SATAN AND HIS KINGDOM

I. SATAN'S ORIGIN AND HOME

The Scriptures give but veiled glimpses of his origin and home, for their purpose is more expressly to reveal God in His character; and Christ as the Redeemer of men; with the history of the redeemed from the fall of Adam, their salvation through the Cross, and their eternal destiny, when Christ shall have "abolished all rule and all authority and power" (1 Cor 15:24), contrary to the reign of God, and God Himself shall be All in all. Our Lord says of Satan, "he was a murderer from the beginning" (John 8:44) and John says of him that he "sinneth from the beginning" (1 John 3:8).

II. SATAN'S POSITION AND CHARACTER

In regard to the position and character of Satan we know that he is the very embodiment of a lie, for "There is no truth in him ... he is a liar, and the father of it," said the Lord. The various names by which he is described in the Scriptures reveal his power. Fallen though he be, he is called by the Lord Jesus no less than three times the "prince of this world" (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11), thus plainly recognizing his rule over the earth. That he is a personage of rank and power we learn from Jude: "Michael, the archangel, when contending with the devil, he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing judgment, but said, The Lord rebuke thee" (Jude 9). He is also called the "god of this age" (2 Cor 4:4, margin), for men obey and worship him, even unconsciously, when they do not obey and worship the Creator.

The fallen archangel (Satan) is described as the "prince of the power of the air" (Eph 2:2), meaning wicked spiritual powers dwelling in the aerial heavens, for it seems the "Satanic confederation has its seat in the atmospheric heaven-in the spaces above and around our world" (Seiss). That the "prince of the power of the air" (Eph 2:2) has power (when permission is granted) to wield the forces of the air we see in the history of Job; for at his bidding lightning fell from heaven to consume the flocks of the faithful servant of God, and he caused a wind to blow Job's house down and kill his children. In relation to his attacks upon the children of men the prince of this world is called the "tempter" (1 Thess 3:5), because it is his fiendish delight to tempt others from loyal obedience to God. And he is named "the devil" (1 Tim 3:6-7)-a word never used in the plural, and always, and only, of Satan himself. The Hebrew name Satan occurs in the New Testament thirty-five times interchangeably with the Greek diabolos (NT:1228), which is also used thirty-five times. The word diabolos signifies "separator and slanderer" (Blackstone), or "malignant accuser." Satan is the great separator, and he separates by slandering. He separated the race of man from God in Eden, and ever since he has been separating men from each other, with hatred, malice, envy and jealousy and death. He is especially named the "accuser of the brethren" (Rev 12:10), and we find him also described as "the great dragon," the "old serpent," and the "deceiver of the whole inhabited earth."

That the adversary still has the world under his rule, is unmistakably shown in his attack upon the Lord Jesus in the wilderness. The Lord was led, under the constraint of the Holy Spirit, into the wilderness to be "tempted of the devil," and after other temptations, the devil showed Him "all the kingdoms of the inhabited earth. And the devil said unto Him, To Thee will I give all this authority, and the glory of them: for it hath been delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it. If Thou therefore wilt worship before me, it shall all be Thine" (Luke 4:5-7, margin).

What a daring condition to put to the Son of God. The fallen archangel is craving for worship still.

The extent of His claim to "all the kingdoms of the inhabited earth" the Son of God did not deny, and later the Lord plainly speaks of Satan's kingdom. "If Satan also is divided against himself, how shall his kingdom stand"? (Luke 11:18). And He adds, "The strong man fully armed guardeth his own court," until "a Stronger than he" comes upon him, and sets his captive free. How fitting therefore the petition, "Deliver us from the evil one" (Matt 6:13)! John also emphasizes the universality of Satan's rule, for he writes, "The whole world lieth in the evil one" (1 John 5:19)-it is sunk in the darkness which is his sphere, and is under the rule of the "world-rulers of this darkness" (Eph 6:12). The Scripture makes no distinction between high and low, or between cultured and ignorant, when it states that the "whole world"-pagan and Christendom-lies "in" the realm of the evil one.

In pagan lands, the deceiver is daring in his tyranny, holding men and women in gross and open sin. In civilized countries, the god of this age needs must veil his working. In these last days, however, he is beginning to more openly manifest himself as the prince of the world. He is familiarizing people with his name. Books to be popular must be about him, and in fashion's realm serpents have been the favorite ornaments of dress, while palmistry, clairvoyance, planchette, and other means of intercourse with the spirits of evil, abound on every hand.

The adversary has also his organized governments, which the Apostle Paul describes as "principalities ... powers sovereigns of this present darkness" (Eph 6:12, C.H.). We read of "Satan's throne" (Rev 2:13); of "his ministers" (2 Cor 11:15); of his "principalities" and his "powers"; and of his hosts of "spirits of evil" (Eph 6:12, C.H.) in the heavens. Daniel's account of his interview with the messenger from God supports the view that these principalities and powers of Satan are given charge of specified countries; for the Satanic "prince of Persia" withstood the heavenly messenger, who said that on his return he would again have to meet with the same Prince, together with the "Prince of Greece" (Dan 10:13,20). Satan therefore reigns over an aerial kingdom of hierarchies and spiritual powers, and a kingdom on earth in the world of men, and he governs by means of an organized government.

But let us not forget that all these hosts are compelled to acknowledge the Sovereign Lord of the Universe! Unbelievers in God are alone to be found on earth, for the powers of evil "believe and shudder" (James 2:19), knowing that they are reserved unto judgment.

III. SATAN'S SYSTEM OF RELIGION

In his organized government the adversary has also a religion for those whom he can delude and deceive, showing his perfect mimicry of the worship of the true God.

WORSHIP OF IDOLS

In 1 Corinthians one aspect of Satan's religion is revealed as we are shown what idol-worship actually means. They who would walk in fellowship with God must "flee from idolatry," lest they would hold "communion with demons." They dare not partake of the "table of the Lord," and of the "table of demons" (1 Cor 10:19-22, C.H.). The matter was vital to the Corinthians, as it now is to native Christians in pagan lands, for oftentimes the meat offered for sale had first been offered to idols, and some of the Corinthian Christians had accepted invitations to feasts celebrated in the temple of pagan gods-feasts which were acts of idolatrous worship. Thus we see how the fallen archangel not only deceives, and holds in darkness the human race, but he adds to their destruction, by seeking to meet the desire for an object of worship which lies dormant in every breast.

OUTWARD PROFESSION OF GODLINESS

But apart from direct Satanic worship, Satan has other ways of meeting the need for some religion. Paul writes to the Romans, "Thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou commit sacrilege?" (Rom 2:22, margin) as he shows that no outward rite or ceremonial fulfillment of the law is acceptable to God. Satan knows this, and therefore persuades men that outward obedience to some creed is enough, thus deluding multitudes into a false peace by causing them to rest upon an outward ceremony or form of words.

In the Lord's message to the church at Smyrna, He spoke of those who "say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan" (Rev 2:9). It appears by this that the adversary has not only a religion which gives him worship through material images, but that his "synagogue" or congregation is made up of professors of religion who are without the inward truth. John writes, "If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness (i.e., in sin), we lie, and do not the truth" (1 John 1:6, KJV), and the most severe words that ever passed the lips of Christ were His scathing exposures of the Pharisees. "They say and do not" He said, and "outwardly appear righteous unto men" (Matt 23:28), when inwardly full of hypocrisy. He told them they were of their "father the devil," and called them "serpents," and the "offspring of vipers" (Matt 23:15). And yet the Pharisees claimed God as their Father, and were the straitest sect in Israel in the outward fulfilling of the law! The Lord's strong words make it appear that Satan's invisible "church" is filled with those who make religion a cloak while they are really his subjects.

SATAN'S DOCTRINES

The Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy that the Holy Spirit had expressly told him that in the latter days the adversary would seek to draw many away from the faith by the teaching of spirits inculcating "doctrines of demons" (1 Tim 4:1, margin). So that Satan has "doctrines" as well as system of worship-a "cup," a "table," and a "synagogue!" Paul said that the teaching would be given through men who would profess to be what they were not, and whose consciences would be seared as with a hot iron.

These "teachings of demons," through false teachers acting under their control, had already begun in the first century, and seducing spirits were evidently at work in the church at Thyatira drawing servants of God from their Lord through the "deep things of Satan" (Rev 2:24). One calling herself a prophetess was leading souls astray, teaching them to "eat things sacrificed to idols." The Lord's complaint was that the church suffered these things to be in its midst-things upon which He pronounced the most awful warning of certain judgment. Satan's religion has always one clearly defined mark in the omission of the Gospel of Calvary. And by this test all "gospels" that are not the Gospel may be recognized! The atoning death of the Son of God; His propitiation for sin; His blotting out of sin; His deliverance from the power of sin by the severing power of the Cross; His call of the blood-redeemed soul to the Cross in humiliation of self, and sacrifice for others-in brief, all that Calvary means, is emphatically repudiated, or else always carefully omitted, in the doctrines of the seducing spirits which are evolved in hell! Let everyone thus test the tenets of Theosophy, of Christian (?) Science, and all other teachings now being poured into the world by spirits of evil, who do not hesitate to appropriate for their purposes the very language describing the effects, and blessings of the Gospel.

It cannot always be said that there is no mention of the Cross (and in his later workings, even of the Blood of Christ), in Satan's religious teaching, but it is the Cross as only an outward symbol without the inward power, for he knows that it is only the real acceptance of the death of Christ-or Cross of Christ-which saves from sin and delivers the soul from the power of Satan.

IV. SATAN'S SUBJECTS

"The whole world lieth in the evil one," declares the Apostle John, but it is of the supremest importance to the prince of this world that those who dwell in his realm should not know it. To keep men ignorant of their position he blinds their minds! "The god of this world hath blinded the minds (margin: thoughts) of the unbelieving, that the light of the Gospel ... should not dawn upon them" (2 Cor 4:4).

The adversary dreads the light of God, for light reveals things as they are, both in the natural and in the spiritual world. "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32). The truth about the love of God to men, of men as sinners needing a Saviour, and of God's gift of a perfect Saviour when really apprehended by the soul, must set free, and so the adversary hides the truth from his captives. They are kept "darkened in their understanding" and are thus "alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them" (Eph 4:18).

That the truth must reach the understanding to be effectual in delivering the soul is evident from the Lord's words that the good ground which received the seed was in the one "that heareth the Word, and understandeth it" (Matt 13:23; see also Col 1:9; 1 John 5:20). The adversary therefore labors to keep the understanding darkened, blinding the mind with (1) wrong thoughts about God, (2) prejudices of all kinds, (3) philosophy of earth, (4) false reasonings concerning spiritual things, or else he occupies the thoughts with earthly things, earthly idols, or the cares and pleasures of this life. The Spirit of God alone can defeat the evil one, and destroy the veil which darkens men's minds.