Some people called him Lucifer, some Beelzebub, a few the Devil, but this prince of darkness can be best known as ‘Satan.’ We always knew him to be a character from a horror book or comic with this huge dark red face of a monster with double horns, waiting always to kill without mercy. He is in fact very much real, an evil spirit that rules the world today.
It was only during my first walk with our Lord in the Bible when my dad was down for years following a paralytic stroke that I began to look at him closely. Who was this person? Why does the Bible talk so much about him all through the 66 books? Why did they call him the prince of today’s world? My reading and understanding of the Word soon began to reveal all about this person little by little. Believe me, he is not a paper character that we see in that horror novel. He is a real spirit with a set agenda: to steal, kill and destroy from all human beings that habit this planet. And if you are a Christian! He will do everything in his power from believing and acting on God’s Word.
In fact, this fallen spirit was not really evil at one time. He was the beautiful Lucifer, the archangel in Heaven whose job was to manage all the music, the praise and worship in Heaven. The problem came when he was kicked out of Heaven along with a bunch of other angels who joined him in the rebel. They were banished together and huddled in a place called Hell, especially prepared by God for them. They were condemned in the fiery furnaces there in Hell for all eternity.
Friends, what a pity it is when you look at it. Everything on Earth was made by God by the Word of His power. It was all glory until the time when the first man Adam fell a victim to the temptations of this Satan by eating the fruit of the forbidden tree a long time ago. And when Adam did it! All the authority that Adam had was turned over to this evil spirit Satan. Just as he had wanted and planned to do, sickness and disease, thirst and hunger, lack and want were the order of all days for a long long time. Until God in His mercy sent His only begotten Son Jesus to be born as a man (only a man had authority on Earth as per God’s Word when He made Adam) and suffer and die for Adam’s sin and the sins of all mankind that followed him. By doing so, Jesus took back the authority that was turned over to Satan. We as humans automatically choose Satan when we reject what Jesus did for us. All those who reject Jesus will find themselves in the company of Satan and others in Hell.
I am sure as I write this post that a lot of people are going to ridicule and laugh at what I have just said above. For they really do not know who this evil spirit called Satan is. Ladies and gentlemen, Satan is real and is using his power in full force in the world even today. He unleashes demonic forces that can attack our minds; ruin our relationships, cause disasters like fires and floods and much more. He shows up by deceiving people subtly, he manipulates our emotions and he blinds us by inducing fear. He hates God and his people. He will do everything he can to make us disbelieve that we were made in the image of God.
The great good news is that we have a way out to stop this evil spirit we call as Satan. Just as Satan is true, so is God the Almighty and His Word. God has given us again the same authority that Adam had, this time through Jesus to stop the works of the Devil. By meditating and doing the Word, we can put a check over this demon. After all, the law of life in Christ Jesus supersedes the law of life in sin and death from the Devil. Jesus has set us free from him. We are no more bonded to him.
Halleluiah!
Bible commentator: Sunder Venkataram
