… because the devil has been sinning
from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the
devil’s work. 1 John 3:8
I have
observed among spiritual persons in the Christian fellowship a tendency either
to ignore the devil altogether or to make too much of him.
Both
attitudes are wrong!
There is
in the world an enemy whom we dare not ignore. We see him first in the third
chapter of Genesis and last in the twentieth of Revelation, which is to say
that he was present at the beginning of human history and will be there at its
earthly close.
This
enemy is not a creation of religious fancy, not a mere personification of evil
for convenience, but a being as real as man himself. The Bible attributes to
him qualities of personality too detailed to be figurative, and reveals him
speaking and acting in situations hard and practical and far removed from the
poetic imagination.
He is
said to be a liar, a deceiver and a murderer who achieves his ends by guile and
trickery. While he is not omnipresent (omnipresence being an attribute of God
alone) he is ubiquitous, which for his purpose amounts to the same thing.
Satan
hates God for His own sake, and everything that is dear to God he hates for the
very reason that God loves it. Because man was made in God’s image the hatred
with which Satan regards him is particularly malevolent, and since the
Christian is doubly dear to God he is hated by the powers of darkness with an
aggravated fury.
In view
of this, it cannot be less than folly for us Christians to disregard the
reality and presence of such an enemy.
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