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“Bless the LORD, ye his angels, that excel in strength, that do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word.” —Psalm 103:20
Sometime ago, my husband had a dream, and we believe it was from the Lord. In this dream, he and I were in a big auditorium full of people, perhaps a revival meeting, although the occasion for the gathering was not revealed. For some reason, my husband walked to the back of this auditorium where he saw someone coming out of a hallway, and instantly he knew it was the Lord.
What did the Lord look like? My husband couldn’t say, but in his dream, the Lord walked from the hallway, passed by him, and then looked back as if to say, “Follow Me,” which he did. Together, they went down a different hallway and stopped near a partially opened door that soon opened wider. Inside, my husband saw a man—a very handsome man—looking out and away from things, unaware of anyone around him. My husband turned to the Lord and asked, “That’s Satan, isn’t it?” The Lord said, “Yes.” In the dream, my husband started to weep as he said slowly, almost as a question, “This is the one who has caused me so much trouble.” The Lord answered, “Yes,” and with that, He closed the door, and the dream ended. The meaning of this dream? My husband doesn’t know. But as he relayed the memory of it in a recent service, he said, “I do know this, the Lord never does anything of that nature for it to mean nothing. It always means something. And I thank God today because even though I stood there in that dream weeping as I looked at Satan, by the help and grace of the Lord, He has given me victory over the powers of darkness and over Satan himself.”
On Frances & Friends, we take quite a few questions about Satan, so I thought we could address some of them here.
WHO IS SATAN, ANYWAY?
Satan is an angel, albeit fallen. He was created by God along with all the other angels sometime in the distant past. Prior to his fall, the evidence is that he served the Lord in righteousness and holiness for an undetermined period of time.
Satan is real; he’s not merely a principal, or a figure of speech. Satan is an actual personal being who heads up his kingdom of darkness. His pride and warped desire to take God’s place in the universe introduced sin. He is the cause of all evil, all war, all pain and suffering, all heartache, and all destruction in the world then and now. Sin is the means by which all of this was brought about. As far as we know, Satan is the originator of sin.
WHERE IS HE?
At times, Satan does have access to heaven, even the very throne of God. In Job 2:1, we read, “Satan came also among them to present himself before the Lord.” Also in Job, when the Lord asks Satan where he had been (and the Lord knew exactly where he had been), Satan answered, “From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.” We also know, from I Peter 5:8, how Satan walks the earth, “as a roaring lion…seeking whom he may devour.”
Gabriel tells the story of when he and Jill were in South Africa at a wildlife reserve where only an electric fence separated them from the animals, including lions. He said at one point, the largest lion there roared, probably not the lion’s most powerful effort, but still scary enough to send a chill through your bones. In Scripture, Satan is typified by two metaphors—a roaring lion and an angel of light. As a roaring lion, he is very dangerous, and he persecutes. As an angel of light, he deceives. Satan is to be dreaded more as an angel than as a lion. Your adversary the devil is far more powerful than what the pitiful efforts of man can handle. It takes power to address Satan—far more power than man possesses. It takes the power of God. That power is found in the Holy Spirit, and it is available to every saint of God, but only on the premise of our faith in Christ and what He has done for us at the cross.
WHAT DOES SATAN DO?
Satan accuses. He is ever the accuser of our brethren day and night (Rev. 12:10). Zechariah 3:1 provides an example where we see Satan, standing at the right hand of Joshua, “to resist him.” In one sense, Satan has a right to accuse simply because the individual, whoever it might be, is, in fact, guilty (as Joshua is later described with the filthy garments). Consequently, a judicial judgment is rendered by Satan, especially in view of the fact that the evidence is obvious. However, upon faith in the slain Lamb, the price is paid for one’s sins, and the judicial judgment that should have been poured out on the sinner is instead poured out on Christ. By virtue of the price being paid and the penalty being suffered by Christ, which was death, the offending member—as Joshua, as you, as me—is allowed to go free, and Satan is rendered helpless. There is nothing more Satan can say or do.
Satan threatens. He is constantly telling believers terrible things that he is going to do to them. He tells us that he is going to kill us, take our family, steal our health, steal our children, drive us into bankruptcy—any lie that he can get us to believe. But despite all the blow and bluster of the Evil One, you are still here, serving God. If Satan could have done any of the things he threatens, he would have done it a long time ago. He is a liar and the father of it.
Remember, Satan can only do what the Lord allows him to do, and the Lord does allow him certain latitude—not to hurt us, but that our faith might be tested and that we might grow in grace and the knowledge of the Lord.
WHAT DOES HE BELIEVE?
Although the Bible clearly pronounces his doom, Satan is so deceived that he believes he will ultimately be the god of heaven, this world, and the entire universe. It’s easy to question whether Satan has read the Bible and learned of his coming fate. But the truth is, he doesn’t believe the Bible, even as none of his followers believe the Bible. He is the father of deception and believes his own lie. Despite the fact that he is a created being and greatly inferior to the Creator, who is omnipotent (almighty), omniscient (all-knowing), and omnipresent (everywhere), still, Satan believes he can overcome God.
WHAT IS SATAN’S ULTIMATE END?
The truth is, Satan was made completely ineffective at the cross. There, his power was completely broken, inasmuch as Jesus addressed everything that was lost in the fall. New Testament scholar Dr. Curtis Vaughan says of this verse, “To the casual observer, the cross appears to be only an instrument of death, the symbol of Christ’s defeat; Paul sees it as Christ’s chariot of victory.”
But the ultimate destruction of Satan is recorded in Revelation 20:10, “And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.”
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