Satan has many aliases--The Devil, Abbadon, Appolyon, Beelzebub, The Old Serpent, Prince of This World, Prince of Darkness. How well do you know him? He is around us always--while fishing, hunting, at work, while we eat, recreation, everywhere. His domain or kingdom is that of this world of darkness. His kingdom is made up of the children of disobedience, he actually has those who worship him as a god.

His characteristics: He always accuses the children of God. He is a liar, a murderer, is the enemy, an evil spirit, the tempter.

His objective--to turn every living soul against God, to lead every child of God to Hell, to overcome good. We need to understand! Just as God is only good, God is light and in Him is no darkness (I John 1: 4-5), Satan is just the opposite. He is evil only, full of darkness, and no light.

Hollywood depicts Satan as the evil behind the forces of evil that are always trying to defeat Jesus the son of God and His children. The screenwriters make it out to be a story of good versus evil, a fight that has always existed, a fight that someday will end when Jesus decides to return to face Satan. I believe they are correct, maybe they don't know the outcome as we do, but they do there there will be a day.

There is a battle going on today. Satan is laying seige on the human race. He is behind all the evil that goes on in this world. Some say that Satan was once one of God's angels.

Jesus had sent out the seventy to heal, preach, cast out devils. When they returned they came to Jesus and said, "Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through your name." In Luke 10: 18 Jesus said, "I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven. Behold, I give you power over the enemy."

II Peter 2: 1-3. There are warning about false teachers, who will lead people astray. Then in verse 4 "If God did not spare the angels that sinned, but cast them down to Hell and delivered them for judgement . . . " The warning is "Beware, don't fall for their lies, God will judge the wicked."

In Jude verse 3, Paul admonishes the church to earnestly contend for the faith, becaues evil men will creep in and tell you lies and turn you from the grace of God. Beware! God saved Israel and later destroyed them. The angels that left their first estate are reserved in chains for judgement.

Revelation 12: 9--"And the great dragon was cast out, the old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceived the whole world, he was cast out into the earth and his angels were cast out with him." Who is Satan? Evil darkness. Where did he come from? I don't know, Has he always existed? I don't know. I have no concrete evidence to any of these questions, but this: I know he does exist, he is out there in this world, and he is very dangerous.

We do know Satan existed from the beginning. "Jesus said to the Jews, 'You are of your father the devil, and the lust of your father you will do, he was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth because there is no truth in him. When he lies he speaks of his own, for he is a liar and the father of it'"--John 8: 44.

How does Satan work? This could be answered with one statement: Any way and everyway that we let him. On this earth as we know it, Satan just makes life miserable for everyone; all the killing, wars, drugs, theivery, rapes, child abuse, all this is just what Satan works for. He is behind all the evil that exists.

It doesn't take much effort on his part to keep this world in turmoil. All the greed, lying, and cheating will do that. Good people may never correct what is going on in this world. God will have to do that. But until God says "It's Time!" We will have to do what we can. "Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God and He will draw nigh to you."

Here's how Satan works: He is probably the greatest fisherman who ever was. He'll cast you a lure, reel it in a little, jiggle it a little, making you think "I've got to get that now or it's going to be gone." The bait is always something that will entice the one he is luring. He will make something that is bad look ok for us. It's always something that attracts our sensations. He makes evil look so good that sometimes we bite. We have to be carefully on the watch.

Here is his mode of operation!

1. He dresses in sheep's clothing and enters into the fold, but inside his disguise is a raging wolf that scatters the flock (Matthew 7: 15).

2. He transforms himself into an engel of light. His ministers transform themselves into apostles of Christ, into the ministers of righteousness (II Corinthians 11: 13-15), but they are really false teachers deceiving all the people they can. That's scary, isn't it?

Brothers and sisters, we are not fighting a normal man. We are not fighting flesh and blood. We are fighting a powerful enemy. And we must arm ourselves with all that God supplies us with to defeat him. We must wear God's armor of truth (God's Word), righteousness( that comes from God), Gospel (that Jesus overcame death), faith (that God will raise us up also), salvation (that comes through the blood and by the grace of God), and the Sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God. This is because as I said before, we are not fighting flesh and blood, but principalities, powers, the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

The fight is not against mere man of flesh and blood, that would be no fight at all. We're fighting Satan--the evil spirit that is behind all the wickedness of this world. Satan's goal is to defeat everyone and everything that has to do with good. He defeated each of us at one time in our lives when we were in the world. But we thank God every day for his Son who reconciled us to God at the cross (Ephesians 2: 18), who delivered us from the power of darkness and translated us into the Kingdom of his dear Son (Colossians 1: 13).

Satan-Sin-Darkness-Very powerful!

vs

God-Righteousness-Light-More powerful!

It's a fight which God will win.

It's a fight which we can win.

Read Romans 8: 35-39.

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