Does Satan Exist?
Yes, Satan exists, there is evil all over the world. Evil has a kind of secondary dominance in the whole of creation. It affects everything. It affects the natural creation, the supernatural creation and the human and personal creation.
Pope Francis says, “Around us, there is the presence of evil. The devil is at work. But in a loud voice, I say: “God is stronger.”
In the old Testament, Satan is referred to in seven different books. Also, nineteen of the New Testament books refer to Satan. Other than that, we have the testimony of our Lord Jesus Christ, Jesus himself acknowledged the existence of Satan. At least 15 different times, and under five different names, Jesus asserted that the Devil or Satan existed and the devil had a confrontation with Jesus when he was fasting. From the book of genesis, through the book of Revelation, the existence of an intelligent, cunning personage who is the great enemy of God is clearly taught. He has been called by different names on different situations.
According to Bible, Satan was created by God as a cherub. Cherub means the most powerful of God’s angelic beings. Some time after his creation and before the creation of mankind, Satan rebelled against God and took one-third of the angels with him into rebellion. Satan is not the opposite of God, he is an anti-God. He became arrogant in his beauty and status and decided to sit on a throne above that of God. His pride led to his fall. Because of his sin, God permanently removed Satan from his exalted position and role and God cast Satan out from Heaven. Satan’s prefall name was “Lucifer”.
Ever since Satan was cast out of heaven, he has made it his purpose to oppose God and lead the people of earth into rebellion as well. Satan has a certain authority in this world; he is called the “ruler of this world” and “the prince of the power of the air”. He is referred in Scriptures as the “accuser”, the “slanderer” means devil, the “father of lies”, the “murderer”, the “deceiver” and the “adversary”or “one who opposes”.
He is called Father of lies and his first recorded lie in the history was in the Garden of Eden, to Eve. He tempted her to eat the forbidden fruit by lying “you will never die”. With that lie, he led Eve to death; Adam followed and all humanity as well.
Lying is Satan’s primary weapon in separating people from God. When we listen to his lies, we support him and start opposing God. Some of his common lies are “there is no God”, “God doesn’t care about you”, “the Bible can not be trusted,” and “your good works will not get you into Heaven”. One of the most potent lies Satan tells us is, “Satan doesn’t exist” and we believe him and go against God’s commandments and sin against God.
Whenever we see ourselves lying or willing to hurt others to gain our own way, we must know that we are under the influence of the evil one. The worse thing is, we can not escape by ourselves. We are trapped. The more we give into his ways, the more we share his evil ways. Only the Lord Jesus Christ can rescue us from the Devil’s grasp.
Evil has many different forms, that is as follows:
1. Natural Evil 2. Moral Evil 3. Supernatural Evil 4. Eternal Evil
1) Natural Evil is evil in the form of diseases, disasters, catastrophes, the kind of things that come from the physical world. The whole world is filled with bad things, things that make us sick, things that injure us, things that kill us. There is natural evil so active even to this day. Rarely does a day pass by when we don’t hear of someone somewhere or some group somewhere or some massive amount of people somewhere dying in some kind of natural disaster, or some plague, or some illness sweeping through the lives of people.
2) Moral Evil is, internal. It is Spiritual. In the form of wickedness, sin, transgression, iniquity, whatever term we want to use for it. It is an attitude, it is a course of thinking, speaking and conduct which dominates the human race so that Scripture says, ”No one is good, not even one”, “All the thoughts of the human heart are only evil.” Also, the Bible tells us, that society is dominated by corruption. The corruption comes to every human being. It impacts every life, every relationship. All of the humanity is made up of sinners, no one is exempt. And all the immoral sinners collide with each other in malfunctioning families and friendships and rivalries and associations and nations. The collision of wicked, selfish, immoral hearts fills the world with one disaster after the other.
3) Supernatural Evil is the evil that is basically perpetrated by demons, fallen angels, and the associates of Satan. These evil beings are as old as creation. They are totally wicked. Satan who leads them who has been given temporary authority by God over the world system. Massive spiritual struggle going on in this world system affected by demons. They have the power to seduce and deceive humanity against God and against the Gospel and against Scripture and to draw them deeper and deeper into immorality and iniquity.
4) Eternal Evil, In a word, is hell. People who go to hell will be forever evil.
Why God allows us to suffer?
We always think why God allows us to suffer. Yes, God allows us to suffer, there is a reason behind it. He allows Satan to tempt us, just to test us if we remain faithful to God or blame God and go against God. God himself allowed Satan to tempt Job. Job was a blameless and upright person one who revered God and avoided evil. God had made him richest among all. Still, he allowed Satan to tempt him, to see if Job goes against God or confronts Satan. Satan took everything from Job, but In all this, Job did not sin nor blame God. Also, Satan tempted Jesus in the desert but Jesus resisted the Devil and then the devil left him and Angels came and attended Jesus. This clearly shows that God allows us to suffer, to build our maturity. He allows us to suffer so we can be a comfort to others later. One more reason God allows Satan to attack us, perhaps to strengthen our faith, to test us or to prepare us to help others in their time of need. Regardless of the reason, we can stand firm in God’s promises, including the promise of 1 John 4:4 “He who is in you, is greater than he who is in the world”. We are never abandoned. When Satan attacks us, God’s help is near us, when we “submit ourselves to God and resist the devil, the devil will flee from us.
Finally, God is our father, he loves us and he is faithful. He will never let us to be tempted beyond our ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that we may be able to endure it. God’s intention is always for our good. So whenever we find having negative thoughts about ourselves or about God or about others, we should take up the shield of faith with which we will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Satan might tempt us, discourage us, defeat us. But he is a liar, and we need to confront his lies with the truth of God’s word and we stand Victorious in Christ.
Logic RIP