the slightest, and he just shudders, you know. Or here's a happy thought experiment. Just imagine Satan sitting there plotting some, we'll talk about how crafty he is in a second, plotting something, and suddenly wafting into his mind comes the memory of what it felt like for him on. morning and just the colossal avalanche of dread that must have descended upon him. As he's thinking he had the victory and all of a sudden, the plot turns. By the way, narrative and plot twists and everything we love about stories, we love it because reality is a story.

And this is a great way to think about the resurrection is the ultimate plot twist. Okay, number nine, how powerful is Satan? the answer is he is limited in power he is not omnipotent or all powerful as god is on the one hand he is very powerful but on the other hand he is not all powerful i think we can say that confidently from scripture uh for example we see in scripture he is very powerful he can do miracles i think we can say that with confidence for example uh exodus seven 11 the magicians and sorcerers of pharaoh We'll talk about how Satan uses intermediate means to accomplish things, by the way, in a second. So sorcerers can be a means that Satan uses.

But they can do copy can't miracles. And according to, and we'll, if you remember the movie, the Prince of Egypt, you can remember they're singing that song, remember this, you're messing with the big boys now. Kind of a cool scene. So, and they do that. They can perform, you know, certain kinds of miracles, though my favorite moment to be. there is when Aaron's staff eats theirs. The snake from Aaron's staff eats theirs. And that's in the scripture too. But also other passages, Second Thessalonians too, the man of lawlessness, performs false signs and wonders. Note these words, by the activity of Satan. Passages like

Matthew 24, false Christ can perform false miracles. So there is something to be said for this, that the demons and evil powers can do miracles. By the way, so one of the things that tells you you tell a true prophet from a false prophet is not supernatural activity. It's spiritual fruit. Does it produce love for Jesus? Does it produce the fruits of the spirit? Read Jonathan Edwards' religious affections. We're more on that, and other things he wrote are really helpful on that. So, okay, so it's like, all right, you might say, Gavin, you're not really narrowing it down here. You're saying he's not all powerful, but he is powerful, so how powerful exactly? You know, how much can Satan do? And I don't think we can say. We get little clues in scripture, so make of this what you will. I'm not going to draw a

conclusion. It seems like during the temptations of Christ in Matthew 4, Satan seems capable of transporting Christ to a high mountain during the temptation. And then in Luke's version, it says, showing him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment. So it's like, okay, but it's hard to say exactly what are the boundaries of his power. I will tell you this. Thomas Aquinas argues that Satan may have been the most powerful angel. I'm not saying the most powerful of the demons who fell, of any created angel, the most powerful one. That's what Thomas argues. He has a whole article in the Summa Theologica on that. He's not dogmatic about it, but he says that's fitting. So, but, so Satan's very powerful, but not all powerful, but it's very important to say that he's on a short leash. He is no other power

other than what God allows, I hope you know this, but just in case you don't. We need to be very clear. You know, you see, for example, God asking permission from God in the book of Job, chapter was one and two, for example. So Satan has nothing that is not held in check by the greater power of God. Remember, if all else, if you're thinking about this topic, here's a great little line. If you ever get discouraged by the power of evil, remember the great little line from Luther's hymn, one little word shall fell him. It's not going to be some prolonged battle after the second coming. It's not going to be like lots of back and forth, you know, one word shall fell him.

Question number 10, how smart is Satan? And I hope I remember to say, can he read your mind? Because everyone asks about that. It's interesting. I was asking my wife, what should I address? And I thought, yeah, people wonder about that. The answer here is similar to the one on power. He is limited in knowledge.

He is not omniscient or all-knowing. but he knows a lot. He is very intelligent. So why should we say that Satan is intelligent? Well, this is, again, one of these things that surprised me in my study. I was like, wow, we can really say a lot about this. I didn't realize how much we can say. But not only is his intelligence implied by the fact that he's a super angel, but more specifically, his frequent role of deception. He's portrayed in the scripture as cunning and crafty. He's called a deceiver, for example, in Revelation 12, the who deceives the whole world. Paul often speaks of the schemes or designs of the devil. That word there is in the NIV in 2 Corinthians 2 is translated as the schemes. We also find a reference to the snare,

a snare from the devil. Think of like the trap that someone uses to catch an animal, a snare. And this is something that an aspiring overseer could fall into a snare from the devil. We often think of Satanus. So, you know, honestly, I think we can imagine Satan as someone who has strategies. Satan is someone who has counsels and machinations and plots and he's setting traps and he's crafty and he's cunning and he's deceptive and so forth. But again, he is not all knowing. He misses things.

He has blind spots. You know, you could think of him like the witch in the Narnia stories who can see the deep magic from the dawn of time, but not the deeper magic from. from before the dawn of time. And this is important because it's a big question that comes up in John of Damascus and others in the Christian tradition of whether Satan knows the future, whether he can make future predictions? Tricy question. Because on the one hand, there's a lot of fortune tellers and psychics in the world, and I do think that there is supernatural power in some of these evil activities. By the way, stay away from that stuff. We'll talk about that.

nonetheless, the Christian tradition has generally said Satan does not know the future, certainly not in the way God knows it with certainty. Of course, he can make guesses like anybody, but in Anselm's on the fall of the devil, he has a whole chapter arguing that the evil angel could not foreknow that he was going to fall. He says that's a logical impossibility, basically. similarly, John of Damascus teaches basically that neither the good nor the evil angels by nature see the future like God does who's outside of time, but that God sometimes teaches the good angels the future and then they give prophecies like you see in the book of Daniel, for example. But then he says the demons also make predictions, sometimes because they see what is happening

at a distance, sometimes merely making guesses, hence much that they say is false and should not be believed even, although they do often tell what is true. Okay, that's a really important and interesting thing to find there in John of Damascus. Have you ever thought about this? This is a theme that I cannot emphasize enough in this video that Satan is a liar. Okay, you know, Jesus and John 8 calls him the father of lies. What a phrase. The father, the bigitter, the one who creates lies. Think about this. Before Satan fell, nothing untrue had ever been said by anyone. true statements, no lies ever. So he's the father of lies. He's beginning. And so we should never trust a thing that he says. You know, I will say if you are watching this video, I know this stuff is

common out there. And I'm not saying this to shame anybody if this is a part of your past. But if you've gone to like a fortune teller or a tarot card reader or a psychic or any of those things, which again, don't do that. That stuff is dangerous. But if you've done that, should you believe everything that was said to you just because some of the things may have come true? And the answer is no. We have no reason to ever trust what comes from Satan or other demons. By the way, I'm talking about Satan a lot. Again, we're going to talk about the relation of Satan and demons later.

Now, where in Scripture do we get this? Why should we agree with John of Damascus and Anselm and others that Satan doesn't really fully know the future like God does? because the property of knowing all things and seeing the future is characteristic of God's uniqueness. This is one of the things that all throughout the scripture God says, I'm the one who can tell the beginning from the end because I'm God and there's no one like me. You see this in Isaiah 46, 9 through 10. You see it also in Daniel 2, for example, when Daniel is basically saying here to the king, your magicians cannot do it, but there's a God in heaven who can do it.

That's the true God. So this is, in other words, it's something that reveals the true God that he sees all things, the beginning from the end, because only he is eternal. By the way, a couple other pastoral notes here. So if you are tempted, one of my goals here is not just to tell people, not to do anything that's involved with demons, but to help pastor people. So if you're ever tempted to go to that stuff, because some people are, instead, go to the Holy Spirit, because he never lies.

And he speaks today. and he will speak to you. And he gives spiritual gifts through which others speak. And it's like pierces the heart. It's like 1st Corinthians 14. You know, the secrets of your heart will be unveiled. God still does that. If you're interested in that, don't seek the darkness, seek the light instead, you know?

So I might come back to that if I can remember. I got so much I want to say, and we're already almost an hour in. Long video, but there's, you know, hopefully you can get through this if you watch it in installments. So the, okay, now, the other thing I was going to say, can Satan read your mind? No, I don't think we have any reason in Scripture to think Satan is a mind reader. Now, Satan might know a lot about you. But again, First Kings, I forgot to put this verse in my manuscript, so it's probably not going to go up on the screen. You can look it up later. First Kings 839. Solomon is praying. And he basically says, you only know the hearts of all the children of mankind. Satan is crafty and intelligent, so he may know a lot about you, but he doesn't see you fully. He can't read into your heart in the way God does. Like, God has this Psalm 139 piercing, surrounding, enveloping knowledge of you. David says, before a thought is, a word is on my

tongue, you know, God knows us in this pervasive way. Satan does not have that kind of knowledge. He's not a mind reader. I think we have any reason to think that. So the broad point here is Satan is intelligent, but he's not omniscient. Now, an interesting question we could ask is, what effect did the fall have on his intelligence? Did Satan become less intelligent as a result of sin? You might brush that question off. Actually, this is a tricky one. Now, again, we're in the realm of speculation here. So when we're in speculation, we just avoid giving a confident answer, but we just kind of hold the question out there and say we can't know for sure. But I think we can say, here's the thing that makes this a little tricky, is that intelligence is affected by various

intellectual virtues like wisdom and curiosity. So while Satan perhaps retains the kind of intelligence he has by nature as an angel, surely it is intermixed with a kind of folly and even a kind of laziness and dullness. You know, humility begets curiosity, and Satan doesn't have that humility anymore. So here's the scene that I thought of in The Great Divorce, which if you've never read, you've got to read this book. There's a chapter five, there's a liberal Episcopalian minister, no offense to Episcopalians out there, who's explaining why it's a fictional book. If you don't know anything about this book, this is going to sound weird. But he's explaining why he can't stay in heaven because he has to go back to hell to read a paper because he's an academic theologian.

And he talks, says, I have to be back next Friday to read a paper. We have a little theological society down there, and then he says this, oh, there's plenty of intellectual life in hell, not of a very high quality, perhaps, one notices a certain lack of grip, a certain confusion of mind. I do believe that goodness tends to beget intellectual clarity, not totally and fully, but that it tends to that. And so my point is, who knows but that the intellectual life of the demons has a kind of gray quality to it, while the intellectual life of the angels and the saints in heaven has color and vitality. Where is Satan? Simple question? On the one hand, again, it's the kind of question. I'm shocked we can actually answer this as much as we can. So on the

one hand, we've seen that kept in gloomy chains language, right? But as we said, that doesn't necessarily mean complete inactivity, because we have to compare that with everything else. In fact, at the scripture, it seems like Satan is very mobile. Okay? These two passages, remarkable answers from Satan to the Lord and Job 1 through 2. He's saying, I'm walking around. I'm heading, you know, this way, that way I'm walking to and fro on the earth. Similarly, in 1st Peter 5, we're told that he is prowling around like a roaring lion. So in other words, if we say, where is Satan? We have words in scripture like to and fro and around. I'm trying to make this plain, like, he's mobile, he's moving around. And so, you know,

we can make an application like this. This is, I think it's a good thing in theology, to just not be embarrassed, to just be really silly and simple when, you know, no question is too dumb kind of a thing. So this will make some people smirk maybe, but again, I think truth is best served when we don't shy away from the simple questions the child might ask. So you might say, does this mean that Satan could be in Florida on a Monday, and then in New York on a Tuesday, and then in Kansas on a Wednesday, and then in Pakistan on a Thursday, and so on and so forth. And again, let's not be embarrassed at simple questions. I would basically say, yeah, Satan is finite. He's not omnipresent. He's what John of Damascus is called circumscribed. You know, he has boundaries. He's not everywhere.

And Thomas Aquinas, oh, boy, you can read all that you want more than you'd ever want about the bodies and movements of angels in the summa theologica and elsewhere. So, but let's just emphasize this much, Satan is in one location rather than another and he can move around. That seems very clear in the scripture. So you might say, well, why assume that that would be here on planet Earth? Partly because of what is present there in Job 1 through two, walking around, you know, Job's language is walking up and down on the earth, but also partly because of what is maybe the most fascinating question we're going to consider. Number 12, is Satan the ruler of this world? And the answer is yes. Satan has, again,

more clear than I thought it would be in scripture. Satan has a kind of dominion over this fallen world. Jesus refers to Satan three times in the gospel of John as the ruler of this world. 1 John 519 says that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. What a statement. And then we've already seen in his apocalypse, John calls Satan the deceiver of the whole world. And this isn't just John. Paul also calls Satan the god of this world. And the book of Hebrews emphasizes that Satan expresses authority through death. One way you can see Satan's ownership over this world is just by looking at human history, specifically, this is going to get a little dark. Gotta be honest. It's a video about Satan. Expect you. Hopefully, you're not going to be shocked by a little

darkness, though it won't be graphic. But specifically in politics and religion. So, pagan worship and sacrifice is regarded as frequently demonic in Scripture. I'll put up some examples of this from the Old Testament, Deuteronomy 32, Leviticus 17. Again, this, comes, a lot comes into focus when we remember that references to other gods throughout the Old Testament are often references to angels, especially fallen angels. You see this also in Psalm 10. Similarly, Paul just makes it plain in 1st Corinthians 10. What pagan sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. There's also demonic influence in ancient pagan governments. Daniel 10 makes that very clear with the Prince of Persia there. And it makes so much sense of other passages in the Old Testament,

where these brutal powers are seen as the enemies of God. So you think of Psalm 2, for example, with that. So demons are associated with ancient pagan worship and political rule. Honestly, I think if you're just studying human history and you're looking from a biblical worldview, you're going to see the fingerprints of Satan everywhere. For example, for Paul, the phrase following the course of the world is parallel to following the prince of the power of the air. There's another fascinating title for Satan, just pregnant with meaning, that we haven't really addressed there. But the point is, Paul's saying,

following the course of the world, following the way of Satan. You see that as parallel. When we speak of demons, it's, well, here's something absolutely fascinating. Paul will use terms. Paul rarely calls demons, demons. He usually calls them powers or rulers. So he's often using this regal language of authority, okay? It's most clear in Ephesians 6, where he stacks up a lot of these terms, the rulers, the authorities, the cosmic powers, the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Colossians 2, he references the rulers and authorities. When you notice the language of power or rule or authority in Paul's letters, so often it's a reference to the current demonic strongholds. Okay? Once you see this, it pops up everywhere, all right? Romans 8.

You know, the angels, nor angels, nor rulers. First Corinthians 15, he speaks of every rule and authority and power. This is everywhere. One scholar says, the idea of sinister world powers and their subjugation by Christ is built into the very fabric of Paul's thought, and some mention of them is founded every epistle except Philemon. You even see this, I think, in the language of the elemental spirits of the world in Colossians 2-8 and Galatians 4-3. So this word sometimes translated spirits, and it can be

translated as principles. This seems like a reference to demons. One scholar says, most commentators understand the phrase to denote spiritual beings or powers which are active within the physical and spirit and heavenly elements. So that would explain why conversion to God means deliverance from these weak and worthless elementary spirits of the world, which Paul says in Galatians 4-9. So think about this. Again, this fits into my angelic fall the odyssey view that I advocate for. Locations are not neutral. Places are spiritual. They are under some kind of authority or some kind of dominion, either God through the angels or the demons. And again, in my angelic fall theology, I talk about how basically it's just universal throughout all of church history that the angels are the stewards of physical places and reality. So for now, we're just saying simply this much that we can say that we live in enemy-occupied territory.

This world is under territorial, spiritual authorities. I think this is true. I think it's biblical. And that's why when Christ comes in, he's just casting demons out left and right. The incarnation of Christ is like D-Day, an invasion into the enemy territory. Now, why would that be? Someone might just say, well, that's because we sinned, but remember, Satan is there already. in Genesis 3, we didn't invite him into sin, he invited us into sin. And what many theologians

believe is that even prior to the human fall, Satan was charged with oversight over the earth. In John of Damascus's exact exposition of the Orthodox faith, which is a very significant text summarizing so much, it's representative of Eastern patristic thought. He has a chapter on Satan, and the whole way he introduces him is as he who was set over the earthly realm and into whose hands God committed the guardianship of the earth. That is extremely common. Again, see my angelic fault, the Odyssey where I say more. All to say now, I'm just trying to be honest with you. I think we need to take seriously this biblical aspect of teaching that talks about the territorial, spatial authority of demons. Question number 13, what is Satan? That kind of leads into this question.

Okay, so what does that mean exactly? Like, what is Satan currently doing? If he is the ruler of the world, Jesus calls him that, the God of the world, Paul calls him that, if he's walking to and fro in the world, as Job says, prowling around, like Peter says, well, what specifically is he doing? And the answer to that is in a word, evil. If you ever study human history and you see something horrifically evil, it's not a bad instinct to say perhaps Satan was behind that in some way. Satan specifically does evil by opposing God and opposing God's people. And he does this in many, many, many ways, but certain types of activity are particularly characteristic of Satan. For example, attack, accusation, deception, temptation. Many of these activities are reflected in the names we've

considered. Remember, Ha, Satan, the accuser, the devil, meaning the slanderer. We've seen him called the deceiver of the whole world in Revelation 12.9. He's awful, though, just, I'll put up an example where it's just called the tempter, so forth. We've also seen him called a murderer and a liar. But this idea of satanic attack, let me focus on this for a moment, this is implied by passages like 1st Peter 5 and the verb devour. Remember this? Peter's saying, prowling around looking for someone to devour. Well, that's an animal violent metaphor. We also have a reference to the flaming darts or the flaming arrows of the evil one in Ephesion 616. The imagery is very violent for Satan's activity. Fiery darts, you know, so what does that mean exactly? Because these are metaphors.

It's not a literal arrow of fire stabbing you or a literal lion eating you. What is this talking about specifically? I think one example is persecution of Christians, especially weak and vulnerable Christians, which is why we should pray earnestly for the persecuted church around the world. Ah, if you're inclined, pause right now and pray for these precious people around the world right now. And for right here, persecution is not just from the government. But you see this, for example, the role of... Satan in the persecution of Christians in Jesus' letter to the church in Smyrna, where he's saying

the devil's going to do this. By the way, Smyrna is where Polycarp would suffer just a bit after this. In the next letter, the letter to Pergamum, the church in Pergamum, oh man, think about this, he calls their church the place where Satan's throne is and where Satan dwells. And this also, I think, is reflected in the horrific forms of persecution that took place there. This is the one thing that'll be a little graphic I'll share with you, Antipus or Antipas or however you pronounce his name, I've heard it differently. I just love the fact that Jesus boasts about him. He says, my faithful witness. It doesn't make your heart burn with a passion to be boasted of by Christ by being faithful to him in this world. But he was martyred there in Pergamum. He was placed inside a brazen bull. This was a hollowed out metal bull used as an altar for casting out demons by the local population. It had a door in one side and then tubing, the that transmitted noise from inside the bull to the mouth of the bull, and along the way it would distort the noise to make it sound like the bellows of an actual bull. And so then the victim would be locked inside, fire lit under it, the person would be roasted, burned alive, and the screams

would come out sounding like the bellowing of an actual bull. Does anyone have any doubt that if Satan is real, that's the kind of thing he does? That is certainly satanic. And this is one of the things Satan does is just assault, attack, shoot arrows, bite. What else does that look like other than persecution? I think sickness. Okay? Sometimes, not always. We live in a fallen world. Not every cold is from the devil, but sometimes Satan assaults you with sickness. Job 2-7. Makes it very clear that that happens with Job. A lot of times, by the way, in the Gospels, the exorcism of a demon is simultaneous to and enfolded with the healing from a sickness, or the loss of some other physical malady like blindness or something like that. Those things flow together. Where there are demons, there's often

sickness, confusion, fear, discouragement, accusing thoughts, lies, thick confusion. You often sense the works of the enemy through confusion, whereas God brings, the Holy Spirit brings clarity. If you want to know what the works of Satan feel like, so we start to recognize them and discern them, if you read through the works of the flesh in Galatians 5, you will get a sense for them, and you start to be able to say, okay, this is the kind of stuff Satan does. When Christians are tearing each other to shreds through slander, I have no doubt, Satan is very pleased by this, if not active in that. Another activity of Satan is the promotion of false doctrine. We saw that already in 1st Timothy 4-1, the doctrines of demons forbidding marriage.

we also see it in 1 John 4-1, which says test the spirits. What are the spirits? Well, probably demons who inspire false prophets. So we are not, this belabor this point, it's so simple, but it needs to be said to the church. We are not called to believe all spiritual things out there. I am amazed sometimes at how undiscerning, unfortunately, Christians can be. Now, some of the fundamentalist types seem to do nothing other than be discerning, as though to be a faithful Christian is nothing other than to just discern. Well, you're just discerning constantly and denouncing errors, and it's like, no, no, no, there's more to it than just that.

But unfortunately, in the other direction, some Christians really lack discernment. You know, I remember Esther and I, just observing sometimes a guest preacher will come to a church, and well-intentioned, good-hearted people will listen to a sermon that has absolutely nothing to do with the gospel, nothing to do with the Bible, and just terrible theology, legalistic, you know, no gospel. And then people will say, wow, that was really neat. You know, I really liked the way he spoke, the way he sat on the stool was better, you know, it's like, you realize this, as you do ministry out there, you realize a lot of Christians have no discernment. They don't obey 1st John 4-1. And this is a sobering verse. This may be, what I'm about to put up on the

screen, maybe the most sobering, bracing verse of this entire video, even more than Pergamum in Revelation 2. And that is, Satan masquerades as an angel of light. I know we're all familiar with this, a lot of us probably, but just let that land upon us. Don't, we should not assume that we will have the ability to tell the difference between Satan and an angel if they were to show up. The way we would do that is through prayer and humility and then discernment in light of scripture, in light of spiritual fruit, and so forth. But Satan tricks people. There are people in this world who follow satanic ideologies and horrific beliefs thinking it's good and from the light and so forth. And so this is something we need to remember to be discerning. So if Satan is active in

evil in these ways that we've charted out, so this is another question that comes up. this is question 14. Is Satan the source of all evil? Because one of the things we've pointed out is that Satan is active in all these different ways and through different means. So this is a tricky question. We need to say that there's not a parallel between how God is the source of good and Satan is the source of evil. Those are different. God is the direct and immediate source of all that is good. Satan is not the direct and immediate source of all that is evil. This could be the danger of over emphasizing Satan and acting like all evil is directly from Satan when it's not. But we can say Satan is the ultimate source.

All evil began with Satan. And we can say that all evil imitates Satan and participates Satan and participates in his behavior and serves his ends. And we can say that Satan is at work through other evil agents who act as his servants. So here's a very important principle. We should not envision that Satan is, only active through his own direct personal activity. But rather, we should also recognize he stands at the top of a hierarchy and works through other agents and causes. For example, in Job 1 through 2,

you know, just looking at basic things, Satan is the ultimate cause of all of Job's calamities, but it also involves weather, armies attacking him, even physical illness upon his body that a doctor could conceivably have studied. Another example, just kind of a prosaic example, here is Paul's statement in 1st Thessalonians 2, where he says Satan hindered us. Well, this is unlikely referring to like a direct thing, like Satan visibly showing up on the road and blocking them or something like that. More likely, Satan is at work through circumstances here, like opposition or imprisonment, or maybe even something like just the circumstances of being unable to go because of the weather or travel arrangements or whatever it might be. Actually, I think it's biblical to say that we can see

Satan working through circumstances and details in intermediate activity like this. And what that means is so humbling and sobering. That is, this implies we could be experiencing satanic attack and not recognize it for what it is. You might just think you're having terrible luck. And it's actually a satanic attack. Job may well not have known anything that was going on that we know about in chapters one and two, the conversation with God.

Now, the danger in the other direction is, of course, to over-spiritualize things. People do that. People act like everything's demonic attack, almost sometimes as an excuse for just like dealing with personal sin or something like that. Or sometimes it just feels exciting and grand to see spiritual warfare and everything, and we want to avoid that error as well. Nonetheless, Satan is at work in all kinds of different ways. So we're saying Satan is, sum it up like this. Satan is not the exclusive and direct source of every evil thing that happens, but he is the ultimate source insofar as all evil began with him, and he often works through other evil entities. Like what? Well, here's the 15th question. Is Satan the head of all the demons?

And here I think the answer is yes. Satan, again, we need to be careful to nuance it. Satan is not the head of the demons as God is the head of the angels. For example, Satan did not create the demons. But essentially, yes, Satan has a kind of headship. For example, in scripture, we find him referenced as the prince of demons. As we've noticed before, Matthew 1224. In the NASB, it's translated the ruler of demons, that Greek word arcone there. It's the same word we found in passages like John 12, where Jesus says he's the ruler of the world. So Satan is the ruler of the world. he's also the ruler of the other demons. You also see this reflected in his activity.

For example, in the heavenly battle of Revelation 12, Satan is regarded as the leader of the demonic army. They are called His Angels. You see the same language there from Jesus in Matthew 2541. So this, and that also just makes sense of the fall, right? We shouldn't envision that all the demons independently fell away from God

at the same time as a coincidence. Rather, Satan led a rebellion. And that does not take away the responsibility of the other demons, but he influenced them. Thomas Aquinas refers to this as a kind of exhortation of the other angels. The sin of the highest angel was the cause of other sinning, not as compelling them, but as inducing them by a kind of exhortation. And then he says, all the demons are subjects of that highest one. So I think we can, I think this is biblical to think of Satan as the chief demon, the head demon. the demons are not all just randomly interspersed having no connection to each other. Okay. So, so by the way,

one important point of language is this legitimizes, I read a book recently that said we can never talk about Satan tempting us. I was like, what? That's very biblical. Christians will often speak of the devil or the enemy or Satan attacking or tempting or something like that, recognizing that it may not be Satan himself. It could be another demon or something like that. And as we've seen, I think that language is biblical. Paul will often speak like that. But this does raise the question of what is the relation like between these other demons? Are there rankings of different kinds of demons? You know, is Satan on top? But then there's like some intermediates and some low demons and so forth, like a pyramid or something.

Are some of the demons more powerful than others, just as Satan is more powerful than all the demons. And I think we should resist, on the one hand, the overly speculative schematizing of this that you find in medieval literature and that you find in some modern charismatic circles. People go too far. They go beyond the scripture, and they start claiming all kinds of knowledge we can't have. We need to stick to the scripture. Test everything by the scripture. But basically, I think the answer to this is yes. Even if we can't trace out all the different ranks and know everything about this, I think we can recognize there are different kinds of demons. For the first, For example, in Mark 9, the disciples wonder why they can't cast out a particular demon, and Jesus says, speaks of a kind of demon.

The word kind there seems to mean a kind of demon. And this idea of a demonic hierarchy just seems implicit in the language we've seen about demons as powers or authorities or rulers. Hierarchical organization and structure seems implicit in the very idea of authorities and rulers. You might think of like a chain of command. Satan is on the top. This is certainly how C.S. Lewis envisions it in the screw tape letters, where some demons are in a higher position giving advice to the lesser demons. That's what screw tape is doing for wormwood.

And then you can imagine the greater demons mistreating the lesser demons, which is, of course, how that book ends. So we have said that Satan can use intermediate causes, like an illness. We can said that he's at work through his demonic kingdom and empire of other demons. What about people? Question 16, can Satan use people? This is the most sobering, brutal thought that will make you hate sin. Yes, Satan can work through people.

All throughout the Bible, there are people who are said to do Satan's work. So, for example, we know of Satan's activity in Genesis 3, but have you ever wondered about Genesis 4? What is Satan doing there? was Satan involved? Well, 1 John 312 says, Cain was of the evil one and murdered his brother. Don't you just think, if you recall the scriptural language about Satan sort of going into Judas Ascariat

when he betrayed the other disciples and betrayed Christ, can't you just imagine perhaps Satan sort of getting a foothold in Cain's heart somehow and causing this horrific murder of a brother right at the beginning of human history? Terrible. Paul also refers to those who are opponents of the gospel as having been taken captive to do the will of Satan unknowingly. Very sobering to think about that. And there's lots of verses like that.

A simple verse to see this in is 1 John 3.8 in this little phrase, whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil. Well, there it is right there. So imagine like a sorcerer in a village somewhere in the world. And they are willfully, consciously choosing to be to give themselves, they understand these demons are evil. And they're willfully consciously entering into communicating. with them and working evil sorcery to harm people for their own financial and social gain.

So, you know, they'll stab a voodoo doll with pins to try to harm other people and this kind of stuff, pronouncing curses on people, this kind of stuff. A sorcerer like this is of Satan, according to first John 3. They're playing on his team. They're participating in his work. They're ultimately serving him. Now, here's the most brutal question of all. if Satan can use general circumstances, if Satan can be at work through other demons, and if Satan can be at work through people, I almost don't even want to go through this one, but we have to say it and see it and face it. Can Satan use Christians? And the answer is, unfortunately, yes. We might immediately think of professing followers of Jesus who are actually hypocrites like Judas, whom Satan entered. but even regenerate, well-intentioned true followers of Christ can be used by Satan.

The most poignant example, of course, is Peter right after, I mean, just this is stunning to think about. Right after he's called the rock on which the church is built, Jesus calls him Satan. It's like, you know, well, which is it? Well, he is the rock on which the church is built, and I put a video out on what I think that means following Augustine, by the way. But the point is, whatever you think of that, Jesus then says, get behind me, Satan. And so this chief apostle is one who can be used to speak a satanic message when he starts

thinking in a worldly manner, not a spiritual manner. And then we find these warnings in scripture like Paul's concern in Ephesians 4 that unresolved anger among Christians can give Satan a foothold. So we are to think this thought, you know, sobering thought, can we be used by how are we used by Satan? How does that work? Well, you know, I don't think it's rocket science. if you genuinely hate other Christians and you're nursing and cultivating this hatred,

rather than praying for them and softening your heart toward them, you are giving Satan a foothold. That's one clear example. He feed, again, read the works of the flesh in Galatians 5. So much discord and fighting and quarreling. He feeds off of the negative energy of that. Whereas when you forgive, he loses ground. When you confess sin, his power is broken. Let's develop this as we get into the good news.

Number 17, my favorite part, how has Jesus defeated Satan? Satan has been already, as of this moment, I'm recording this right at the end of 2024, Satan has been defeated decisively by Jesus. He's now fighting a losing battle. The decisive victory has already happened. This happened to the death and resurrection of Jesus. This is the gospel message. When he died on the cross, let's just be clear about the gospel.

When Jesus died on the cross, he provided full forgiveness of sins to everyone who repents and trusts in him. That's the gospel. You can be restored to God and have eternal life in the name of Christ as you repent of your sin and place your faith in Christ, surrender him, follow him. According to Colossians 2, the record of debt standing against us has been publicly canceled through the work of Christ on the cross. Christ has dealt with them fully, and that has resulted in a triumph of Jesus over Satan. I love these two words in Colossians, too. Satan has been disarmed and he has been disgraced. He's been robbed of his power over us, and then he's been publicly humiliated by Christ.

The very moment he thought he won was his downfall, downfall when Jesus died. I have a whole sermon on that on YouTube, if you're interested. But let this thought wash over you. May I say it to your heart? Will you, if you trust me enough to say the truth from Scripture, will you let me say this into your heart? if you are in Jesus Christ, if you have sincerely in the deepest part of your heart, accepted Christ into your life, turned away from sin and you're not perfect, but you've sincerely placed your faith in Christ, you're following him now. You are no longer in a state of guilt and condemnation

before God. That's one of the biggest lies Satan will throw at you, of course. And the dominant tone of the New Testament for those in Christ is triumph and victory over Satan. Again, it's amazing how strong this is in the scripture again. So think of John writing the young men in his community that they have overcome the evil one. Or Paul saying that God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. Just say, put it like this. No one. People might watch this video and they feel terrified of Satan. I want to pastor people a little bit. No one who is trusting in Jesus needs to live in fear of Satan. Nor need we live with. with a sense of helpless vulnerability to his attacks and his tricks and accusations like he's just so strong,

so what can we do? When you feel overwhelmed by evil in the world around you, let me encourage you to meditate on this wonderful passage in 2 Kings 6, where Elisha says, those who are with us are more than those who are with them. It's wonderful because his servant has to have his eyes opened, the angels we don't see. from that passage, Thomas argued Thomas Aquinas that there are more angels than demons. And he also gives other arguments, which I think is a plausible view. The angels outnumber the demons.

So just, you know, let that passage be a reminder to you that there are angels all around and it will encourage you and pray for angels. I don't know why. Over the last year, I've been praying for angels more and more and more. I think that's appropriate. I think we can do that because we felt so much spiritual attack. throughout my extended family and my family, we pray, send your angels, even over our house. My kids will pray this now. It's like part of their running vocabulary because we pray together

at night and they're like, send your angels. They just pray this, you know, send your angels to watch over us. And that's totally fitting. If God loves us enough to send Jesus to die for us, then certainly he loves us to send the angels to watch over us. So when you feel assaulted, when you feel attacked, remember, here's another verse, 1 John 4-4, He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. I'll even go so far as to say this. If you are walking in Christ, Satan actually fears you. Not only do you not need to fear him, he fears you, not because of how great you are, but because of the one who lives within you, the Holy Spirit. And in Christ, you can oppose his work in you and in the world around you. So this should be the overall emphasis here, if we know

Jesus. How do we do that? Question 18. James 4-7 says, the devil and he will flee from you. What a great promise. You know, resist him, he'll flee. So the question is, well, what does that resistance look like? How do we do that? Here are five suggestions. First, it's just to become a Christian. If you've never surrendered your life to Christ, you do that by repentance and faith in response to the gospel. The gospel is the good news that there is a God who made all of us. Sin has separated us from him. Jesus came to fix that problem and restore us to God. And that happens in us when we're we repent of our sins and believe in the gospel. Repenting just means being sorrowful for them and then turning away from them, forsaking them. And faith means you say, I believe he died for me. And you surrender your life to him. And then you seal it with baptism, which is the ultimate renunciation of Satan and read about how baptism function like that in the early church. That's a wonderful thing. I talk about that in my video on baptism. Surely baptism is another thing Satan hates. That's the first step. The second step is, I would encourage you to meditate on Ephesians 6,

which teaches us to put on the full armor of God. When you feel afflicted by Satan, make this passage one to study. And what you will notice is this passage is not rocket science. It's not like the general ways you live a Christian life are over here, and then the ways that you oppose Satan are way over here. The things in this passage are truth, righteousness, faith, etc. opposition to Satan is not a matter of some technique or some ritual or some secret or having the right physical object in your home or something like that. Fundamentally, opposition to Satan is just a matter of walking with the Lord. That's what it means to put on the full armor of God. Third, and this is part of that, is prayer. The strongest tool that we have against Satan is prayer,

because in prayer we petition what God can only do. And I encourage Christians to pray bold and with authority. One of the prayers I'll pray. I'll be vulnerable in these videos talking about this just insofar as I think it could help somebody else out there to do this. When my wife and I feel oppressed by Satan, this happens now and again, will be afflicted with these horrific satanic dreams and all this stuff. I've talked about that before. We'll pray with authority in the name of Jesus. And one of the things I've been praying lately is this prayer. If there is anything here that is not in submission to Jesus, we command that it leaves. immediately. Only that which is in submission to Jesus is welcomed here. And I'm willing to share that,

even though it's vulnerable knowing that, you know, atheists watch my videos and make fun of me and stuff like that. Nonetheless, look, all I can tell you is my experience, which I think is informed by the scripture, and that is, when I do this, I feel this incredible rush of joy and this sense of relief from the oppression. You know, all I can tell you to do is just do it, and it works. You know, Luke 10, go read that passage like I do every morning in my devotions. You have authority through Jesus Christ, through his resurrection. You don't need to live under the thumb of Satan. Now that doesn't mean, like people take that to mean you're, you know, you'll never get sick and you'll be wealthy. It doesn't mean that. Okay. Fourth thing, read the scriptures. In Ephesion 6, this is the one offensive weapon,

the Word of God. Satan hates the scriptures. I say just read them aloud. You know, know, memorize them, find a verse that speaks to your situation where you feel assaulted by Satan or tempted by Satan, and take that verse and just cling to it and speak it into the temptation. There's power in the words of Scripture. And number five is just preach the gospel to your own heart. We need the gospel over and over again. Speak the name of Jesus. Don't get into a big argument back and forth with the demonic accusing thoughts. Here's what Martin Luther has to say. little is gained against the devil with a lengthy disputation, but a brief word and reply such as this is effective. I am a Christian of the same flesh and blood as is my Lord Christ, the son of God.

You settle with him, devil. Such a retort would soon make him depart. I love this. This basic thing of directing, you know, just speaking the truth about Jesus to whatever area you feel assaulted by Satan. and when he accuses you, learn to recite back these wonderful words, yes, but Jesus. Yeah, what you might be accusing me of might be true, but Jesus. And again, James 4-7 is a great promise. You can resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

Okay, that leads to a related question, second to last. How do we resist fascination with Satan? This is just, again, a pastoral burden I have because I think there's more of this in the world. I'm concerned about this. I'm concerned about an increase of Satan. Satanism in the world. And so if you are watching this video and you're tempted toward that, here's how I could just encourage you to flee that, and that is to set all your affections and

love upon Jesus instead. Just make a beeline for Jesus. He is more interesting. I love this quote from Simone Weill. Imaginary evil is romantic and varied. Real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring, but real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating. You see what that's getting at? In a novel, the evil characters are always the interesting ones. But in reality, it's just the opposite. The good people, the virtuous people are the ones who are interesting. Two saints are never just alike.

But evil people tend to get a monotonous rut. That's the nature of evil. Jesus is endlessly fascinating. Let him have all the affection of your heart. You will never get to the bottom of how wonderful he is. Remember that when the 72 come back with joy because the demons are subject to them, this is what I've been studying a lot these mornings, Jesus doesn't only say that I have given you authority, though he says that. He also says, don't rejoice in that, rejoice that your names are

written in heaven. In other words, don't focus so much on the spiritual power dynamics. That's important, but don't let it be like the ultimate place of your joy. The ultimate place of your joy is Jesus and that you will be with him forever. Let heaven be much in your life. thoughts, much in your heart, become fascinated by the light, not the darkness. The darkness is boring. The light is interesting. Final question, what will ultimately happen to Satan? The answer is ultimately Satan will be completely and finally defeated and will experience everlasting destruction. This is portrayed very vividly here in Revelation chapter 20. Now Christians disagree about the details of all the events leading up to that point. You know, the tribulation and the and the rapture

and the millennium, all that, very tough, actually, figuring all that out. But all Christians recognize these four basic realities at the end of times, the second coming of Christ, the final resurrection, the final judgment, and then the inauguration of the new heavens and the new earth. And at that point, Satan will never harm anyone ever again. Just as he's the father of lies, there were no lies before him, there will be no more lies. There will be no more murder. There will be no more racism. There will be no more harming of children. Oh, just go down the line and let your heart be set at rest when we are overwhelmed and assailed by all the evils in this world. No, they have an expiration date. They will not last forever. Heaven is coming. And there's so much more we could say about that.

but let's just finish with this question of, well, if God is going to do that then, why doesn't he do that immediately? Why doesn't he intervene more? Now, this is a big question, the whole problem of evil, really, though I think Satan is incredibly useful in addressing the problem of evil, but he doesn't take the problem away. It's still sort of difficult. But I think one plausible answer I can give that is a happy one that's at least part of the answer is this. Can I say it? God's wisdom, and God's goodness is such that he is ultimately going to use Satan, even Satan, to bring about greater good. I hesitate a little to say that because if someone is really under the assaults of Satan right now when you're watching this, that can be a tough thing to hear, depending on how that

could come across to you. Nonetheless, I actually think we need to know this. God is capable of turning evil to good. Maybe one day. You know, have you ever been through something and at the time you could see no purpose for it. You're thinking, this is just terrible. But then I've been through things like this. It took me like 10 years to look back and now I'm like, well, okay, I can actually see God was at work through that. It was bad, but God brought good out of it. Whereas you can't see that in the moment. Who are we to say that we won't one day in heaven be able to say that about everything? Right? How do we know that we won't be able to look back and say, even Satan was nothing other than a hammer and tool within the hand of an omnipotent, good, loving, and merciful father.

Do you see how Christianity dignifies and enriches the moral struggle between good and evil that we all sense is serious and we all sense is transcendent and we all sense we participate in? The stakes really couldn't be higher. And I'm going to do more on the moral argument soon. That'll be maybe my next big video to try to highlight this stark contrast. So I will simply conclude by saying, praise God that he is given the victory over Satan through Jesus Christ and through the work of the Spirit. What do you think? Let me know in the comments. Love to hear your thoughts. Please help me share this video. Probably not a raging hot topic, but hopefully I'd love for it to get out there, so help me share about it, talk about it. That really does actually help a lot.

If you just post it or something like that, I really appreciate that. And say a prayer for truth Knights that this ministry would glorify Christ as you think to. Check out our website for other things that are coming up. A lot of times we'll put posts indicating what's coming down the future and that kind of thing. You can also sign up for the newsletter where I give a lot of updates about what I'm thinking about, what I'm praying about, how you can pray for Truth Unites, what videos are coming down the pipeline.

The website has a lot there that you can see for if you want to support this ministry. I feel I have joy in what I'm doing. I love doing it. I hope it's serving people and meeting needs out there. And with that, this is officially my longest video ever, which I'm I did not plan. Who, I don't know what it means that my longest video ever is on Satan. I don't know if that's a good thing or not. I don't know. But I think it's good to talk about this topic and just be faithful to the scripture and what it says. Thanks for watching. If you watch

to the end, let me know in a comment and I'll heart your comment. We'll see you next time, everybody.