The Defeated Foe Looks Like He’s Winning

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Clik here to view.Satan is God’s enemy. He’s a rebel who wants to pull off a coup d’état, and like any undermanned foe, he’s using guerrilla tactics.

His great plan, as I’ve pointed out from time to time, is to call into question God’s word. He wants to undermine the authority of the Bible, but he also wants to undermine belief in Jesus.

The thing is, God’s Word is always a revelation of who He is, and it is truth about God’s character, His work of redemption, the essence of His personhood that Satan doesn’t want humankind to see.

But there’s one other area he systematically is going after: Creation. After all, creation is God’s first revelation to humankind. It is by what He has made that we first realize He is.

If C. S. Lewis’s fictitious head demon, Screwtape, were giving advice to his underling today, he would surely include ways to twist our understanding of God’s creative power and purpose.

Now listen, Tapeworm, or whatever your name is, we’ve been ramping up the program to distort the information about this ridiculous species the Enemy cares so much about. You’ve fallen down on your end. There are rumors that more and more scientists have stepped forward, saying they actually believe in a designer and in the account of first things the Enemy released.

This has got to stop!

Nothing is more important. Nothing.

Let your puny charges believe in the Enemy and even worship him, but be sure he’s stripped of his essential power. Let him be relegated to the role of cheerleader, watching from the sidelines, cheering Humankind along on their journey through life. Let them think the being they worship is kind and good and loving . . . and powerless. Powerless, at least, to impact the world in a meaningful way.

Consequently, it’s up to them to take things into their own hands and do what they can to clean up this mess.

The One they worship? He can give them a shoulder to cry on, an occasional thumbs-up atta-boy, a timely “well done” to let them know how important they are to his plans. After all, what would he be without them? They’re all that stands between him being declared a myth, a mirage, or even a bit of undigested cheese.

Do you see where I’m going with this, Wormbottom, or whatever your name is? You must create the impression that the Enemy’s greatest displays of power either didn’t happen or were not his to claim.

Start with the origins issue. Your subjects already feel as if their grasp of science makes them far superior to those who want to credit the Enemy with making the vastness of the universe from nothing.

I wonder what they would think if they could see the spiritual realm, too. Of course, that’s something they must never, ever know.

Your job is to keep your subjects developing theories they elevate to fact which leaves the Enemy out of the origins process all together. Do this, and his first source of showing himself to these weaklings is destroyed.

And so the instruction might continue.

Sadly, the plans Satan has put in motion seem to be winning. Except, that’s only an appearance. Another one of his lies. He’s attacking Scripture and creation and marriage and Jesus, all with the intent to overturn God’s sovereignty.

But that’s not possible.

God already turned Satan’s best weapon, death, into His greatest victory.

For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, “DEATH IS SWALLOWED UP in victory. O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR VICTORY? O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR STING?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Cor. 15:53-57, emphasis mine)

So Satan may look as if he’s winning when we look at what sin does in our world, but his pretension of greatness is short lived and utterly false.

If we’re tempted to doubt, all we have to do is turn our eyes to the heavens.

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Clik here to view.Isaiah 40 says, because of the greatness of His might and the strength of His power, not one of the stars He made is missing. His might. His power. On display every time we look to the heavens.

Satan’s working on distracting us and deluding us so we don’t see the truth. But here it is: God is the Creator and sustainer of everything He made that has been made. He owns it. He rules it. He preserves it. And He will one day remake it all for our good and His glory.

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