Last week, we began looking at the devil, who is the third of our “trinity of enemies”. We saw that he is, by definition, our adversary! And he is a lying slanderer, who will not only slander and accuse you before God, but will slander and accuse God to you. Today, I want to look at the power that our great enemy possesses in this world.

Before we go any farther, we need to understand one important point. The devil is NOT omnipotent – that is the nature of God, not Satan! Even though he is extremely powerful, we must remember that God still constrains Satan. When Satan tried to overthrow Job, God suffered him to do attack him, but he put a limit upon the devil beyond which he could not go. So when we experience the assault of Satan, we can take comfort in the fact that God is still in charge, and able to protect us!

But the devil nonetheless has great power in this sin-cursed world. In Ephesians 2:2, he is called the “prince of the power of the air.” Jesus Himself calls him the “prince of this world” (John 12:31, 14:30). In chapter four of the Gospel according to Matthew, Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to His great confrontation with the devil. Satan showed Christ “all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me” (Mat. 4:8-9). This was a temptation for Christ to obtain the power over the kingdoms of the world, but bypass the cross. Nowhere does Jesus say that the devil did NOT have the authority to give Him these things; in fact, it is clear that Satan possessed this authority, because otherwise why would it have been a true temptation for Christ?

Paul wrote to the Ephesians, and told them about the warfare that we are in. He warned them about the “wiles of the devil,” and declared that we are fighting “not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Eph. 6:11-12). Yes, my friend, the devil is behind all the dark conspiracies of this world, each of which is an assault on the Kingdom of God!

We also need to know a little bit about the way the devil operates against the people of God. Stay tuned, and we will look at some of these tactics next time.

May the Lord bless you is my prayer!

Elder Chris McCool, Pastor