Is Satan As Powerful As God?

Tom:

Thanks, Gary.You are listening to Search the Scriptures Daily, a program in which we encourage everyone who desires to know God’s truth to look to God’s Word for all that is essential for salvation and living one’s life in a way that is pleasing to him.Our topic for many weeks has been evil and in particular, the last few weeks, personal evil in the form of the devil, Satan, the adversary, that old dragon as Revelation calls him.But also Dave, we want to explain to our listeners that we are trying to present what the Bible says about the devil, about Satan, but also we want to add cautions that we’re not to be preoccupied with evil.We are not to make a deep study of evil and so on, but at the same time, when people aren’t aware of what God’s Word says about the adversary, there can be a tendency to give him too much credit to place him in a position in their own minds and their own imagination that the Bible doesn’t support and that can be a problem as well.

Dave:

Right.You can give him either too much or too little.

Tom:

Yes, and the Bible again, doesn’t want us to make a full study or we would have lots more information about this aspect of life.

Dave:

Well the scripture does say in 1 Peter 5 for example, that “your adversary the devil goeth about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.”Paul in Ephesians 6 tell us that we wrestle against principalities and powers, spiritual wickedness in high places.There are indications that we have an enemy.Satan tempted Christ in the wilderness and so forth.But on the other hand, people are always blaming Satan; some people are, always so worried and concerned that Satan might attack them.I’ve often had people say to me, well what you are doing, opposing the occult and false doctrine and so forth, wow, you must really be under satanic attack.And I say no I’m not.I don’t expect it and greater is he that is in each of us as believers than he that is in the world.Satan is the God of this world, so we’re not preoccupied with this.We have no fear of Satan.What did Luther say in his hymn?“One little word will fell him.”Well the Bible doesn’t exactly say it that way, but “resist the devil and he will flee from you.”

Tom:

Right, “Submit to God is the beginning of that.”

Dave:

Right, right.

Tom:

Dave the other thing is that we are not to be ignorant of his schemes.Now that doesn’t mean if we know all of his schemes we are going to defeat him.As you said, “Greater is he that is in me…”, my abiding in God’s Word, that’s my resistance.Submitting to that, being willing to want things God’s way, that’s the first and foremost way we deal with it.So let’s get right to a question that comes from your book In Defense of the Faith, which we’ve mentioned over and over again.These are questions that you have been asked through your many years of ministry and you put them in a book called In Defense of the Faith and not just the questions, but biblical answers to them.So we would encourage our listeners if they would like to get a copy of the book maybe—we’ve been using it for a number of weeks, not just on this subject, but on many other subjects, if they would like to have a copy of the book, Gary will tell them later in the program how they can obtain that.So the question is: I was always taught from Isaiah 14 that Satan was a fallen angel originally named Lucifer.Recently I’ve learned that this isn’t so, for the one being spoken of in Isaiah 14 is obviously “the king of Babylon” (verse 4).Then was Satan created by God as he is now, the most evil of creatures?Dave, when scriptures deal with individuals, particularly in a prophetic sense or when it deals with prophecy, there are some very direct applications with regard to individuals, but there are beyond that, other applications, or future applications.They are referring to somebody that in the context, this couldn’t possibly be.We’ll get into that.For example, the King of Tyre or it must be someone else that fits the description that’s being given.

Dave:

Well what the person is referring to is in verse 4.God says, “Take up—he tells Isaiah—take up this proverb against the king of Babylon and say how hath the oppressors ceased—he’s talking about the destruction of Babylon.However, this is not just the king of Babylon, but he is actually addressing Satan.He’s the real prince of this world; he’s the God of this world and I think it’s quite evident from this passage that Satan is behind the deeds, is inspiring the king of Babylon and clearly verse 12, “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.”Clearly the king of Babylon was never in the presence of God, he didn’t make these assertions, he never was called Lucifer, son of the morning or the morning star and so forth.Christ is the morning star, but Satan loves to be called that.He loves to pose as the Messiah.So it is speaking to Satan, it is also speaking to the king of Babylon.

Tom:

Right.

Dave:

And through him, dealing with Satan, but dealing with both of them, in fact much of the evil in this world, not all of it—you can’t say Satan made me do it—but much of the evil in this world is inspired by and engineered and encouraged by Satan who is the god of this world.

Tom:

Dave, not only Isaiah 14—that’s not the only verse that gives us some very interesting and specific information about Lucifer, about Satan, but also Ezekiel:28:2-19 [2] Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyrus, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said, I am a God, I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas; yet thou art a man, and not God, though thou set thine heart as the heart of God: [3] Behold, thou art wiser than Daniel; there is no secret that they can hide from thee: [4] With thy wisdom and with thine understanding thou hast gotten thee riches, and hast gotten gold and silver into thy treasures: [5] By thy great wisdom and by thy traffick hast thou increased thy riches, and thine heart is lifted up because of thy riches: [6] Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thou hast set thine heart as the heart of God; [7] Behold, therefore I will bring strangers upon thee, the terrible of the nations: and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of thy wisdom, and they shall defile thy brightness. [8] They shall bring thee down to the pit, and thou shalt die the deaths of them that are slain in the midst of the seas. [9] Wilt thou yet say before him that slayeth thee, I am God? but thou shalt be a man, and no God, in the hand of him that slayeth thee. [10] Thou shalt die the deaths of the uncircumcised by the hand of strangers: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD. [11] Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, [12] Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. [13] Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created. [14] Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. [15] Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee. [16] By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. [17] Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee. [18] Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffick; therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee. [19] All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more.
See All... you really have details that tell us, well God is telling us about this being which he created.Let me just quote some of the verses from that.This is Ezekiel:28:2Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyrus, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said, I am a God, I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas; yet thou art a man, and not God, though thou set thine heart as the heart of God:
See All..., “Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyrus, (now here we have another ruler) Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said, I am a God, I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas; yet thou art a man, and not God, though thou set thine heart as the heart of God:…”Now that’s very similar to what you read in Isaiah and of course it addresses this king of Tyrus.But—

Dave:

No doubt that the king had those prideful ambitions in his deceitful heart.

Tom:

Right, but this is the lie. This is the lie that Lucifer told himself in heaven.

Dave:

Exactly.

Tom:

And then the lie that he spread to Adam and Eve in the Garden.So obviously that characteristic of what’s being said here applies.But let’s go on.Pick up with verse 11, I want to read 11, 12 and 13 just to show you specifics here.Verse 11, “Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.”Now I don’t think this was the king, but let’s go on.“Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; (I don’t think the king of Tyrus was ever in Eden) every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.”

Dave:

It almost sounds like he was the choir leader in heaven, that he certainly had a close proximity to God, in God’s presence and he had great authority and he had great beauty and apparently great wisdom.He was the anointed cherub, that’s the highest form of angel.

Tom:

Verse 14, so obviously that couldn’t apply to the king of Tyrus.Well, let me read that.Again, we are getting more information.“Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.”Wow!How could that be Dave?

Dave:

That’s a tough statement to understand.“Perfect in your ways until iniquity was found in you.”I don’t think we can escape the fact that God made this being perfect.He was good.In fact, we read in Genesis a number of times, everything that God had made, God saw it was good.

Tom:

And then he finishes with “…it was VERY good.”

Dave:

Right.Now how do you explain Satan then perfect, good and turning to evil?That’s a topic that we’ve dealt with a bit in our newsletter and I’ve dealt with in my latest book What Love is This?.Martin Luther wrote a treatise, a book about it called The Bondage of the Will.I don’t think we can escape the fact that there is such a thing as the power of choice.And this was something that God gave Satan; he has given it to man and there in the very presence of God with every motivation to continue praising God and submitting to him, Satan is lifted up with pride, and he says I WILL BE like the Most High.I think any honest person out there listening would acknowledge that pride is the number one problem of the human race.That our hearts are deceitful, that we do favor ourselves over others, we do seek the approval and the acclaim of human beings rather than of God which is foolish, but—

Tom:

Dave let me just interject verse 17 just reinforcing what you are saying: “Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee.”“Pride goeth before a fall,” the scripture says.

Dave:

It’s amazing and it’s mysterious.I think in our latest newsletter we did a Q&A about the will.I think the questioner asked something like well why do some people believe in God, why do some people accept Christ and others don’t and I tried to show that this is not because of some conditioning process which the psychologist B. F. Skinner, or Freud believed that.There is no outside influence that can explain, although outside influences can exert themselves upon the human will, but still the will decides based upon whatever influences it has filtered through and analyzed and so forth.Why does someone do something?Ask them.It’s the person who did it.They are responsible and we’ve gotten away from that Tom.In the courts, it’s never the fault of the person who did it.They were raised in a dysfunctional family, they were abused as a child, they had some tragedy befall them, it’s society’s fault.They were raised in a ghetto.I am not discounting the problems that all of these things bring into a person’s life, but that is not an excuse.And when you use that kind of an excuse then you turn the human experience into some kind of a puppet show almost because the person is not personally responsible, but they’ve had all these influences upon them.Well you can’t say that with Satan. He wasn’t raised in a dysfunctional family, he was not abused as a child; he wasn’t raised in the ghetto.He is in God’s presence.This is all he has known is God’s presence, perfection!

Tom:

It doesn’t get any better than that.Love, beauty, I mean and there.Tom, this is a real challenge to my own heart and this is why David, I am sure, in Psalm 139 said “Search me O God and know my heart.Try me and know my thoughts and see if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.” In Psalm 19 he says, “Keep back thy servant from presumptuous sins…” and then he talked about secret sins.Even secret—I don’t even know all my motives sometimes and Jeremiah says, “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, who can know it?I the Lord search the heart…” and so David says please search my heart.Tom, what God did when he created human beings who have the power to choose to reject Christ or to accept Him.I know there are people who say if you believe that then man has the last say, man is in charge, God is not in charge.No, man does not have the last say.God is in charge of the universe and he gives options to man.God makes the rules, but man must acquiesce, he must freely submit.This is not the Taliban you know.We’ve talked about that.This is the way Islam works—by force.You can’t change a person’s mind by force.So there is such a thing as freedom of choice.It’s the free will and Satan exercised it.It was a dangerous thing you could say for God to give to human beings, but who wants a wife or a husband who’s a robot?That you hypnotize and you give post hypnotic suggestions?Then they say I love you, but it doesn’t mean anything.It doesn’t come from the heart.And that is what opened the door to evil.

Tom:

Dave, I know you didn’t mean to imply that it was dangerous that it was going to affect God’s sovereignty.God is in charge.We’re going to see later as we discuss this, the end of this being who was called Lucifer, now Satan the adversary.He may be the god of this world, but he doesn’t pre-empt God and his sovereignty.

Dave:

It would seem to be dangerous.Wait a minute, you give these beings power of choice?And you have given them tremendous capabilities—Genesis 11 at the tower of Babel.God said whatever they imagine they will be able to perform.But their imagination is wicked.Wow, you’ve opened some possibilities.On the other hand, there’s no other way if you want beings who really love you. For some one to choose to love God rather than God programming them or causing them to love him they must have the power of choice.And what glory is it to God if you have people programmed to praise him and to say they love him?So anyway Tom, we’ve wandered just a little bit, but this is all apropos to Satan and these are some of the things we learn from Satan’s origin.Beautiful being, most wisest, most powerful and still there is some authority that Satan still has, still retains.Because he is still able to appear in the presence of God.The Bible says he’s the accuser of the brethren.In Job we remember that the sons of God appear before the throne of God and Satan is among them.He’s going to be cast out eventually.

Tom:

Dave, this relates to our next question.Let me go to it.Evil is supposedly not allowed in God’s presence because He is so holy.Yet Satan still appears before the throne of God, according to the book of Job.Haw can that be?What I would like to do from this question is to go on so that we can resolve in this program the end of Satan.What happens and when?

Dave:

Well he’s going to be cast out of heaven of course.

Tom:

But how can he even be in the presence of God as Dave, Habakkuk:1:13Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity: wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously, and holdest thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than he?
See All... says about God, “Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity…” so how can—

Dave:

Yes, we have to understand the scriptures of course.You have to take the whole thing.God sees everything.The scripture also says the eyes of the Lord run to and fro; that you cannot hide from God.So he does see evil everywhere on this earth.

Tom:

He knows my heart and my heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.

Dave:

That’s right.“So thou canst not look upon iniquity…” means he does not look with favor upon it.He doesn’t look with acceptance certainly, but he doesn’t even want to allow it, however he has given man the choice.So if Satan comes into God’s presence I would presume because of the position that he once had.That God gave him this position.For example, why aren’t human beings—why haven’t they been destroyed, wiped out?In fact God said I will destroy them at the flood, but Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.Why does God allow evil to go on today in this world?Because he’s given man a certain position.He made man over the creatures that God had made, supposedly in charge of this world and until that is resolve man still is here.Satan apparently had some authority.I am sure he had authority and that carries over.Apparently he has not been—well look, Tom, if you put Muhammad Ali, Cassius Clay or whatever, at his prime in the ring with a two year old, you put boxing gloves on a two year old, what’s the point?You’re not proving anything.I often put it this way.Satan is the ultimate alternative to God.The most powerful, beautiful, wisest being that could oppose God.It’s a real battle.It’s a battle for the heart and mind, the souls, the affection of mankind.God has not stacked the deck and I think for that reason Satan continues as the accuser of the brethren and he continues to defy; he continues to do everything he can in all his power, to oppose God, to undermine God and to capture the affection of mankind and that is going to run it’s course.Revelation 12 tells us that there is going to be war, that there was war in heaven.Michael and his angels fought with the serpent, the dragon, and his angels and cast him out and when he comes to this earth during the great tribulation, knowing that his time is short with great anger and all the evil of Satan will be unleashed.He will do it through the Antichrist who will have all the cunning and power of Satan, probably possessed.I am sure possessed by Satan and that is yet to come.Satan’s doom is sure.He will be cast into the bottomless pit.Eventually he ends up in the lake of fire as the Bible tells us where he will be confined and tormented forever.

Tom:

Right, and all of his followers; those who think he has a better way are going to join him there for eternity and then there will be a time of where we will have a new universe in which the scriptures says “…wherein dwelleth righteousness and nothing will enter in that defileth.”It’s going to be wonderful.

Dave:

Exactly.I’m looking forward to it.