SATAN IS NO MYTH

SATAN
IS NO
MYTH
). OSWALD SAN D ERS

moody pRess
ChlCAQO
 Contents
Chapter Page
Preface 7
1. Myth or Reality? 9
2. Origin and Fall 16
3. Names and Nature 24
4. Eden and the Wilderness 37
5. Rival Hierarchies 54
6. Demons and Demon Possession 61
7. Stratagems and Wiles 71
8. Heavenly Armor 91
9. Delegated Authority 101
10. Overthrow and Doom 111
11. Invincible Weapons 120
12. Be Sober! Be Watchful! 126
13. Whom Resist 134
Notes 140

5
Preface
T he consistent theme of the bible from beginning
to end is the conflict between good and evil, between God
and the devil. It begins with the serpent in Eden in Genesis
3, and concludes with the devil cast into the lake of fire in
Revelation 20. The intervening chapters depict the swaying
tides of battle in a conflict waged in the heavenly sphere
as well as on earth.
Since this is so, is it not both strange and suspicious that
there is so little literature dealing specifically with the devil,
who, according to Scripture, is the second most powerful
being in the universe? Is it not surprising that this theme is
so seldom the subject of preaching in our churches? I have
often questioned people on this subject, only to discover
that a good proportion have never heard even one sermon
on the devil and his activities. The reader need only consult
his own experience to realize how singularly successful the
devil has been in disguising his activities and preserving his
anonymity.
The reason for this singular neglect is not because of a
lack of material on the subject in the Scriptures. Indeed,
there is an amazing amount of teaching to throw light on
every aspect of Satan’s person and work. And it is not
because there is not adequate and tragic evidence of his
nefarious activity that can be seen by the discerning eye.
We must look elsewhere for the reason for this strange
omission.

7
 In its June 19, 1972 issue, Time magazine carried the
following illuminating paragraphs:
A wave of fascination with the occult is noticeable
throughout the country. It first became apparent a few
years ago in the astrology boom, which continues. But
today it also extends all the way from Satanism and witch­
craft to the edges of science, as in Astronaut Edgar
Mitchell’s experiment in extrasensory perception from
aboard Apollo 14. . . . Major publishers have issued
dozens of hard-cover books on the occult and the related
field of parapsychology in the past year. . . . A growing
number of colleges across the U.S. are offering courses on
aspects of the occult.
German Journalist Horst Knaut estimates that at least
3,000,000 West Germans subscribe to some form of the
occult, and perhaps 7,000,000 more sympathize with the
secret sciences. Staid Switzerland abounds with oddball
sects, including one in which a supposedly “possessed”
girl was tortured to death a few years ago. In Italy it is
not so much the quantity as the quality of occultism that
has changed. Long a part of Italy’s superstitious southern
peasant culture, occultism has moved north to the indus­
trialists, the doctors and lawyers of the affluent class.
Such statements are sufficient to warrant probing into a
subject which occupies so prominent a place on the world’s
agenda—but which has been largely ignored by the Church,
or relegated to the limbo of myth.
Satan is no myth. It would be difficult to refute Beaude-
laire’s contention that the devil’s cleverest ruse is to make
men believe that he does not exist. The immediate result of
the Church’s neglect has been the large number swept into
the vortex of the occult revival. And few voices are raised
to alert people to the significance of this revival.

8
 1
Myth or Reality?
In the desperate conflict Christ waged, in which He lost
His life, was He mistaken? Was it really ‘the prince of
this world' He had to face— a terrible supernatural
being whose hate for God was as dark and as deep as
hell? Or was He deluded?
That He believed in a personal devil whose dominion
He came to shatter; that He commanded demons to
come out of their victims; that He was convinced that
if He were to save man He must show up the Prince of
Darkness in his true light, and break his power over
human hearts; that He really believed these things, no
student of the Scriptures would for a moment pretend
to deny.1
F. J. H uegel

N ote some statements that are a fair representation of

a very large cross-section of theological opinion in our day:
No present-day system of philosophy gives any place
to the Diabolos of Scripture.2
E dgar B rightman
The toothy red imp with tail and trident has become a
secular figure of fun, and many theologians have banished
a personal devil to the realm of myth.3
J. I. Packer

9
 Until the Age on Enlightenment (A.D. 1650-1780)
belief in an objectivised personal devil and his minions was
all but universal amongst theologians. Today, however,
it is generally recognized that belief in Satan, the leader
of the fallen angels, etc., is not a satisfactory answer to
the problem of evil. It still leaves us to ask the question
how evil got into the world which God created and saw
was “very good.” But as a pictorial way of representing
the existence of superhuman evil forces in the universe,
Satan and his hosts call our attention to a very important
question for theology.1
A lan R ichardson

Reasons for these attitudes are many. First and foremost,

perhaps, are the grotesque, fantastic representations of the
devil which in the past travestied the sober and restrained
language of Scripture. Popular conceptions are based more
on the word pictures of Dante and Milton than on divine
revelation.
The medieval picture of a half-man, half-beast with
horns, cloven hoofs and tail, is a masterly gambit of the
devil to make himself appear so ludicrous as to get himself
laughed out of court. No being could be less like “ the
anointed cherub,” “ the angel of light” who is next to Christ
in power and worldly authority. Ebrard maintained that all
the objections raised by philosophers are not against the
devil as portrayed in the Bible, but against false conceptions
of him invented in the past and perpetuated in modern
literature.
Dr. Owen C. Whitehouse, an avowedly advanced biblical
critic, concludes his article in Hastings’ Dictionary of the
Bible with: “ That Satan exists as a personal center of evil
influences, physical as well as moral (for the two are

10
closely associated), is the undoubted teaching of the Bible.”5
This being the case, the concept of a personal devil is
rejected only on the a priori grounds that it is too grotesque
for refined minds to accept, or that it does not supply the
whole answer to the problem of evil.

T he O nly A uthentic Source

The only authentic source of knowledge of the realm of
the unseen is the divine revelation of the Scriptures. All
else is speculation, with no one view more authoritative
than another. Where Scripture is silent, or speaks with
reserve, the expositor will do well to advance only tentative
opinions. But where Scripture has spoken clearly, we have
heard all we need to know, and our opinions need not be
tentative.
The Bible reveals truths which intellectual research or
psychic investigation have never revealed. A. T. Pierson
wrote:
One of the grand proofs that the Scriptures are God-
inspired is found in the air of absolute positiveness
and infallible certainty with which these occult mysteries
are treated. There is no timid feeling after truth, or hesi­
tating utterance about it, but a consistent body of teaching
concerning the unseen realm, that has at least this to
commend it, for the first and only time, it gives man a
simple and satisfactory solution of perhaps his greatest
problem. Here is teaching that has about it finality; it is
the utterance of One who speaks as confidently as about
the most common facts or phenomena, and treats what is
hidden from the senses as a familiar commonplace. He
who after vain attempts to find in man’s hypotheses and
philosophies any solid ground to rest upon, comes with
open mind and heart to inquire at God’s living oracles, gets

11
 an answer to all his inquiries and a sure basis for faith
and hope.0

His contention was that, to the believer, the realm of

the unseen is an indisputable reality whose existence and
importance are never argued in Scripture, but assumed.
Referring to the growing disbelief in a personal devil
among theologians, Maldwyn Hughes says:
Many theologians are opposed to it on the ground that it
introduces an ultimate dualism into the universe. But this
is not so unless the Divine attributes of omniscience, omni­
potence and omnipresence are ascribed to Satan. The exist­
ence of a demonic intelligence no more necessarily implies
dualism than does the existence of sinful man. Without
seeking to dogmatize, it may be remarked that belief in the
diabolic personality rests on the same general ground of
experience as belief in the divine personality. But since
the latter belief is comforting and the former belief dis­
turbing, people overlook the parallelism.7

T he D evil’s Incognito
The very names applied to Satan by our Lord argue his
personality. Murder is not a mere abstraction, and does not
exist apart from a murderer. There is no lie without a liar
(Jn 8:44). In the Bible, moral evil is uniformly viewed as
the product of personality. It exists only in the wills of
personal beings, whether human or superhuman. To think
otherwise is not rational.
The devil’s incognito is one of the cleverest tricks in his
bag. Denis de Rougemont writes in La Part du Diable:
But the devil, who is possessed with desire to imitate truth
in twisting it, says to us, “I am nobody. What are you

12
 afraid of? Are you going to tremble before the non­
existent?” . . . Satan disappears in his successes and his
triumph is his incognito. The proof that the devil exists,
acts, and succeeds lies in the fact that the intelligent world
does not believe in him any more.8

T he Key Q uestion
To one who believes Christ to be the Son of God in the
fullest sense of that term, and who accepts the Scriptures
as the inspired and authoritative revelation of God, one key
question bears on the subject of the reality of the devil and
his demons. That question is, “Did Jesus believe in the
existence of a personal devil and his demons, or was His
conception only of impersonal but powerful forces of evil
in the universe?” The way we answer this question will
determine our whole approach to the subject. If our Lord
disbelieved the existence of a personal, malignant devil,
then we need not hesitate to share His disbelief.
If our Lord’s words on the subject are taken objectively,
the conclusion, whether He was right or wrong, is that He
believed and taught that He engaged in conflict with a
personal tempter in the wilderness temptation. The lan­
guage carries no other construction. He spoke and acted as
though there was a personal devil whose dominion over
men He had come to shatter, whose power He had come to
render inoperative. He claimed that, on His cross sentence
was passed on “ the ruler of this world” and that his doom
was sure.
Some have pointed out that in the parable of the sower
Jesus interpreted His teaching as referring not to imper­
sonal evil but to a personal evil one (Mt 13:19). If Jesus
had only impersonal evil in mind, His words would be
devoid of meaning.

13
 Three views have been advanced to explain Christ’s
apparent belief in a personal devil and attendant evil
spirits:
1. Our Lord, living in a primitive and unscientific age,
shared with those of His own day a superstitious belief
in a personal devil, but both He and they were mistaken.
He had been granted only that degree of knowledge
essential to His mission to earth. In other matters He
shared the errors and superstitious beliefs of His age.
2. Jesus did not share these mistaken beliefs, but He accom­
modated His speech and actions to what was generally
believed in His day. His mission was to teach spiritual
truths, not science, and He did this in the language of
the people. This argument has been stated more subtly:
There can be no doubt, it runs, that Jesus spoke as
though Satan was a reality, but it is open to argument
that He was simply using the thought forms of His age,
without making any pronouncement on their truth or
otherwise.
3. He believed in the existence of a personal devil, and in
this He was correct.
The first suggested explanation, which represents Christ
as sharing the errors and superstitions of His day, strikes a
direct blow at His omniscience. It involves a denial of His
claim to a knowlege of the unseen world from which He
claimed to have come, and also impugns the integrity of
Scripture.
The second suggested explanation involves even more
serious factors. It would show Jesus to be not only less than
ingenuous, but also positively untruthful, for He purposely
conveyed an impression contrary to the truth. It represents
Him not as instructing but as deceiving His disciples, as
encouraging superstition rather than teaching truth. It pre­

14
sents Him in a light entirely inconsistent with His claim
to be a Teacher sent from God, since it represents Him as
personifying diseases and actually addressing them as
demons. But most incredible of all, it represents Him as
making use of an unfounded superstition to substantiate His
claim to divine authority, since His delegation to His dis­
ciples of power to cast out demons was regarded as a divine
attestation of His mission.
Consider the implications of these suggested explana­
tions. If either is true, we are left with a sinful man, less
than God, and of limited intelligence—the exact reverse
of the picture of Him the gospels uniformly portray. Fur­
ther, the foundations of our confidence in Him as Saviour
and Lord are shattered. If we cannot place confidence in
His teaching on this point, what grounds do we have to
believe His teaching about God the Father and salvation?
If He equivocated in what He taught about Satan, how can
we be sure that He was not equivocating when He spoke
about God?
True, He clothed His teaching in striking figures and
picturesque language, but He did not use those figures and
language to convey concepts that were the opposite of truth.
He who is the Truth could not and would not speak any­
thing but absolute truth. If He did, He was not the sinless
Son of God.
We are left with the third explanation. Jesus did believe
in the existence of a personal devil and attendant evil
spirits, and His belief was grounded in fact.

15
 2
Origin and Fall
God is absolute Good, and only Good. Nothing that
is not good could come from such a Source. A sweet
fountain may send forth poison; the sun may produce
darkness and night sooner than God produce evil in
the sense of wickedness. He therefore no more created
the devil as such, that is as he now is, than He created
man as he now is. No “liar” or “murderer” ever sprang
from His creative will.1
F. C. Jennings

I n H is inscrutable wisdom, God ordained that Scrip­

ture should have little to say concerning the origin and
apostasy of the devil. We are given a number of hints and
clues, but few categorical statements. Two passages of
Scripture appear to have bearing upon this subject; but we
must acknowledge that views on their correct interpretation
are strongly polarized.
One school of thought holds that Isaiah 14:4-21 and
Ezekiel 28:12-19 refer solely to the earthly kings of Babylon
or Tyre, who are the human subjects of the prophecies,
with no further application. Both kings were rich and
notoriously arrogant, and both were stripped of their power
and brought low because of their pride, as the prophets
foretold.

16
 No explicit reference is made to Satan in either passage,
they say, and it is unwarranted spiritualizing and false
exegesis to suggest he is in view even in a secondary sense.
This position is held by some evangelical expositors as well
as by those who do not accept the factuality of a personal
devil and demons.
The other school of thought, which includes many repu­
table theologians, maintains that these prophetic passages
give valuable insight into Satan’s original state and the sin
which led to his downfall. Both schools can produce strong
arguments in support of their own position.
Both parties concede that the primary reference of both
passages was to the earthly kings of Babylon and Tyre, and
that there is no direct reference to Satan’s origin and fall.
Also, they concede it is a questionable practice to base
important doctrinal conclusions on pictorial and poetic
passages of Scripture. If, however, there are other reason­
able grounds for such an assumption that in no way contra­
vene the tenor of Scripture, then we should be ready to
consider the case for it.
“There is a latent mystic significance in these passages,
interwoven with their more immediate reference to local
and historical persons and happenings.” This statement
summarizes the second view. Even before the Christian era,
Jewish expositors assumed that Satan was the one ad­
dressed. As early as the third century some of the early
Church Fathers interpreted both passages as ultimate
references to the fall of Satan. So the second view is by no
means a modern innovation.
The following considerations are advanced as reasons
which would support the second view:
1. Some of the expressions used could not under any cir­
cumstances be applied to a mere human king. Of what

17
 heathen king could it conceivably be said, “You had
the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in
beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God; every
precious stone was your covering . . .Y ou were on the
holy mountain of God; . . . You were blameless in your
ways from the day you were created, until unrighteous­
ness was found in you” (Eze 28:12-15).
Since these are the words of the Lord God (28:11),
who is guilty of neither equivocation nor exaggeration,
they must be given their full value. In what conceivable
sense could these words apply to any king of Tyre of
which we have knowledge? Taken even in a poetic
sense, these statements imply an original perfection, and
presaged a subsequent disastrous fall, that could be
found in no heathen king.
2. There is frequently a double fulfilment in biblical
prophecy—one immediate, and one more remote. In His
guidance of His prophets, God often enabled them to
see events far beyond their own times, and to make pro­
nouncements that envisaged powerful spiritual forces
behind what seemed to be purely temporal happenings.
“The prophets who prophesied of the grace that would
come to you made careful search and inquiry, seeking
to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within
them was Indicating as He predicted the sufferings of
Christ and the glories to follow. It was revealed to them
that they were not serving themselves but you . . .”
(1 Pe 1:10-12).
The prophetic writings begin with normal human
experience, but frequently go beyond man to one who
is much more than man.
3. A study of the Messianic prophecies reveals just such a
pattern. Old Testament passages that foreshadow the

18
 Messiah and are attested as such in the New Testament,
usually sprang from very ordinary circumstances. For
example, which of us would have discerned in the inci­
dent of the serpent of brass, the application our Lord
gave it? Compare Numbers 21:9 with John 3:14; also
Isaiah 7:10-14 with Matthew 1:23.
Some of David’s experiences recounted in the Psalms
were genuine personal experiences, but they are de­
scribed in language which obviously had a deeper sig­
nificance and a wider application. Many such statements
are later, in the New Testament, related to the experi­
ences of the Messiah. Psalm 22 is a notable example of
this method of revelation. While speaking of himself,
David, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, made
statements and described conditions that could find their
fulfilment only in the Messiah.
If David’s personal experience could thus be inter­
twined with that of his Greater Son, is it unreasonable
to suggest that God may have adopted a similar method
to shed light on the original perfection and subsequent
degradation of His archrival? Why should He not
inspire these poetic descriptions to afford us a glimpse
of the devil’s former glory and an explanation of his
formidable powers?
4. Scripture assigns to Satan a position of great power and
authority in the present world-system, e.g., “ The god
of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving,
that they might not see the light of the gospel” (2 Co
4:4). Bearing this in mind, is it unreasonable to assume
that God here enabled the prophets to see beyond the
earthly realm of evil the activity of the supremely evil
spirit who controls and inspires it?
Is it inconceivable that behind the forces of human

19
 history there is a kingdom of evil—that beyond and
behind the kings of Tyre and Babylon, the prophets saw
in vision the sinister evil one who used these kings as
instruments?
5. What could more appropriately foreshadow and repre­
sent the prince of this age than the head of the greatest
atheistic world power, Babylon?
6. Even allowing the words of Isaiah 14:13-14 as poetical,
would they not be absurd on the lips of a heathen king?
But they would not be inappropriate from the powerful
and ambitious evil spirit who controlled the king of
Babylon.
7. If this suggested interpretation of these passages is not
acceptable, would we not be left in the dark concerning
the entrance of sin into the universe, and with little
information concerning the history and ambitions of the
enemy of God and man? But if these passages are ac­
cepted as having such implications, large tracts of
Scripture are illumined, and we gain insight into the
devil’s aims and strategy.
8. We submit that the suggested interpretation in no way
contradicts, but is entirely consistent with, the remainder
of the teaching of Scripture concerning the devil and his
followers.
So while not claiming dogmatically that the above is the
authoritative interpretation of Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28,
there appear to be stronger reasons to accept than to reject
it. These.reasons are summarized as follows: (a) It is con­
sistent with the tenor of Scripture; (b) It is consistent with
the method of interpretation applied to other prophetic
Scriptures; (c) It is not absurd like much ancient myth and
tradition, but is restrained and credible; (d) It helps to
discredit the grotesque representations of the devil that have

20
served him so well, in making him the object of ridicule
and discounting the reality of his existence, (e) It throws
light on the unseen realm that is given nowhere else.

W hat are the Lessons?

1. Satan is represented as a created being, neither self-
existent nor self-sufficient (Eze 28:13,15). He was a
free moral agent, capable of choosing good or evil.
2. Like all God’s creation, he left God’s hand perfect and
not as a foul fiend (28:12,15).
3. He was invested with great wisdom and beauty (28:12).
4. His defection would appear to be the beginning, of sin
in the universe (28:15).
5. He cherished unholy ambition and his heart was lifted
up with pride. “ I will raise my throne above the stars
of God, . . . I will make myself like the Most High”
(Is 14:13-14). Speaking of Satan and those spirits whom
he drew away with him, Augustine wrote: “ Bartering
the lofty dignity of eternity for the inflation of pride,
trading the most assured verity for the slyness of vanity,
they became proud, deceived, envious.”
6. He became an essentially selfish being, infatuated with
himself, and endeavoring to usurp the prerogatives of
God (Is 14:13).
7. The sentence of expulsion was pronounced on him
(Eze 28:16).
8. The ignominious fall of the earthly kings and kingdoms
of Babylon and Tyre prefigure the fall of the ruler and
the kingdom of darkness.
9. The essence of Lucifer’s sin is seen in the fivefold “ I will”
(Is 14:13-14). Not satisfied with delegated authority,
he aspired to enjoy unbridled license. He was not under

21
 the pressure of necessity to sin, but chose it of his own
volition. It was true of him as Milton wrote of Adam:
No decree of God
Concurring to necessitate his fall,
Or touch with lightest moment of impulse
His free Will, to her own inclining left
In even scale.

One of the oldest books of the Bible is the Book of Job,

and it affords us some further light on Satan’s early activi­
ties in the world. Satan is presented in its early chapters as
one whom someone has called “ the supreme cynic of the
heavenly court.” His name is mentioned for the first time
in the Old Testament in Job 1:8, where he appears with
“ the sons of God” (angels) before the Lord. From this we
learn that, despite his fall, he still had right of access into
God’s presence. But it is clear that he came before God in
no reverent spirit, but with a sinister truculence.
Unknown to him, Job, whom God described as “ a blame­
less and an upright man,” became a battleground for a test
of strength between God and Satan. The devil’s cynical
question, “ Does Job fear God for nought?” was throwing
down the gauntlet; and the challenge was accepted by God
(1:12). Satan sneeringly suggested that Job’s loyalty to
God was far from being disinterested. God had “bought”
it by His preferential treatment. “ Does Job fear God for
nought?” God staked everything on the fidelity of His ser­
vant, and He was not disappointed. Through devastating
reverses and desperate suffering, Job maintained his integ­
rity and loyalty to God and refused to be lured from the
heights of faith. Satan retired from the field vanquished.
Job demonstrated that his love and loyalty to God were
indeed disinterested.

22
 Several important truths emerge from this account:
While Satan’s powers are definitely under divine control
and he cannot exceed the limits of divine permission, God
has allowed him great powers. He could incite the Sabeans
to attack and kill Job’s children and the Chaldeans to kill
his cattle and servants (1:15,17). He had power to cause
lightning to come from heaven and to originate a cyclone
(1:16,19). He had the power to aflict Job with bodily
disease (2:7). He confessed that his occupation was “ from
roaming about on the earth and walking around on it”
(1:7). The significance of this expression is “ going to and
fro as a spy.” He spies on men with the evil purpose of
accusing them.
Thus, early in human history—for Job was possibly a
contemporary of Abraham— God gave His people some
insight into what transpires in the realm of the unseen; and
some idea of the tactics of their enemy.

23
 3
Names and Nature
As Satan, the opposer of blessing to man, we see him
in many passages of the Old Testament. Yet so appar­
ently righteous are his pleas, so well-founded in the
evident guilt of the accused, that many commentators
emphatically assert that the Satan of the Old Testament
is really a kind of spiritual attorney-general to prosecute
evil wherever found . . . His full, true character is only
revealed, his full, true name only told us when the Lord
Jesus comes in the flesh, and he attacks Him. Then for
the first time he is plainly called the devil.1
F. C. Jennings

To people of the western world, names have little

more than a sentimental significance. But it was, and is,
far different in Eastern lands, and especially in Bible times.
To them names were descriptive and significant.
Sometimes they were the expression of the faith of the
child’s parents, as with Elijah, whose name means, Jehovah
is my God. Jacob’s name was changed from cheat, sup-
planter to Israel, which means a prince with God. Some­
times the name described physical characteristics, as with
Esau, whose name means red, and Laban blonde.
Among the means of God’s self-revelation to His crea­
tures are the names used of Him. A surprising variety of
names and titles are ascribed to and used of the members

24
of the Trinity. In his book, The Wonderful Names of our
Wonderful Lord, Dr. T.C. Horton lists no fewer than 365!
Each name reveals a fresh facet of God’s character or of
His relations with men. His revelation of Himself through
His names is progressive and cumulative, and gradually
unfolds His personality, character and attributes.
In the same way, the nature, character and activities of
the devil progressively unfold in the names and titles used
of him. At least thirty different names describe his person
and delineate his work. It is significant that his full name and
nature were revealed only when Jesus came and smoked
him out into the open. In the Old Testament he is only a
shadowy figure.
An examination of Satan’s more prominent names will
greatly illuminate our study:
SA TAN
This name means adversary, opposer, and is mentioned
as many times in the Bible as the names of all the other
angels put together. It is used of human adversaries, e.g.,
1 Kings 11:14,23. But the Hebrews uniformly reserved it
for the devil. In fifty-six instances, he is invariably repre­
sented as the implacable adversary of God and man. In Job
he is the prosecuting counsel, bringing charge against God’s
loyal servant Job.
He is seen, too, in the role of hinderer of the purposes of
God. “ For we wanted to come to you— I, Paul, more than
once— and yet Satan thwarted us” (1 Th 2:18). He is
uniformly regarded as a malignant, malicious personality,
hostile to God and man, working to thwart the Lord’s
beneficent purposes.
T H E DEVIL
The Hebrew word often translated devil literally means

25
hairy and is used of a goat or satyr (Is 13:21; 34:14).
Could this be the basis of the common conception of the
devil as a hairy being with horns and hoofs? Satyrs were
conceived of as demon spirits who inhabited the desert, and
who had to be appeased by sacrifice. The word is always
used with an evil connotation.
The Greek term, diabolos, has the meaning of slanderer,
traducer, malignant accuser, and is used 35 times in the
New Testament. It was the term applied to a paid informer.
It was the devil who tempted Jesus in the wilderness. In
Eden he slandered God to Eve, impugning His integrity and
casting doubt on the reality of His love. He slandered Job
to God, alleging that his professed loyalty to God, far from
being genuine, spontaneous and disinterested, had been
bought by God through preferential treatment.
The devil is never better pleased than when he can
reproduce his own characteristics in the child of God by
influencing one Christian to slander another. Nothing
breaks the unity of the Spirit like this subtle and sinister
tactic of the enemy, and nothing should be more abjured
by the Christian.
BEELZEBU B
In the Old Testament, Baal-zebub appears as the god of
the Philistines of Kron. It was this god whom King Ahaziah
sought to consult. (2 Ki 1:2,16). He reappears in the New
Testament as Beelzebub, described as “ the ruler of demons”
(Mt 12:24).
The name means, lord of flies, a concept which has
caused him to be termed “ the genius who presides over
corruption,” an apt description of one of Satan’s major
activities.
The devil corrupts everything he touches. He corrupts

26
personal life by encouraging “the new morality,” falsely
so-called. He corrupts social life by inciting men and wom­
en to drunkenness, debauchery and drugs. He corrupts
political life through bribery and insincerity. He corrupts
Christian doctrine by introducing “ doctrines of demons.”
His corrupting influence invades all human thought and
action.
In the light of this, we are in a position to evaluate the
seriousness and blasphemy of the charge laid against
Jesus—that He exorcised demons by the power of Beel­
zebub, for Jesus identified Beelzebub with Satan (12:26).
We also have, in this name, some insight into the nature of
“the sin that never has forgiveness” (Mk 3:29).

THE SERPENT
“ That serpent of old who is called the Devil and Satan,”
is the way he is described in Revelation 12:9. Isaiah calls
him “ Leviathan, the fleeing serpent. . . the twisted serpent”
(Is 27:1). Jesus Himself used the serpent as the symbol of
deceit and hypocrisy (Mt 23:33), and Paul gives it a similar
connotation. “But I am afraid, lest as the serpent deceived
Eve by his craftiness, your minds should be led astray from
the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ” (2 Co
11:3).
The one who is later indentified as the devil appeared
first on the pages of Scripture under this name in Genesis
3:1, “ Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of
the field.” The word for “ crafty” is translated prudent in
Proverbs 22:3. The consummate wisdom with which Satan
was apparently endowed before his fall degenerated into
craftiness and evil cunning.
The Hebrew word for serpent, nachash, may mean to hiss
or to shine, and so could represent him as “the bright, the

27
shining one.” This would account for the fact that Eve was
not repelled by his approach. In the ancient world, and
also in our modern sophisticated world, the serpent is
regarded as an object of worship. Whatever the nature of
the creature who was possessed by the devil, it was so
attractive, and its approach so natural, that it aroused
neither fear nor suspicion in Eve— and thus more easily
accomplished her downfall.

MURDERER

None other than our Lord Himself invested the devil

with this title. “You are of your father the devil,” He said
to the Jews, “ and you want to do the desires of your father.
He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand
in the truth, because there is no truth in him” (Jn 8:44),
italics added).
“You seek to kill Me,” Jesus charged them. “ You also
do the things which you heard from your father” (Jn
8:37-38).
From the dawn of history Satan has manifested a passion
to kill and destroy. Our Lord confirmed this devilish
characteristic in the pungent words of His parable: “ The
thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy” (Jn 10:10).
The devil showed his hand in the primal family, when
the first fratricide was perpetrated. Since that tragedy, mur­
der has been endemic in the human race. The fact that this
crime has reached such tremendous proportions is clear
evidence of the accelerated activity of Satan at the end of
the age. In one week, when the author was in Manila, no
fewer than forty-nine murders were reported in that city.
Scripture asserts that Satan will pursue his murderous
course right up to the very gates of heaven (Rev 7:14).

28
THE ROARING LION
It is characteristic of the lion that it stalks its prey both
stealthily and ruthlessly. So, says Peter, “ Your adversary,
the devil, prowls about like a roaring lion, seeking someone
to devour” (1 Pe 5:8, italics added). Like the lion, too, his
purpose is always destruction. He never gives advance
notice of his intentions, nor does he betray his presence
until he is ready to strike. He roars after the kill, not before.
In this guise, the adversary strikes terror into the hearts
of his victims. How tragically he succeeds among those in
the grip of animism! In this character he launches his
blitzkriegs of persecution on many new churches and be­
lievers. The Toradja Church in Sulawesi, Indonesia, suffer­
ed terrible persecution from its fanatical Moslem neighbors.
Christians were crucified, sewn in the skins of animals and
cast into the river. In spite of the worst the “ lion” could
do, the church not only stood firm but also grew. In the last
thirty years, in this area, it has quadrupled and today
numbers 180,000.
No individual or church or missionary society is exempt
from satanic attentions. He is constantly on the prowl—
hence Peter’s counsel, “Be of sober spirit, be on the alert.”
He has been well called “ Sabbathless Satan,” for he is never
off duty.
But he skillfully adapts his tactics to suit the prey he
pursues. To the raw pagan, his most effective role may be
that of a roaring lion. To the sophisticated philosopher, he
will more likely transform himself into an angel of light.
“Even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light” (2 Co
11:14).
LIAR
Satan can speak the truth, but our Lord implied that he

29
was a liar even when he spoke the truth! If he does speak
truth, it is for no good purpose. All that he does is false,
evil, sinister. “ He has nothing to do with the truth,” Jesus
said, “because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he
speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the
father of lies” (Jn 8:44, RSV, italics added).
Satan is the fountain and focal point of all falsehood,
deceit, and trickery in the world. While he poses at times
as the champion of divine law, he is all the time under­
mining it. He falsifies truth, misrepresents it, twists it, mixes
it with error. And he does it so skillfully as to deceive the
very elect. As the father of lies, he fosters and encourages
hypocrisy, exaggeration and deceit.
THE TEMPTER
The term is used twice in the New Testament. In the
wilderness temptation of our Lord, “The tempter came and
said to Him . . . (Mt 4:3, italics added). Paul employs it,
too. “ I sent to find out about your faith, for fear that the
tempter might have tempted you, and our labor should be
in vain” (1 Th 3:5, italics added).
The verb to tempt has two senses in Scripture. One is
neutral, and means simply “ to test,” as in assaying and
refining gold. The other means to tempt in the sense of
“ inciting to evil.”
Trial and temptation are sometimes matters in which
both God and Satan are involved. The same event may
be both a test and a temptation to evil, as in the case of
Joseph’s temptation by Potiphar’s wife. The man of God
can expect both experiences. Satan’s objective is to encom­
pass our ruin. God’s aim is to establish us in holiness, for
God incites no one to evil (Ja 1:13).
Bishop Moule pointed out there are two parallel Hebrew

30
and Greek words used to differentiate the two ideas. One
pair means, “ to test with a view to separating the gold from
the dross.” Always used in a good sense, they denote tests
and trials sent from God.
The other pair signifies, “ to prove with a view to finding
and exploiting the weak spot,” as in a military campaign.
The objective is usually evil— always so when relating to
Satan.
The devil has no greater desire than to tempt and incite
to sin. He did this with the celestial spirits who are called
“his angels,” and caused them to “lose their first estate”
(Mt 12:24; Rev 12:7; Jude 6). He aimed to frustrate
God’s purposes of grace for mankind by tempting them to
abandon loyal obedience to God. “ The artistry of the devil
is to make himself invisible in our temptations.”
THE DRAGON
This title, as applied to Satan, is found in the New Testa­
ment only in the Revelation. “ Behold, a great red dragon
. . . And there was war in heaven, Michael and his angels
waging war with the dragon. And the dragon and his angels
waged war, and they were not strong enough” (Rev
12:3,7-8, italics added).
The word was used of any great monster of the land or
sea, and here applies to an apocalyptic monster. To the
Greeks, the dragon was a fabulous and mythical creature,
ferocious and frightening, and possessed of dread malignant
power. In the passage before us, the dragon is implacably
set on the destruction of the church (12:4), and is iden­
tified with “ the Devil and Satan” (12:9).
THE EVIL ONE
Just as God is the embodiment of all that is good and
holy, so the devil is the embodiment of all that is evil and

31
unholy. In him evil reaches its nadir. His influence for evil
is all-pervasive. “We know that . . . and the whole world
lies in the power of the evil one,” wrote John (1 Jn 5:19).
The picture is of one lying unconscious in his arms.
THE ACCUSER OF THE BRETHREN
Ernest Renan described Satan as “ the malevolent critic
of creation.” Here is another sinister aspect of the devil’s
unceasing warfare against the Christian who desires to
walk closely with God.
He who is the father of lies can speak the truth when it
suits him. No matter whether they are false or true, he
launches accusations against the believer to rob him of his
peace and to mar his service. This stream of accusation can
bring a sense of condemnation. And what is a greater
hindrance to effective prayer than an accusing conscience?
“ Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have con­
fidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from
Him” (1 Jn 3:21-22).
When the accuser confronted Martin Luther with list
after list of his sins, Luther penitently admitted they were
all his sins. But then he turned to the accuser and said,
“Now write across them all, ‘The blood of Jesus His Son
cleanses us from all sin’ ” (1 Jn 1:7). Here is the perfect,
and adequate answer to every accusation of Satan.
The only one who has the right to bring a charge against
us is the One against whom we have sinned. What does He
say to the penitent sinner? “ Neither do I condemn you;
go your way; from now on sin no more” (Jn 8:11). In full
enjoyment of divine absolution, Paul wrote, “Who shall
bring any charge against God’s elect? Who is to condemn?”
Certainly not the Christ who died to put away our sins.
No longer do we need to succumb to the condemnation of

32
the accuser. We need only to rise up and use the sword of
the Spirit as Martin Luther did.
THE PRINCE OF THIS WORLD
THE GOD OF THIS WORLD
This theme will be treated more fully later. Jesus gave
Satan the title of the prince or ruler of this world. “The
prince of this world is coming” (Jn 14:30 RSV, italics
added). Paul referred to him as the god of this world. “ In
their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of
the unbelievers” (2 Co 4:4 RSV, italics added).
A clear implication is that he heads up the present god­
less world-system. He is the ruler of a world so organized
as to exclude God, a world established on the principles of
selfishness and greed, expressing itself in atheistic philo­
sophy and unbridled violence. He is recognized as posses­
sing the power of death (Heb 2:14), but His ascendancy
is not permanent. Jesus announced, “Now judgment is upon
this world; now the ruler of this world shall be cast out”
(Jn 12:31).
THE PRINCE OF THE DOMAIN OF THE AIR
“ You formerly walked according to the course of this
world, according to the prince of the power of the air”
(Eph 2:2, italics added).
The question naturally arises, What is meant by “the air”
in this title? Should we take it literally or figuratively.
William Hendriksen discusses the question helpfully in his
book on Ephesians. He writes:
If, therefore, according to the consistent doctrine of Scrip­
ture, the evil spirits must be somewhere, but not in the
heaven of the redeemed, and if in this present age they
cannot be restricted to hell, is it so strange that Ephesians
2:2 speaks about “the prince of the domain of the air”?

33
 Is it not rather natural that the prince of evil is able, as far
as God in his overruling providence permits, to carry on
his sinister work by sending his legions to our globe and
its surrounding atmosphere?
Does not Ephesians 6:12 (the spiritual forces of evil in
the heavenly places) point in this same general direction?
. . . This passage, in conjunction with others, clearly
teaches that God has tenanted the supermundane realm
with innumerable hosts, and that in its lower region the
■minions of Satan are engaged in their destructive mis­
sions?2
We have considered the significance of fourteen of the
thirty names and titles applied to the devil. A clear and
consistent picture emerges.
When J. B. Phillips, the Bible translator, told a television
audience of the effect his immersion in the gospels in the
course of his translation work had had on him, he said, “ It
resulted in the emergence of a Figure so much greater than
man, that I could only gasp incredulously. In the incarna­
tion, the incredible humility of God struck me with over­
whelming awe.”
As we ponder the significance of the devil’s names, what
kind of picture emerges?
THE APE OF GOD
It was St. Augustine who called the devil Simius Dei, the
ape, the imitator, of God. This concept finds support in
Paul’s warning in 2 Corinthians: “ For such men are false
apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apos­
tles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises
himself as an angel of light” (11:13-14, italics added).
In Revelation 13:11 John writes, “And I saw another
beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like
a lamb, and he spoke as a dragon.” The identity of the

34
beast is clear from the context. The dragon apes the lamb.
Satan imitates God. He sets up his own counterfeit religious
system in imitation of Christianity.
Satan has his own trinity— the devil, the beast and the
false prophet (Rev 16:13). He has his own church, “a syna­
gogue of Satan” (Rev 2:9). He has his own ministers,
“ministers of Satan” (2 Co 11:4-5). He has formulated his
own system of theology, “doctrines of demons” (1 Ti 4:1).
He has established his own sacrificial system, “ What the
pagans sacrifice, they offer to demons” (1 Co 10:20). He
has his own communion service, “the cup of demons and
the table of demons” (1 Co 10:20-21). His ministers pro­
claim his own gospel, “ a gospel contrary to that which we
have preached to you” (Gal 1:7-8). He has his own throne
(Rev 13:2) and his own worshipers (Rev 13:4).
So he has developed a thorough imitation of Christianity,
viewed as a system of religion. In his role as the imitator
of God, he inspires false christs, self-constituted messiahs
(Mt 24:4-5). He employs false teachers who are specialists
in his “ theology,” to bring in “ destructive heresies, even
denying the Master who bought them” (2 Pe 2:1). They
are adept at mixing truth and error in such proportions as
to make error palatable. They carry on their teaching sur­
reptitiously, and often anonymously.
He sends out false prophets. “ And many false prophets
will arise, and will mislead many” (Mt 24:11). He intro­
duces false brethren into the church, who “had sneaked in
to spy out our liberty . . . in order to bring us into bondage”
(Gal 2:4). He sponsors false apostles who imitate the true
(2 Co 11:13).
It has been well said that “ all that which the Lord does
well, he (the devil) caricatures badly or in evil.”

35
 A Startling Contrast

The characteristics and nature of the devil are striking

when he and his activities are contrasted with the Holy
Spirit and His gracious ministries. He is the antithesis of
the Holy Spirit in every way. The Holy Spirit, a real person,
was sent by the Father and the Son to regenerate and
sanctify God’s people and to equip them for God’s service.
Satan, also a real person, is implacably committed to draw
men away from God and His salvation, and to thwart the
progress of His gospel.
Hear the testimony of Scripture on these contrasts:
The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth; the devil is the
spirit of error (1 Jn 4:6).
The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth; the devil is the
father of lies (Jn 14:17; 8:44).
The Holy Spirit is the life-giving Spirit; the devil was
a murderer from the beginning (1 Co 15:45; Jn 8:44).
The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of holiness; the devil is the
author of evil (Ro 1:4; Mt 6:13).
The Holy Spirit is likened to a harmless dove; the devil
is likened to a subtle serpent (Mt 3:16; Rev 12:9).
The Holy Spirit is our helper; the devil is our adversary
(Ro 8:26; 1 Pe 5 :8 ).
The Holy Spirit is our advocate; the devil is a slanderer
(Jn 14:16; Job 1:9-11).
The devil is “a strong man armed” ; the Holy Spirit is
“a stronger than he” (Lk 11:21-22).
The Holy Spirit gives men utterance; the devil makes
men dumb (Ac 2:4; Mk 9:17).

36
 4
Eden and the Wilderness
There are two prominent events revealed in the history
of Satan, falling within the period of time when he pro­
posed in his heart to become like the Most High and
his yet future banishment and execution. The first of
these was his meeting with and triumph over the first
Adam, when he wrested the scepter of authority from
man, by securing man’s loyal obedience to his own
suggestion and counsel. This earthly scepter Satan held
by the full right of conquest, seemingly without chal­
lenge from Jehovah, until the first advent of the last
Adam . . . He met the Lord Jesus in the wilderness,
offering Him all he had gained from the first Adam,
even the kingdoms of this world, if only he might . . .
receive the obedient worship and adoration of the last
Adam . . .
However victorious Satan may have been over the
first Adam, it is certain that he met a complete and final
judgment and sentence in the last Adam.1
L. S. Chafer

T he T emptation of the First Adam

Before considering the initial temptation as recorded
in Genesis 3, an important question needs to be answered:
How is this narrative interpreted? Is it mythical or allegori­
cal or historical? These alternatives have been a theological

37
battleground through the centuries. Within the limits of the
space available let us consider these three views.

THE MYTHICAL VIEW

Proponents of the mythical view maintain the narrative

is a myth— truth conveyed in poetic form, probably derived
from the folklore of the times or from surrounding nations.
The sacred tree, for example, figures in most religions. This
view has some features to commend it, but leaves important
questions unanswered:
1. Why did Jesus refer to the Eden story as though it were
historical fact? (Mt 19:3-9; Mk 10:29; Jn 8:44). If He
is in error as to the origin of human sin, can His state­
ments be trusted when He speaks about salvation from
sin? His testimony is surely final on the matter if the
gospels are trustworthy documents.
2. Was Paul similarly in error when he specifically referred
to Adam and Eve as historical personages? “The serpent
deceived Eve by his craftiness” (2 Co 11:3). “ For it
was Adam who was created, and then Eve. And it was
not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being quite
deceived fell into transgression” (1 Ti 2:13-14). Paul
bases his whole doctrine of sin on the historical charac­
ter of the Genesis story (Ro 5:12). To label it as myth
is to undermine his whole teaching.
3. The characteristics of the Hebrew poetic form are absent
in this chapter.
4. If the Scripture record is not historical, how did human
sin originate? Is it reasonable to suppose that while God
gives a full and clear revelation of salvation from sin,
He has left us without any clue to the genesis of the sin
from which we are to be saved?

38
THE ALLEGORICAL VIEW

Advocates of the parabolic or allegorical view, who see

the allegedly historical characters as symbols of something
else, also face problems. The artlessness and simplicity of
the record argues against it. It does not possess the distinc­
tive features of a parable. If it is a parable, it has no parallel
in Scripture.
As to allegory, has anyone ever mistaken John Bunyan’s
immortal allegory Pilgrim’s Progress for literal history?
Allegory shines out of every page. Yet millions of intelligent
people have interpreted the Genesis passage as being
authentic history.
Adherents of the allegorical view have difficulty in inter­
preting their allegory consistently. What does the garden
stand for? And the animals? Of what did the temptation
consist? What exactly was the punishment symbolized in
3:16-18? Who was the tempter? This view seems to raise
quite as many difficulties as it resolves.

THE HISTORICAL VIEW

The historical or literal view simply maintains that the

account should be taken in its natural, obvious and un­
strained sense, and be interpreted consistently with the rest
of the chapter as a historical narrative. There are strong
reasons for adopting this course:
1. There is no suggestion in the narrative itself that it is
allegorical.
2. Christ and other Scripture writers uniformly refer to its
details as actual history.
3. The geographical locations are historical.
4. There is no intimation in the narrative that it is not
historical.

39
5. The progenitors of the human race have been real human
beings, not mythical allegorical or legendary beings. As
such they would live on the earth and eat its produce.
Neither they nor the fruit of the earth were legendary.
6. The curse on man, woman and the ground are painfully
literal.
7. Scarcely any part of God’s Word is more in accord with
the known facts of history and science than this chapter.
This view does not obviate the assumption that the two
trees were symbolical of spiritual truths, while still being
visible realities. The tabernacle in the wilderness, for
example, was symbolic of spiritual truths, yet was an
objective reality.
In view of the above factors, these words of Dr. W. H.
Griffith Thomas express the most reasonable and probable
explanation of the present condition and plight of man:
The truest method of interpretation is that which regards
these narratives as pictorial records of actual fact; solid
history in pictorial form. It is inadequate to speak of the
narrative as poetic or merely symbolical, lest we give the
impression that the story is not concerned with actual
fact. Allegory, too, is identical with the truth illustrated,
and does not necessarily presuppose any historical basis.
What we must insist on and ever keep in view is that
whether allegorical or pictorial, the narrative is expressive
of actual fact.2

On this basis, let us consider the temptation of the primal

pair, an incident of seminal importance. The hermeneutical
“law of first mention” in Scripture holds that when a sub­
ject is first mentioned, certain important and fundamental
concepts are often communicated which throw light on its
subsequent use in Scripture.

40
 The account of the temptation of the first Adam in Eden,
where the serpent, later identified as Satan is first men­
tioned, gives important clues to his nature and methods of
operation. While Satan is not specifically mentioned, both
Paul and John identify him with the serpent (2 Co
11:3,14). “ The serpent of old who is called the Devil and
Satan” (Rev 12:9).
One of the Hebrew words for serpent can mean “to
shine.” It would be a reasonable inference in the light of
the curse pronounced on it, that the serpent in Eden was
not as now, the lowest, most loathed of the animal creation.
Rather was it characterised by beauty and splendor. Ob­
viously, there was nothing in it to awaken revulsion in Eve,
or to create any suspicion of a sinister purpose.
A careful reading of the passage makes it very difficult
not to see a subtlety at work above that of a serpent. No
irrational creature could have precipitated such world­
shaking results with such subtle and consummate skill. It
has been suggested that just as the speaking of Balaam’s ass
was a divine miracle, so the speaking of the serpent was a
diabolical miracle.
If it is suggested that there was no objective tempter,
and that the conversation was only a conflict in Eve’s mind
clothed in parabolic form, this by no means dissolves the
difficulties. What was the occasion to induce the evil and
calamity which so clearly afflicted the human race? And
whence the thoughts Eve entertained, since she came perfect
from the hand of God? If no serpent was involved, why the
pronouncement of such a solemn curse on it? And what
does the curse on the serpent mean? If there was no ser­
pent, what of the enmity between the two seeds?
From his appropriation of an animal’s body for his subtle
purpose, the inference is that Satan cannot materialize at

41
will. In the theophanies of the Old Testament, Jehovah
appeared in human form. But there is nothing to suggest
that Satan possesses this power. It is, however, recorded
that “Satan entered into Judas” and used his body as the
instrument of his foul design. “ Spiritual evil took material
form, to reach the spirit of man through the material part
of his being.”
Paul set the incident in clear light when he wrote, “ The
serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness’ (2 Co 11:3). The
first revelation of his character in the Bible is in the role of
a deceiver, and he runs true to form throughout the remain­
der of the Book. The method of his attack on Eve’s faith
and integrity should alert us to the subtlety of his approach.

FACTORS IN THE TEMPTATION

Note some of the factors present in Eve’s temptation:

1. Satan approached her when she was alone and without
the support of her husband. Temptation is essentially a
lonely experience.
2. Satan was careful not to appear in a form that would
terrorize her or arouse revulsion. That would only throw
her back into the arms of God. Instead, he chose as his
instrument an attractive but inferior animal.
3. Satan did not shock her by suggesting some blatant
blasphemy of God, only the harmless, pleasant gratifica­
tion of natural desire—but out of the will of God.
4. Satan gave no impression of being the implacable enemy
of God. True, his reference to God were denigrating,
but not blatantly so.
Then note the elements of the temptation that led to the
fatal fall. John summarized the constituent elements of the
world as “the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and

42
the boastful pride of life” (1 Jn 2:16). Each of these ele­
ments is present in this first attack of the god of this world
on the first man.
‘‘The woman saw that it was good for food”—the lust
of the flesh; . and that it was a delight to the eyes”—
the lust of the eyes; . and that the tree was to be desired
to make one wise”— the pride of life.
Satan seduced her into rebellion and disobedience by
playing on her bodily appetites, her aesthetic sense, and by
arousing in her an unholy ambition— “your eyes will be
opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

METHOD OF THE TEMPTATION

The method of the temptation was no less subtle than its

substance. First, by apparently innocuous questions and
gentle insinuations, Satan aroused Eve’s curiosity. Then he
subtly cast suspicion on God’s love and disinterested good­
ness, and planted the seeds of doubt of the integrity of God
and of His word. Indeed, he distorted God’s words to suit
his own sinister purpose. Finally, he flatly denied God’s
word, and laughed away the idea of penalty for breaking
the divine prohibition.
The steps in Eve’s downfall are solemn instruction for us
all as we face similar enticements from the evil one. What
were these downward steps?
1. Instead of immediately rejecting any aspersion on her
Benefactor who had done her only good, she listened to
Satan’s slander. If we allow thought-room to slanders on
God, we have started on the road to capitulation.
2. She began to doubt God’s benevolence.
3. This opened the door to questioning the veracity of His
word.

43
4. She exaggerated the divine prohibition (cf. Gen 2:16-17
with 3:3).
5. She minimized the penalty God had pronounced (cf.
Gen 2:17 with 3:3).
6. She longed for what God had forbidden.
7. She defied God’s prohibition. And not content with that,
she enticed her husband to do the same.
Two other facts emerge. One, since Adam and Eve came
perfect from the hand of God, with no evil strain, evil must
have come from without, from a source other than human.
The other fact is that this incident affords us insight into the
devil’s consistent attitude towards the Word of God. He
will quote it, or misquote it, as best suits his purpose. He
will distort it, deny it, discredit it. But there is one thing
he is powerless to do—he cannot affect its absolute truth,
for “ the Scripture cannot be broken.”
Thus, in the very first mention of our great adversary in
the Bible, we hear clear warning of his subtlety, and of the
sinister nature of temptations we, too, must face.

Bruising the Serpent ’s H ead

It is both striking and comforting that, in the very verse
in which God pronounced sentence on the serpent, He gave
the first intimation, obscure though it appeared, of a gospel
of deliverance from the power of Satan: “ I will put enmity
between you and the woman, and between her seed and
your seed; he shall bruise you on the head, and you shall
bruise him on the heel’ (Gen 3:15, italics added). Only in
the light of what happened in intervening centuries can we
see the tremendous implications of that cryptic prophecy.
The expression “ the seed of the woman” is both strange
and unique. The seed is always that of the man. While not

44
asserting this is a prediction of the virgin birth, the unusual
grammatical construction opens the way for that unique
event.
Again, the terms of the sentence and prophecy intimate
the seed (singular) of the woman would crush, not only
the seed of the serpent, but also the serpent himself. “And
the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet”
(Ro 16:20). The picture derives from the ancient custom
of the victorious king who placed his feet on the neck of
the king he has conquered to symbolize complete subjuga­
tion (Jos 10:24).
Jesus the prisoner’s fetters breaks,
And bruises Satan’s head,
Power into strengthless souls He speaks,
And life into the dead.
C h arles W e sl e y

T he Most S uitable Instrument

In the Edenic temptation, Satan’s subtlety in seducing
the believer into sin and rebellion against God is seen not
only in his choice of the most favorable occasion, but also
in his selection of the most suitable human instrument. This
comes at the dawn of human history.
God formed Eve as Adam’s wife because “ for the man
there was not found a helper for him.” Adam and Eve
became one. They enjoyed not only their own company,
but also happy fellowship with God. Then tragedy struck.
The one whom God gave Adam to be his helper became the
instrument of his fall. The tragedy which ultimately en­
gulfed the whole race is stated with great economy of
words:
When the woman saw that the tree was good for food,
and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was

45
 desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and
ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he
ate (Gen 3:6).
Satan achieved his objective of breaking down Adam’s
loyalty to God by playing upon his natural affection. Eve
was deceived by the tempter. But Adam sinned with his
eyes open. He placed affection for his wife before love for
his God, and in so doing involved the whole human race
in ruin.
When Job was tested in the crucible of suffering, he held
fast to his integrity and his faith in the goodness of God in
the face of an avalanche of troubles. But then, with divine
permission, Satan “ smote Job with sore boils from the sole
of his foot to the crown of his head . . . Then his wife said
to him, ‘Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God
and die!’ ” (Job 2:7-9).
Once again Satan tried the ruse that had seduced Adam
into rebellion. He used as his agent of temptation the one
who should have given Job the strongest support. But where
Adam fell, Job stood firm. Hear his confession of unshaken
confidence in God: “ But he said to her, ‘You speak as one
of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good
from God and not accept adversity?’ ” (2:10).
Even the loyal, but impetuous Peter was the unwitting
servant of Satan when he offered a suggestion which, if
followed, would have deflected Jesus from His path to the
cross:
Peter took him and began to rebuke him saying, “God
forbid, O Lord! This shall never happen to you!” Or as
another rendering has it, “Pity yourself Lord!” But he
turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are
a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind
on God’s interests but man’s (Mt 16:23).

46
 T he T emptation of the Second A dam
The arrogance and effrontery of Satan know no bounds.
He will challenge even the Son of God to a trial of strength.
He had scored a resounding victory over the first Adam in
the garden of Eden. Now he would put the second Adam
to the test in the barren desert.

A PERSONAL TEMPTER

There was no one with Jesus in the desert, and no wit­

ness to the temptation. So it is reasonable to conclude that
the account of that event given by the evangelists came
directly from His lips. The language used leaves the clear
impression that He met a personal tempter in fierce conflict
(see Mt 4:3-11).
“The tempter came and said to him”
“The devil took him to the holy city”
“He answered, It is written”
“Jesus said to him”
“Then the devil left him”
It is quite impossible to make the language fit the concept
of an impersonal force or influence, or a personification of
evil. It was a confrontation of personalities. Nor is it admis­
sible to suggest that Jesus was engaged in an inner conflict
with His own desires and ambitions. If He did not confront
a factual, personal devil, as the Scripture account records,
the only alternative is to suggest that His temptations came
from within His own personality. This would presuppose a
disposition to evil within Him, a possibility which Scripture
specifically excludes. “ In Him was no sin,” essentially.
“He knew no sin,” experientially. “ He did no sin,” fac­
tually.

47
 Note that, in reality, the temptation was not initiated by
the devil. The conflict was neither incidental nor accidental.
It was an open challenge to the usurper, specifically induced
by God. “ Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the
wilderness to be tempted by the devil” (Mt 4 :1 ). “ The
reason the Son of God appeared, wrote John, “was to
destroy the works of the devil” (1 Jn 3 :8 ). This was the
first major engagement in the protracted conflict.
T he Eden T emptation Repeated
The elements and methods adopted by Satan in his con­
quest of the first Adam reappear in the desert. His subtlety
shows in the apparent naturalness and reasonableness of
his suggestions. After a long fast, what was more right and
natural than to satisfy one’s hunger? What more appro­
priate way was there to establish Jesus’ divine Sonship than
for Him to perform a dramatic miracle? If there were an
easier way to the throne promised Him than the pathway
of suffering and rejection, why not take it?
But in each temptation was a skillfully concealed hook.
For Jesus to have yielded would have involved His acting
independently of and contrary to His Father. True, He
could have satisfied a legitimate appetite, but by adopting
illegitimate means. He could have produced a type of
spiritual result, but by means contrary to His Father’s will.
He could have gained a heritage, but not the one His Father
had prepared for Him.
A venues of Temptation
A study of the three temptations reveals them as represen­
tative temptations that covered the whole range of human
desire.
The writer of Hebrews tells us that we have “ a high priest

48
who . . . has been tempted in all things as we are, yet with­
out sin” (4:15). Does this mean that Jesus suffered every
specific temptation that man has suffered through the ages?
Manifestly not. For example, how could He have suffered
the temptations peculiar to the space age? Does it not mean,
rather, that temptation assailed Him in its full force along
every avenue in which it can reach our human nature?
Surrounding circumstances and incidental details may differ
widely. But, in essence, temptations are the same for all
men in all ages.
Essentially, temptation assails man along only three lines.
All other temptations are only variants of these. It is not
surprising, then, to find that these three elements are pre­
sent in both the temptation in Eden and the temptation in
the desert.
The first avenue is appetite, the desire to enjoy things
(Mt 4:2-4). John calls this “ the lust of the flesh” (1 Jn
2:16).
Since Jesus was hungry, Satan made his first approach on
the physical plane, in the realm of legitimate appetite. The
devil appeared in the role of a benefactor. Why should
Jesus not appease His hunger by using His inherent power
to turn these stones into bread? Is not desire for food an
innocent, God-given instinct? Since He was Son of God,
why not exercise His undoubted powers to gratify a per­
fectly legitimate desire?
The temptation was so insidious, so plausible, that few
of us would have detected in it the cloven hoof. But the
focus of the temptation was not on His right to gratify His
hunger, but on His submission to the will of God. In each
temptation the devil tried to induce Jesus to act in a manner
contrary to complete dependence on God, by acting inde­
pendently and in self-interest.

49
 His method of quenching and deflecting the adversary’s
fiery dart was simple but effective. The same Spirit who led
Him into conflict recalled to His mind a relevant passage
of Scripture that laid bare the true nature of the temptation.
“ It is written, M a n s h a l l n o t l iv e o n b r e a d a l o n e , b u t
ON EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS OUT OF THE MOUTH
o f g o d .” On His lips, these words expressed His complete
confidence that His Father would supply Him with needed
bread in His own way and time.
He refused to employ His divine prerogatives to gratify
His natural desires. To yield to the Satanic suggestion
would be tantamount to denial of His incarnation. He
would be “ calling into His service powers which His
brethren could not employ”— and defeat the very purpose
of His advent.
Further, it would have been satisfying a legitimate crav­
ing in an illegitimate manner. He preferred remaining raven­
ously hungry to moving out of line with His Father’s will.
Had He yielded to the tempter’s wiles, and used His powers
to provide bread by a miracle, His call to discipleship
would have lost much of its appeal for those who possessed
no such powers.
The second avenue along which temptation can assail
man is ambition, the desire to achieve things (Mt 4:5-6).
This John designates as “ the pride of life” (1 Jn 2:16).
The scene now changes. Satan takes Jesus from the arid
desert to the top of the Temple. The pinnacle, or better,
parapet, was in all probability the southern wing which
overlooked the Kedron Valley hundreds of feet below.
Josephus asserted that “ anyone looking down would be
giddy, while his sight would not reach to such an immense
depth.” It appears that Satan’s suggestion was for Jesus to
leap not into the crowded Temple court, but into the abyss.

50
 The focus of this second temptation was on our Lord’s
confidence in God. The tempter buttressed His proposition
with an apt quotation from Scripture. But in doing so, with
consummate subtlety, he omitted the vital phrase “ in all
your ways” (cf Lk 4:10-11 with Ps 91:11-12). He chal­
lenged Jesus to demonstrate His faith in the Father by
putting His promise to the test.
The Master replied that for Him to do this would not be
faith, but presumption. He refused to go beyond the limits
God had laid down for Him, and thus tempt God. God is
not bound to respond to “ every irresponsible whim of the
want of faith.” Stunting was not one of God’s ways, nor
was it one of Jesus’. The Jews looked for a Messiah who
would work dazzling wonders, and thus establish a world­
wide empire with Jerusalem as its center. To succumb to
the devil’s temptation would be to yield to their carnal
expectations.
Note Christ’s repeated use of the formula, “ It is written.”
He knew how to wield “ the sword of the Spirit which is
the word of God.” He saw to the heart of the temptation,
and applied appropriate scriptural and spiritual principles
to the situation. Each Scripture He used revealed God’s
view of the factors involved in the temptation. In this case
He would not presumptuously court danger, for it was
clearly not the will of His Father. He refused to establish
His rightful kingdom by outward show.
Foiled again, the tempter made a last bid to seduce Jesus
from the path of faith and of obedience to His Father.
The third avenue through which temptation can reach
man is avarice, the desire to get things (Mt 4:8-11). John
describes it as “the lust of the eyes” (1 Jn 2:16).
Satan’s first assault on our Lord was on the physical
plane, the second on the mental. In the third, he invades

51
the realm of the spiritual. He demanded that Jesus accord
to him (Satan) the place that belongs to God alone.
This time he takes Jesus to a high mountain. Apparently
in a vision—for “ all the kingdoms of the world and their
glory” could not be seen physically in “ a moment of time”
from any mountain in Palestine—he presented the glory of
world dominion to the Son of Man. The devil offered Him
an outward kingdom with its outward pomp and splendor.
It is noteworthy that Jesus did not challenge Satan’s boast:
“ I will give You all this domain and its glory; for it has
been handed over to me, and I give it to whomever I wish”
(Lk 4:6, italics added). He did not charge Satan with
falsehood, as He would have done had it not been true.
Further, if it had not been true, it would not have consti­
tuted a real temptation.
Jesus had indeed come to win a world-kingdom of power
and glory. But it would be according to His Father’s way,
and He knew that way included an agonizing cross. He
perceived that what the devil offered Him was a crown
without a cross. The nub of his last assault was the possi­
bility of evading the anguish and agony of the cross by a
compromise with Satan.
For the second time, our Lord unsheathed the sword of
the Spirit and wielded it expertly. “ It is written, y o u s h a l l
WORSHIP THE LORD YOUR GOD, AND SERVE HIM ONLY.”

Having failed to storm the citadel of Christ’s loyalty and

obedience to His Father, the devil left Him, but only “for
an opportune time.” Later he returned to attack with even
greater fury.
For us baptized, for us He bore
His holy fast and hungered sore,

52
 For us temptations sharp He knew,
For us the tempter overthrew.
Isaac Watts
It is not without significance that each of the answers of
Jesus to the devil was a quotation from Deuteronomy, the
book against which the strongest assaults of destructive
criticism have been levelled. It is reassuring that the Son of
God entertained no doubts as to its authenticity or authori­
ty-
And what of the outcome of the temptation?
In relation to the Lord Himself, it issued in unqualified
triumph. The subtle suggestions of the evil one left Him
entirely untainted by sin. Nor was His filial relationship
with His Father in any way disturbed. He entered on the
ordeal “full of the Spirit.” He returned from it “ in the
power of the Spirit,” enriched and not impoverished.
In relation to the believer, Christ’s victory gives assur­
ance of the possibility of our personal triumph over Satan
and his wiles. It holds out the alluring possibility for us to
emerge unscathed from the fiercest temptation.
In relation to Satan himself, the temptation resulted in
ignominious, utter defeat. Each of Jesus’ replies dealt
another stunning blow. Satan’s subtlety and sophistries
were ruthlessly exposed. His defeat in the desert was the
first step towards his final and absolute defeat at the con­
summation of the age.
Cold mountains and the midnight air
Witnessed the fervour of Thy prayer;
The desert Thy temptations knew,
Thy conflict, and Thy victory too.
Isaac Watts

53
 5
Rival Hierarchies
There are two opposing hierarchies, eternally at war. Good
angels in alliance with God, and all saints, to promote all
that is good; evil demons confederate with each other and
all evil men, to work disaster and ruin, and if it were
possible, supplant even the Almighty.1
A. T. P ierson

K in g of H ell?

I t is a p o p u l a r b e l i e f that as God is King of heaven, so

Satan is king of hell. And that as heaven is the center of
God’s administration, so Satan directs his nefarious opera­
tions from hell. But such a conception has no basis in Scrip­
ture. Satan never aspired to be king of hell, but king of
heaven. This is perfectly clear from the words expressed in
his vaunting ambition. “ I will ascend to heaven; . . . I will
ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself
like the M o s t H i g h ” (Is 14:13-14).

A safe stronghold our God is still,

A trusty shield and weapon;
He’ll help us clear from all the ill
That hath us now o’ertaken.
The ancient prince of hell
Hath risen with purpose fell,

54
 Strong mail and craft of power
He weareth in this horn
On earth is not his equal.
Martin Luther
Trans. Thomas Carlyle
As has been said earlier, popular thought about the devil
and his followers has taken its color largely from medieval
writings, especially those of Dante and Milton. The latter
popularized the idea of Satan reigning in hell, by naming
that as his ambition. But this is the very opposite of the
truth. Here are the words Milton put into Satan’s mouth:
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.
What matter where, if I be still the same,
And what I should be, all but less than He
Whom Thunder has made greater? Here at least
We shall be free; the Almighty hath not built
Here for His envy, will not drive us hence;
Here we may reign secure, and in my choice
To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell.
Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.
Paradise Lost

There is nothing in the Revelation, or in any other part

of Scripture, to support such a view. Nowhere does it state
that Satan is in hell in this present age. He is “ the god of
this age,” and “ the prince of the power of the air”—this is
his domain and the sphere of his operations in this age. Not
until its consummation will he be cast into hell.
And I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having
the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand. And he
laid hold of the dragon, the serpent of old, who is the Devil
and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years, and threw

55
 him into the abyss . . . And when the thousand years are
completed . . . the devil who deceived them was thrown
into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the
false prophet are also; and they will be tormented day and
night forever and ever. (Rev 20:1-3,7,10).

So there are no scriptural grounds for supposing that

Satan rules as king of hell. He now has a temporary reign,
but only as pretender, and usurper— and not in hell. When
at last he comes to hell, it will be as prisoner, not as king.
Meanwhile, he does have a kingdom over which he exer­
cises authority.

Two H ie r a r c h ie s

Since the time Satan conspired to oust God from the

throne of the universe, he himself has been ousted from his
place of privilege, and has set up a rival kingdom. The ex­
istence of these rival kingdoms is clearly recognized in
Scripture.
And Satan also is divided against himself, how shall
his kingdom stand? (Lk 11:18).
And they will come from east and west, and from north
and south, and will recline at table in the kingdom of God
(Lk 13:29).
Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot
enter into the kingdom of God (Jn 3:5).

The subjects of the kingdom of God are those who ac­

knowledge the Saviourhood and Lordship of Christ and
have accepted His sovereignty. The subjects of the kingdom
of Satan are those who do not acknowledge Christ’s Savi­
ourhood and Lordship. They do not acknowledge His King-
ship. Note that Satan is called “ the ruler of this world” (Jn

56
12:31), but never “ the king of this world.” He maintains
his claims only as a traitor and a usurper. His followers
acknowledge him, whether consciously or unconsciously,
as “ the god of this world” (2 Co 4.4).
These two kingdoms are further contrasted as the king­
dom of darkness and the kingdom of light. For He deliv­
ered us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to
the kingdom of His beloved Son” (Col 1:13). Sin is charac­
terized by darkness and death, righteousness by light and
life.
In commissioning Paul as the apostle to the Gentiles, the
risen Lord said, “But arise . . . for this purpose I have ap­
peared to you . . . to open their eyes so that they may turn
from darkness to light and from the dominion of Satan to
God” (Ac 26:16,18, italics added). Paul identifies this
sphere of darkness as the domain of Satan’s authority in
which men are caught and held.

THE HIERARCHY OF SATAN

God’s kingdom is so organized that His will is executed

through angels to whom He has delegated authority to rule
and serve under Him. Each rank of angels has his assigned
sphere and special responsibilities. Paul refers to grada­
tions in these spirit beings: “ thrones, dominions, rulers,
authorities” (Col 1:16).
In imitating the kingdom of God, Satan organized his
kingdom of darkness along similar lines. He works through
gradations of the demons implicated with him in his fall. It
appears some of these evil spirits have regional authority,
e.g., “ the prince of Persia” and “ the prince of Greece”
(Dan 10:13,20).
Paul refers to these evil spirits as “principalities, powers,

57
world rulers of the present darkness, the spiritual hosts
of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Eph 6:12). These
terms were in common use in the angelology of Paul’s day.
It is likely he used these current terms to assert the su­
premacy of Christ over all possible existences, whether
celestial or terrestrial. We may not be able to assign any
exact significance to each of these terms, but some possi­
bilities seem appropriate:
Principalities may be princes in Satan’s kingdom who
have been assigned authority over specific regions, and who
work in the political realm.
Powers may signify evil spirits of energy and force who,
at Satan’s instigation, incite men to acts of violence.
World rulers of the present darkness may indicate the
evil spirits that foster sorcery, astrology, superstition, spirit­
ism, idolatry, etc., and whose aim it is to keep men in spirit­
ual darkness.
Spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenlies may be
those spirits who invade the realm of religious experience in
the guise of angels of light, and lure men from truth and
holiness into corruption and wickedness.
Scripture presents a consistent picture of these two rival
hierarchies as they wage truceless warfare. Since both God
and Satan concentrate on men in an endeavor to win their
loyalty and cooperation, the Christian finds himself at the
center of a cunningly waged war. God and all the good an­
gels are concerned with the highest good for man. Satan and
his evil demons are allied with evil men to effect man’s ruin.
Between these two hierarchies is war to the death.
Satan knows his ultimate defeat is certain. And as he sees
the rapidly approaching date of the execution of sentence
already pronounced on him (Rev 12:12), in great wrath

58
he does all in his power to postpone that event as long as
possible.

The W o rld, or t h e Sa t a n ic Sy s t e m

It is appropriate to consider the nature of the world that

constitutes his kingdom. What a web is to a spider, what
bait is to the angler, what a lure is to the fowler, so is the
world to Satan a means of capturing men.
What is the world of which Satan is god? To differen­
tiate this word—kosmos—from other words translated
“world,” it might be helpful to adopt the term “ world-
system,” for that is its connotation. The world, as Paul and
John used it, is human society organized in such a way as to
exclude God, to make Him superfluous. It refers to the
great evil system over which Satan exercises despotic pow­
er. Its master principles are not love and self-sacrifice, but
selfishness, greed, ambition, pleasure and force (Mt 4:8-9;
Jn 12:31; 18:36, Eph 2:2; 1 Jn 2:15-17).
“We know,” wrote John, “ the whole world lies in the
power of the evil one” (1 Jn 5:19). As its presiding genius,
Satan enunciates its objectives and plots its policies. The
world embraces all unregenerated men whether amiable or
unlovable, because they are united in a common desire and
purpose to be independent of God. It is called “ this evil
world,” and it hates the Christ who testified of it “ that its
deeds are evil” (Jn 7:7).
Concerning this Satanic world-system, C. I. Scofield
writes:
It is imposing and powerful with armies and fleets; is often
outwardly religious, scientific, cultured and elegant; but
seething with national and commercial rivalries and ambi­

59
 tions; is upheld in any real crisis only by armed force, and
is dominated by Satanic principles.2

It was the kingdoms of this world that the devil offered

Jesus in the wilderness. The expression “ the kingdoms of
the world” used by Satan in the temptation was in com­
mon use to describe the Roman Empire, which grasped most
of the known world in its tentacles. The control of the
world was surrendered to Satan by the first man, who
yielded his God-given sovereignty over the earth and crea­
tion to the usurper. Even after Calvary’s victory, when
Christ won back man’s forfeited inheritance, Satan’s control
of this world-system has been permitted to continue for
reasons which God deems wise.
It is not difficult to recognize the hallmark of Satanic con­
trol of the world-system in the corruption, deceit and pollu­
tion that characterizes its policies and politics.

60
 6
Demons and Demon Possession
Man is especially open to all influences of the spirit
realm, whether good or bad. Just as his bodily organism
makes him accessible to impressions from physical
nature, and his animal life and intelligence to contact
with all forms of conscious life, so his spiritual being
responds to the unseen approach of other spirits, who
are as distinctly personal as himself, but not limited to
sense channels for contact.1
A. T. P ierson

A c o m p a r is o n of the New Testament teachings on demon­

ology with Babylonian ideas and even Jewish rabbinical
sources, reveals the incomparable superiority of divine rev­
elation. L. M. Sweet affirms that in the former there are
none of the grotesque fancies which abound in the latter.
Of the eighty references to demons in the New Testa­
ment, in eleven instances the distinction between demon
possession and other diseases is clearly made. Take Mat­
thew 4:24: “They brought to Him all who were ill, taken
with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, para­
lytics; and He healed them.” The results of demon posses­
sion appear to be purely mental in only two cases (Mt 8:28
and Ac 19:13). Epilepsy is specified in two cases (Mt
17:15).

61
 There is a distinction made between diseases caused by
demons, and the same disease not so caused: “ Then there
was brought to Him a demon-possessed man who was blind
and dumb, and He healed him, so that the dumb man spoke
and saw” (Mt 12:22). “And great multitudes came to Him,
bringing with them those who were lame, crippled, blind,
dumb, and many others . . . and He healed them” (Mt
15:30).
Those who have lived in heathen lands and have wit­
nessed the unspeakable cruelties a fear of evil spirits in­
spires have no illusion as to the accuracy and significance of
the biblical records.

T h e E x is t e n c e of D em ons

If we accept the reality of the devil’s existence on the

authority of Christ, then we have the same reasons for be­
lieving in the existence of the demons, of whom he is said to
be the prince.
They are called evil spirits six times, and unclean spirits
twenty-three times in the New Testament. These terms are
interchangeable with demons, for both are used of the one
person. “ A certain man from the city who was possessed
with demons . . . He had been commanding the unclean
spirit to come out of the men.” (Lk 8:27,29). These are
not the spirits of dead people, as some Jewish authorities
believed, and as many pagans still believe, but are referred
to as the devil’s angels. Jesus referred to “ the eternal fire
which has been prepared for the devil and his angels” (Mt
25:41). They are termed “ the angels who did not keep their
own domain, but abandoned their proper abode” (Jude 6).
From various Scriptures, it appears that before creating
man, God created myriads of angels of varying ranks. Lu­

62
cifer was the head. When his mysterious revolt took place,
he drew with him in his fall multitudes of these angels.
They are in league with him in his conflict against God and
His holy angels. “ And there was war in heaven, Michael
and his angels waging war with the dragon. And the dragon
and his angels waged war but they were not strong enough”
(Rev 12:7-8).
Some of these evil spirits, fallen angels, are at large,
seeking rest. “ Now when the unclean spirit goes out of a
man, it passes through waterless places, seeking rest, and
does not find it (Mt 14:43). They are of great number.
For He had been saying to him, ‘Come out of the man, you
unclean spirit!’ And He was asking him, ‘What is your
name?’ And he said, ‘My name is Legion, for we are many”
(Mk 5:8-9). Because of their great numbers these emis­
saries of Satan give him a kind of limited omnipresence.
Other demons are imprisoned in Tartarus, whether for
more hellish wickedness or for some other reason is not re­
vealed. “ For if God did not spare angels when they sinned,
but cast them into hell, and committed them to pits of dark­
ness, reserved for judgment” (2 Pe 2 :4 ). “ And angels who
did not keep their own domain . . . He has kept in eternal
bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day”
(Jude 6).
T h e N ature of D em ons

1. They are spiritual beings, and as such are not material.

Jesus said, “ Touch Me and see, for a spirit does not have
flesh and bones as you see that I have” (Lk 24:39). Be­
ing spirits they are independent of matter.
2. They are personal beings. Personality and corporeality
are not to be confused. God is spirit, but He is not cor­
poreal. The same arguments used to prove the person­

63
 ality of God can also be used to demonstrate the person­
ality of demons. They have the power of thought, speech
and of action (Ac 19:15-16), since they have power to
influence a human personality. The fact they “ did not
keep their own domain but abandoned their proper
abode” (Jude 6), and that they sinned (2 Pe 2:4), shows
they had the power of moral choice. They were sensitive
to fear (Lk 8:31), and had the power of rage (Mt
8:28).
3. They are intelligent beings. The unclean spirit who con­
trolled the man in the synagogue cried out “ I know who
You are— the Holy One of God” (Mk 1:24). Their re­
plies to Christ were couched in intelligent language. The
evil spirit said to the sons of Sceva, “ Jesus I know, and
Paul I know, but who are you?” He could discern the
true from the false. Some have suggested that the Greek
word “ demon” derives from a word meaning “ intelli­
gent” . But their intelligence is debased and devoted to
evil purposes.
4. They are invisible beings. Being incorporeal, they are
neither visible nor tangible. There is no record in Scrip­
ture of their taking visible or tangible form.
5. They are believing beings. There are no atheists among
them. ‘You believe that God is one. You do well; the
demons also believe, and shudder” (Ja 2:19). They
have faith, but not saving faith, for it does not lead them
to repentance. They recognize and confess the deity of
Christ, but refuse to give Him their allegiance. They also
know who are true believers, and they obey the author­
ity of Jesus’ Name (Ac 19:15).
6. They are incorporeal beings, but seem to have a strange
passion to possess living organisms, whether human or

64
 animal. “ They entreated Him, saying ‘Send us into the
swine so that we may enter them’ . . . the unclean spirits
entered the swine” (Mk 5:12-13). “ Then it goes, and
takes along with it seven other spirits more wicked than
itself, and they go in and live there; and the last state of
that man becomes worse than the first” (Mt 12:45). It
appears they must have control of bodily organs to en­
able them to execute their hellish assignments. Having
once gained control over a human body, they seem to be
able to come and go at will. “When the unclean spirit
goes out of a man, it passes through waterless places
seeking rest, and not finding any, it says, ‘I will return to
my house from which I came’ ” (Lk 11:24).
7. They are powerful beings, and exercise superhuman
strength. And they are also able to impart superhuman
strength to their victims. “ A certain man who was pos­
sessed with demons . . . he was bound with chains and
shackles . . . yet he would burst his fetters” Lk 8:27,29).
They delight to make use of human bodies for evil pur­
poses.
8. They are innumerable and well organized, so they can
represent their prince in any part of the world Mk 5:9;
Lk 8:30, Mt 12:28-27).
9. Their first estate, like that of Adam and Eve, was proba­
tionary. Endowed with free will, they could renounce
their allegiance to God. When Satan (their leader) fell,
they allied themselves with him in rebellion. Those who
shared his rebellion were condemned with him, and
were not granted any further probation. “ For if God did
not spare angels when they sinned” (2 Pe 2 :4 ). It is
probable the demons who serve Satan now were his
agents when he was “ the anointed cherub.”

65
10. They are paintfully aware of their impending doom.
“What do we have to do with You, Son of God? Have
you come here to torment us before the time?” (Mt
8:29, italics added).
11. They are all wicked, but not all equally wicked. The
unclean spirit who had gone out of a man returned
with “seven other spirits more wicked than itself” (Mt
12:45, italics added).
12. Their destiny is “ the eternal fire which has been pre­
pared for the devil and his angels” (Mt 25:41).
13. They have power to inflict physical disabilities. “ My
son, possessed with a spirit which makes him mute;
and whenever it seizes him, it dashes him to the ground
and he foams at the mouth, and grinds his teeth” (Mk
9:17-18).
D e m o n P o s s e s s io n

“ There is no reason,” writes Dr. L. L. Morris, “why we

should reject a priori the whole concept of demon posses­
sion. When the gospels give us good evidence that it did
take place, it is best to accept this.”2
Scripture teaching is clear that evil spirits have access to
man’s spiritual being and can influence him for good or
evil. It is part of the human situation that man can be influ­
enced, now by a good and now by an evil spirit. Of many
references to demon-possessed people we select these:
And He was casting out a demon, and it was dumb;
and it came about that when the demon had gone out, the
dumb man spoke; and the people marveled (Lk 11:14).
And the news about Him went out into all Syria; and
they brought to Him all who were ill, taken with various
diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, paralytics; and
He healed them (Mt 4:24).

66
 Teacher, I brought You my son, possessed with a spirit
which makes him mute; and whenever it seizes him, it
dashes him to the ground and he foams at the mouth and
grinds his teeth, and stiffens out (Mk 9:17-18).
A certain man from the city met Him who was possessed
with demons; and who had not put on any clothing for a
long time, and was not living in a house, but in the tombs
. . . He was bound with chains and shackles . . . yet he
would burst his fetters and be driven by the demon into the
deserts (Lk 8:27-29).

Many today hold the view that demon possession was

only the way people of that day referred to what we would
term mental sickness or epilepsy. But a careful examination
of Scripture terminology reveals that these two things are
clearly differentiated. Note in Matthew 4:24 the variety of
terms used, none identical. Demoniacs are specifically dis­
tinguished from epileptics.
In New Testament times, when people suffered from an
especially severe form of disease, their contemporaries said
they had a demon. The seemingly ascetic habits of John the
Baptist, and the unusual teachings of Jesus drew the same
accusation. “ John came neither eating nor drinking, and
they say, ‘He has a demon’ ” (Mt 11:18). Jesus answered,
“ ‘If anyone keeps My word he shall never see death.’ The
Jews said to Him, ‘Now we know that You have a demon’ ”
(Jn 8:51-52). But this popular and often unwarranted be­
lief should not blind us to the realities of actual demon-pos­
session.
The gospels evince that the incarnation of God in Christ
unleashed unprecedented demonic fury and activity. The
presence on earth of Satan’s arch-rival could not go unchal­
lenged. The purity and power of His holy life could only

67
attract the attentions of the unholy one. The light of truth
always arouses the powers of darkness.
Jesus differentiated between ordinary illnesses and de­
mon-induced illnesses. He healed the former by laying on
His hands, anointing the eyes, commanding them to go and
wash. He healed the latter by exorcising the demon respon­
sible for the disorder. Note the differentiation in this verse:
“And He said to them, ‘Go and tell that fox (Herod), Be­
hold I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomor­
row” (Lk 13:32, italics added). And again: “Heal the sick,
raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons” (Mt
10:8, italics added). “ And they were casting out many de­
mons and were anointing with oil many sick people and
healing them” (Mk 6:13).
When Jesus exorcised the demon who had caused blind­
ness and dumbness to one man, the Pharisees attributed
Christ’s power to the devil. “When the Pharisees heard it,
they said, ‘This man casts out demons only by Beelzebul the
ruler of the demons’ ” (Mt 12:24).
The New Bible Dictionary affirms that most psychologists
dismiss the idea of demon possession. They maintain the
equivalents of demon possession today as “ a particular ex­
tensive complex of compulsive phenomena.” But there can
be an intermediate position. It is possible to hold that a de­
mon can seize on a repressed facet of personality, and from
this center influence a person’s actions. It may produce hys­
terical blindness or dumbness, or epilepsy. The Bible does
not link epilepsy with demon possession. The fits of the boy
in Matthew 17:15 seem to indicate more than epilepsy.
There is an instructive incident recorded in Acts 19:13-
lb. Some Jewish exorcists—sons of a Jewish high priest
named Sceva—had witnessed the miraculous cures and ex­

68
 M o t iv a t io n

What is the motivation of this host of demons? What in­

spires them to their hellish and destructive ministry?
Positively, it is loyalty to their chosen prince, whose
kingdom and authority they aim to establish and extend. If
all Christ’s followers worked as zealously for their King as
the demons do for Satan, there would not be two billion un­
evangelized people in the world! To achieve their objective,
they carry out truceless warfare in the interests of their
master.
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against
the rulers, against the powers, against the world-forces of
this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in
the heavenly places (Eph 6:12).

Negatively, their motivation springs from an implacable

hatred of Christ. Their inflexible purpose is to destroy His
church and disrupt His purposes. They know Christ and are
cognizant of His purposes for blessing mankind. Not with­
out a desperate struggle will the massed powers of darkness
yield control of a world that lies asleep in the arms of the
evil one.

70
 7
Stratagems and Wiles
Putting the two words devices and wiles into one com­
mon meaning, we find that Scripture tells us that the
workings of Satan’s mind, in fraud, trick, stratagem and
artifice need not be unknown to us. The reason Paul
was able to say that we are not ignorant of these things
is, of course, because we have the clear revelation of
the teaching of the Word of God concerning them.
Surely one of Satan’s greatest stratagems has been the
attempt to keep men in ignorance of the real nature of
his being, and the fraudulent dimensions of his preten­
sions.1
D. G. B arn house

V ic t o r H u g o “ A good general must penetrate the

s a id ,
brain of his enemy.” In more recent times, Field Marshal
Lord Montgomery told in his memoirs that when he was as­
signed to lead the North African campaign of the Allies
against the Germans in World War II, his main subject of
study was not the terrain on which they would fight, but
the character, background and outlook of his opposite, Gen­
eral Rommel. If he could foresee what strategy Rommel was
likely to adopt, then he could take steps to forestall and
eventually conquer him. Should we be less prudent in the
spiritual warfare in which we are engaged?

71
 On one occasion I was speaking on this subject in Hong
Kong. In going over the message with a young Chinese in­
terpreter, he passed on to me a relevant proverb, in which
Chinese literature is so rich. “ If you know yourself and your
adversary clearly, then in a hundred battles you will win a
hundred times.” But many of us are spiritual illiterates
when it comes to a knowledge of our great adversary. Con­
sequently we lose our battles. Let us no longer remain il­
literate in this area, but learn the devil’s strategy:

Strategy w it h U n b e l ie v e r s

As head of the kingdom of darkness, the devil adopts the

strategy of blinding the minds of the unregenerate.
In whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds
of the unbelieving, that they might not see the light of the
gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God (2
Co 4:4).

He dreads the light of God shining into their hearts, and

revealing to them their state before God. He knows this
would cast them back on Him. So long as liberating truth
does not penetrate their minds, he will be able to hold them
captive. His plan is to keep them unconscious of the seri­
ousness of their condition. “ The whole world lies in the
power of the evil one” (1 Jn 5:19). To keep them lulled to
sleep and in spiritual darkness, he feeds them wrong
thoughts about God, fills their minds with prejudice, en­
snares them in a false philosophy, or simply occupies their
minds with earthly things.
When Paul said, “We are not ignorant of his devices,”
his meaning was, “We know how his mind works.” A de­
vice, as the word is used here, means “ something devised or

72
contrived for bringing about some end or result; a plan or
scheme; an ingenious or clever expedient; a plot, stratagem
or trick.”
What, then, are some of the tricks Satan uses to capture
and retain control of the unbeliever?
He snatches away the good seed of the Word. “When any
one hears the word of the kingdom, and does not under­
stand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has
been sown in his heart” (Mt 13:4,19, italics added). The
picture is, of course, of birds swooping down and picking
up the grain fallen from the sower’s hand on the hard-
beaten path. Even so the devil snatches away good seed of
the Word before it can sink into the understanding and be
received by faith. This is the activity of the devil whenever
the Word is preached. It underlines the fact we should pray
after preaching as well as before, for this subtle stratagem is
all too often successful. How frequently the solemn impres­
sion of a powerful sermon is dissipated by idle chatter after
a service. The good seed is snatched away.
He lulls the unbeliever into a false sense of peace.
“When a strong man fully armed guards his own home­
stead, his possessions are undisturbed” (Lk 11:21). The
context makes it clear Satan is the strong man who drugs
the senses of his victims, assures them there is nothing in
God to fear, and no judgment to anticipate. He deflects the
shafts of conviction which the Holy Spirit directs at their
hearts, and says, “ Peace, peace, when there is no peace.”
He lays snares for the unwary. “ If perhaps God may
grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the
truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from
the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to
do his will” (2 Ti 2:25-26). The devil is a master of sub­

73
tlety, and adept at concealing his snares. He is too wise a
hunter to lay snares in the sight of his victims.
He gains advantage over men by concealing his true and
sinister purpose, by masquerading as an angel of light. “ For
such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising
themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even
Satan disguises himself as an angel of light” (2 Co 11:13-
14). He is much more likely to succeed when he tempts
certain people by appearing in the guise of a benefactor
than as a foul fiend or a roaring lion.
He deceives those whose minds are not subject to the
Word of truth. “ The serpent of old who is called the Devil
and Satan, who deceives the whole world” (Rev 12:9). He
was successful in deceiving Eve. “ The woman being quite
deceived, fell into transgression” (1 Ti 2:14), because she
entertained doubts the devil injected into her mind concern­
ing the truth of God’s word, instead of immediately reject­
ing the disloyal suggestion. He is still active unceasingly in
deceiving men about the integrity and authority of the
God’s Word. This is the focal point of the great theological
controversies of our day.
He mixes truth with error. “While men were sleeping,
his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat . . . and
he [the landowner] said to them, an enemy has done this!”
(Mt 13:25,28). His strategy is to include enough truth in
his teaching to make error appear both credible and palat­
able—the great appeal and hidden danger of many cults in
vogue today. So much seems good and true that injection
of error is not obvious. To achieve his end, Satan will quote
or misquote Scripture as best suits his purpose. He is in­
genious. He employs orthodox language, while giving the
old words used a new and heterodox content. This is espe-

74
dally true in theological circles, where theological double
talk confuses the issues and conceals the error.

T H E C U L T S A N D T H E DEVIL

In his inimitable Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis writes:

There are two equal and opposite errors into which our
race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their
existence. The other is to believe and feel an excessive and
unhealthy interest in them.2

It is into the first error that many of the modern cults

have been seduced by our cunning adversary. Without a
shadow of biblical support, the existence of the devil is
flatly denied. Here are the assertions of some cults which
should put us on guard.
Theosophy: There is no personal devil. That which is mys­
tically called the devil is the negation and opposite of God.
The devil is not to be confounded with Satan, though they
are sometimes spoken of in Scripture as if they were identi­
cal. In such cases Scripture presents the popular belief.
Unity School of Christianity: There is no personal devil.
Spiritism: There is no devil and no evil spirits. All spirit-
people of wisdom know that there is no fearful devil. All
spirits in the other world are nothing else but the souls of
those who have lived here.
Christian Science: The devil is a lie, a belief in sin, sickness,
death. The supposition that there are good and evil spirits
is a mistake. Christian Science teaches that “the evil one”
is but another name for the first lie and all liars.

75
Christadelphianism: The devil is not a personal supernat­
ural agent of evil, and in fact there is no such being in ex­
istence. The devil is a scriptural manifestation of sin in the
flesh in its several phases of manifestations . . . after the
style of metaphor which speaks of wisdom as a woman,
riches as mammon, and Satan as the god of this world.
The corruption of human society is another element in
the Satanic strategy. God’s order for human society is clear­
ly stated:
Let every person be in subjection to the governing authori­
ties. For there is no authority except from God, and those
which exist are established by God. Therefore he who
resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and
they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon
themselves (Ro 13:1-2).

In his campaign to undermine the authority of God and

tear down the structure of a God-fearing society, the devil
incites men to lawlessness and permissiveness. In our day
these tendencies have perhaps reached their zenith. Never
in human history has lawlessness reached such universal
proportions, and in all strata of society. It would seem that
today we see the fulfilment of Revelation 12:12: “ Woe to
the earth and the sea; because the devil has come down to
you, having great wrath, knowing that he has only a short
time.”
A new era of permissiveness has paved the way for moral
corruption on an immense scale until even its own devotees
are revolted by their own degeneration. The worldwide up­
surge in the use of drugs, and the alarming increase in al­
coholic addiction are all part of his devilish strategy to en­
slave man to his own passions.

76
 Had Paul lived in our day he could not have drawn a
more accurate picture than he paints in 2 Timothy 3:1-5.
In the last days difficult times will come. For men will be
lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers,
disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irre­
concilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal,
haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of
pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of
godliness, although they have denied its power.

The attitude of the general public to law and enforce­

ment is evidence of the degree to which this stratagem has
succeeded. There is more sympathy with the criminal than
for the victim. The law enforcement officer generally looks
in vain for the support of those he protects.

Id o l a t r y and t h e D e v il

Among heathen peoples of the world, the devil holds al­

most undisputed sway. And he intends to keep it that way.
Heathendom has been defined by Mildred Cable as
the condition of men and women whose worship is not
directed toward God but toward Satan, whose minds Satan
darkens . . . Their development is arrested and their soul
entombed . . . Behind the hideous idol lurks the being to
whom all idol worship is directed. And behind the con­
templative Buddha presides the prince whose one and only
aim is to divert the homage from Him Who alone is
entitled to receive it, God the Father, Almighty, Maker of
heaven and earth.3

Heathen idols and deities are not just figments of the

imagination. Heathenism rests on a spiritualistic founda­
tion. The New Testament teaching is that heathen gods such

77
as Apollo, Aphrodite, and Diana were not mere personifi­
cations of the powers of nature, but actual demonic forces
were behind them.
It is true that the physical idol is nothing in itself and is
devoid of power. But the demons behind them to whom the
heathen consciously direct their worship are something very
real and powerful. Paul left the Corinthian Christians in
no doubt of this.
What do I mean then? That a thing sacrificed to idols is
anything, or that an idol is anything? No, but I say that
the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to
demons, and not to God; and I do not want you to become
sharers in demons (1 Co 10:19-20).

To one who accepts the testimony of Scripture, words could

not be clearer.
Because he was so convinced of the danger of contact
with evil spirits, Paul urged believers to flee from idolatry.
Those who worshipped or ate food offered to idols laid
themselves open to Satanic power. Behind every idol lurks
a demon. The Bible traces idolatry to demonic influence and
makes worshippers of false gods worshippers of demons.
Yet some Christian writers laud the Hindus, for example,
for their sublime “oriental consciousness of God,” whereas
they worship thousands of deities, back of whom is the
master mind of Satan. The word demons is used of objects
of worship, and in idolatry we need to recognize the hidden
influence of demons under the control of Satan (Rev
16:14).
Because of their idolatry and its attendant licentiousness
the Canaanites were expelled from Canaan.
The divinely ordered expulsion or extermination of the

78
Canaanites has long been a stumbling block to those to
whom the authority of Scripture is not paramount. Why
should God make such an uncompromising demand? The
religion of the Canaanites was riddled with advanced forms
of spiritual wickedness, which in turn induced moral cor­
ruption. Their idolatry and corruption had begun to infect
God’s chosen people and were about to frustrate the pur­
poses of blessing for the whole world which He planned to
achieve through them.
We are told how this leaven was at work in Israel. “ He
forsook God who made him .. . they made Him jealous with
strange gods; with abominations they provoked him to an­
ger. They sacrificed to demons who were not God.” (Deu
32:15-17).
Israel had been warned of this peril. “ Do not defile your­
selves by any of these things, for by all these the nations
which I am casting out before you have become defiled
themselves” (Lev 18:24). And again, “ Because of these de­
testable things the Lord your God will drive them out be­
fore you” (Deu 18:12). And what were these abominable
practices? Burning sons and daughters as sacrifices; prac­
ticing soothsaying, divination, sorcery, spiritism, necrom­
ancy.
Their great goddesses Asherah, Astarte, and Anath were
violent goddesses of sex and war; and their idolatry in­
volved them in incredible licentiousness and cruelty.
In considering this subject, we should not forget that the
Canaanites were not compelled to stay in Palestine and be
killed. They had the option to flee. Many did flee, and
founded flourishing colonies on the shores of the Mediter­
ranean.
Far from being an act of cruelty, the divine command to

79
drive out or destroy the Canaanites was an act of farsighted
mercy in the higher interest of the whole human race. It
was an act of moral surgery. Removal from Palestine was
essential for the preservation of Israel from the contaminat­
ing influences of idolatry and its attendant evils.
No cancer patient, whose malignancy has been removed
to preserve the healthy tissue from corruption, would
charge his benefactor with cruelty because he excised that
which would inevitably cause his death. God removed the
Canaanites lest they irreparably corrupt the Israelites and
infect the whole of humanity with their malignant virus.
Was not the Flood a similar act of moral surgery?

Strategy w it h B e l ie v e r s

The most virulent opposition of the devil is directed

against the Body of Christ. His fixed purpose is to annihi­
late the Church or to neutralise its witness. Because the res­
urrection has forever removed Christ from his reach, the
only way he can now attack Him is through “ the Church
which is His body.”
It did not take him long to show his hand after the
Church had been instituted at Pentecost. It was from within
the infant Church that Satan launched his first assault. Fol­
lowing Barnabas’ sacrificial gift of property, Ananias and
Sapphira conspired together to “lie to the Holy Spirit.” The
record is careful to reveal the source of the temptation that
brought such judgment, and the satanic influence that in­
spired it. “Why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy
Spirit, and to keep back part of the proceeds of the sale of
the land?” (Ac 5:1-6). At the very beginning of the dis­
pensation of the Holy Spirit, God vindicated His authority
in the Church, and intervened in salutary judgment when

80
dissimulation and deceit threatened to undermine that body.
“To keep back part of the proceeds,” is the operative
clause. Satan is always at our side to induce us to settle for
less than absolute surrender to Christ. He will even encour­
age the surrender of much, but becomes desperately con­
cerned and active when the soul appears to be on the point
of yielding all to Christ. It is the person who has brought
every area of life under the dominion of Christ who poses a
serious threat to his kingdom.
When the believer reaches the place of full surrender to
the Lordship of Christ, and Satan sees he is determined to
follow the Lord at whatever cost, he then moves in to de­
flect him from the way of the cross. Christ’s unvarying con­
ditions of discipleship included this: “Whoever does not
carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disci­
ple” (Lk 14:27). The devil aims to break down this fixed
purpose.
When Jesus shared the certainty of His death with the
disbelieving disciples, impetuous Peter, doubtless out of
real love and loyalty, “began to rebuke Him, saying, ‘God
forbid it, Lord. This shall never happen to You’. But He
turned and said to Peter, ‘Get behind Me, Satan! You are a
stumbling-block to Me; for you are not setting your mind
on God’s interests, but man’s” (Mt 16:22-24).
Satan will use our own well-meaning friends and rela­
tives to join forces with our weak flesh in an attempt to de­
flect us from bearing our own cross after Him.

P E R SE C U T IO N AN D P OPULARITY

The adversary’s next assault on the infant church came

from without, in the form of virulent persecution. The mes­
sengers of the gospel were threatened, arrested, imprisoned,

81
stoned, flogged, tortured and killed for their loyal witness
to Christ. Successive Roman emperors ruthlessly perse­
cuted the law-abiding Christian communty. But, like the
Israelites, the more they were persecuted, the more they
increased.
When he saw this stratagem fail to halt the onward
march of the Church, Satan switched his tactics and en­
deavored to smother its witness by according it great popu­
larity. In this he met with more success. This popularity,
which reached its zenith in the reign of the Emperor Con­
stantine, greatly weakened the Church.
Through the centuries, Satan has rung the changes on
these methods of attack, and has often been tragically suc­
cessful in achieving his objective. Except in a few local sit­
uations, however, he failed to annihilate the Church. This
should be no surprise, for at the very first mention of His
Church, Jesus stressed its invincibility—not its weaknesses.
“ Upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of
Hades shall not overpower it” (Mt 16:18).
Just as he attempted time and again by subtle suggestion
and seductive temptation to deflect Jesus from the way of
the cross, so the devil designs to lure the disciple from fol­
lowing his Lord along the same road.

DIVIS IV E TACTICS

If he cannot destroy the Church, Satan aims to discredit

it. And he has found many ways in which he can thwart
God’s purpose through it. One of his most successful gam­
bits has been to disturb the unity of the Church by creating
discord and division. Believers are exhorted to “maintain
the unity of the Spirit,” that is the unity that the Spirit has
created. The fact is implicit that the unity of the Church

82
is continually subject to attack. Satan used this method
early in the Christian era and has exploited it ever since.
He works by playing on the prejudices, ambitions, and
jealousies of church members. He fosters a spirit of intoler­
ance and suspicion to break the bonds of mutual confidence.
He creates parties and factions within churches to frag­
ment them and neutralize their witness. Few attitudes play
more into his hands in this area than a critical spirit. Mis­
understandings arise very quickly when a censorious spirit
is harbored. Satan is thus given a tremendous advantage
which he is not slow to exploit.
He often reserves this form of attack for those he cannot
deceive about the teachings of the Word of God, or whom
he cannot deflect from doing the will of God. He will cause
them to be so ardent in defense of the truth, or their own
particular interpretation of it, that Christian charity and
courtesy are forgotten, and give place to intolerance, suspi­
cion and acrimonious criticism. The battleground shifts
from doctrines to personalities.
On the mission field, he causes division among mission­
aries and within mission groups, creating small splinter
groups who are either unable or unwilling to work with
other evangelical groups. At the end of World War II there
remained only 200 missionaries among the 100 million Jap­
anese. Within a very few years there were 150 different mis­
sion groups, the majority of them evangelical, but many of
them working in isolation. This greatly confused the Jap­
anese. Such unnecessary fragmentation affords our adver­
sary keen delight.
Another stratagem of his is the subversion of the Church
through apostasy and heresy. The Church had scarcely been
born before the devil began to infiltrate it with emissaries

83
who promulgated false doctrine, especially concerning the
Person of Christ. Peter wrote of it in these words:
But false prophets also arose among the people, just as
there will also be false teachers among you, who will
secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the
Master who bought them . . . and because of them the way
of the truth will be maligned (2 Pe 2:1-2).

Paul indicated the source of this apostasy, “But the Spirit

explicity says that in later times some will fall away from
the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines
of demons” (1 Ti 4:1 italics added). What are we to un­
derstand by “ doctrines of demons?”

DOCTRIN ES OF DEM O NS

Nowhere are Satan and his servants more ceaselessly ac­

tive than in the theological field. He knows well the liber­
ating and illuminating power of the truth of God. So He
aims to destroy man’s confidence in God’s Word and to
adulterate His truth.
Paul clearly envisages this development in his statement,
“But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will
fall away from the truth, paying attention to deceitful spirits
and doctrines of demons” (1 Ti 4 :1 ). The apostasy Paul
foresaw would be the direct work of deceitful spirits work­
ing through insincere teachers. Doctrines of demons means
doctrines taught by demons— a solemn thought!
In the church at Thyatira were those who had learned not
the deep things of God but “ the deep things of Satan” (Rev
2:24). In our day we find the same spirits working through
theologians and preachers, using orthodox terminology to
inculcate heterodox doctrine. The devil is consistent in his

84
doctrinal emphasis. He attacks key doctrines. He under­
mines the inspiration and authority of Scripture. He denies
that Christ is come in the flesh. He attacks the uniqueness
and deity of Christ. He eliminates the substitutionary ele­
ment in His death. He teaches that Christ’s resurrection was
only spiritual, whatever that means. He impugns the per­
sonality of the Holy Spirit who unveils his nefarious works,
for it was the Holy Spirit who unveiled Satan’s part in
Ananias’ lie. There is nothing to fear in a Holy Spirit if He
is only an influence.
Peter further unveiled the Satanic strategy in the realm
of doctrine:
There will also be false teachers among you, who will
secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the
Master Who bought them . . . and because of them the
way of the truth will be maligned; and in their greed they
will exploit you with false words (2 Pe 2:1-3).

SA TAN I N T H E P U L P I T

Preaching on methods adopted by the devil in attaining

his ambition, Dr. Donald G. Barnhouse said that one of the
simplest and yet most easily detected ruses of Satan, is that
he gets “ ordained” and speaks from Christian pulpits. To
support this affirmation, Dr. Barnhouse cited this Scripture:
For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, dis­
guising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder,
for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. There­
fore it is not surprising if his servants also disguise them­
selves as servants of righteousness; whose end shall be
according to their deeds (2 Co 11:13-15).4

Few will dispute the fact that in thousands of pulpits

85
over the world sermons which deny the central doctrines of
the Christian faith are preached every Lord’s Day, and in
the name of Christianity. Time was when such men would
honestly claim to be atheists and leave the Church. But in
our day, even the “ God is dead” theologians were hailed
by many churches, ministers, and theological professors as
harbingers of new light. And they are still accorded high
honor in theological circles.
When Satan can so deceive ministers of the Gospel as to
promulgate from their Christian pulpits errors which he
himself has spawned, he has gained a signal victory. The
Church’s witness is short-circuited and its pretensions are
justly exposed to a cynical world’s contempt.
Satan will do all in his power to hinder the restoration of
a Christian who has failed in life and service. This is illus­
trated in Zechariah 3.
After the return from the Babylonion exile, God granted
Zechariah a symbolical vision. He saw Joshua the high
priest about to take up his sacred duties in the now restored
Temple. His office was representative, for his function was
to represent the whole nation before God.
A trial apparently was in progress in heaven. Joshua
stood at the bar. At his right was Satan the adversary, “to
accuse him.” To his dismay, Zechariah saw that Joshua was
clothed with filthy garments. According to the Mosaic law
this utterly disqualified him— and in him the whole nation
—not only from fellowship with God, but also for the sa­
cred ministry entrusted to him.
He showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the
angel of the L ord , and Satan standing at his right hand to
accuse him. And the L ord said to Satan, the L ord rebuke
you, Satan (Zee 3:1-2).

86
As the adversary levelled his accusations, Joshua had no
answer. Nor had the nation, for the reference to Jerusalem
(v.2) indicated that the accusations of the adversary in­
cluded the whole nation. It was God’s purpose to remove
Joshua’s filthy garments and clothe him in festal attire. But
as always, Satan prefers to see the believer in defiled gar­
ments, and thus powerless to harm the kingdom of dark­
ness.
Note that while neither Joshua nor his people had any
answer to Satan’s accusations—for they knew them to be all
too true—the Judge Himself stepped in, refuted the accu­
sations and rebuked the accuser. Satan always delights to
see a saint disqualified because of defilement. But our Ad­
vocate delights to remove the filthy garments, replace them
with the robe of His own righteousness and give His child
a fresh opportunity of service as He did with Joshua.
Thus saith the L ord of hosts, If you will walk in My ways,
and if you will perform My service, then you will also
govern My house and also have charge of My courts, and
I will grant you free access among these who are standing
here (Zee 3:7).

He also uses the pressures and care of spiritual service to

erode the believer’s devotional life and thus make him spir­
itually powerless. He promotes secondary priorities to first
place, and thus reduces effectiveness. “ And the worries of
the world and the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires
for other things enter in and choke the word, and it be­
comes unfruitful” (Mk 4:19).
The apostles faced the problem of perverted priorities
very early in their program. With the multiplication of con­
verts, the legitimate social responsibilities of the infant

87
church began to crowd out the more important spiritual
ministries. The apostles had the insight to perceive this in­
cipient Satanic deflection, and announced their determina­
tion to put first things first.

It is not desirable for us to neglect the word of God in

order to serve tables. But select from among you, brethren,
seven men of good reputation, full of the Spirit and of
wisdom, whom we may put in charge of this task. But
we will devote ourselves to prayer, and to the ministry of
the word (Ac 6:2-3, italics added).

The Christian worker will always be subject to pressure

from the adversary to allow his horizontal relationship with
his fellow men to take precedence over his vertical rela­
tionship with God, and indeed to oust it altogether. This is
exactly what is taking place on a worldwide scale in the
current emphasis of the ecumenical movement. Not that
social action is not authorized in Scripture, but many
church leaders have accorded it a priority not given to it in
Scripture. Meanwhile billions of souls languish “without
God and without hope in the world.”

H I N D E R I N G M ISSIO NAR Y WORK

To prevent the extension of Christ’s kingdom, the devil

concentrates powerful forces on hindering the missionary
enterprise. No sooner had the first two missionaries begun
their momentous assignment, than they met Satan-inspired
opposition from Elymas, a magician who withstood them.
With Spirit-given insight, Paul saw behind Elymas the evil
one who had inspired his opposition, and uttered a stinging
rebuke:

88
 Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, fixed his gaze upon him,
and said, . . . ‘You son of the devil, you enemy of all
righteousness, will you not cease to make crooked the
straight ways of the Lord?’ Ac 13:9-10).
Paul also attributed the repeated frustration of his plans
to visit the Thessalonian Christians to Satanic activity. “We
. . . were all the more eager with great desire to see your
face. For we wanted to come to you— I, Paul, more than
once— and yet Satan thwarted us” (1 Th 2:17-18). We
cannot attribute all obstructions in our path to Satanic ac­
tivity, but Paul discerned the cloven hoof in these frustrated
attempts to build up the Church.
The adversary has many arrows in his quiver, as mission­
ary history testifies. He attacks new converts with unbeliev­
able ferocity, especially after they have made a break with
their old life at their baptism. He compels a false worship,
as in the early Church when everyone was faced with the
alternative of engaging in emperor worship or suffering ter­
rible consequences, even death. In our times, in Japan dur­
ing World War II, shrine-worship was compulsory, and the
penalty for failing to conform was severe.
He raises antipathy and opposition to the messengers of
the gospel in heathen lands, and endeavors to secure their
expulsion from the country. The “ Missionary Go Home”
movement, while caused in part by wrong missionary atti­
tudes, was the result of Satan’s activity.
He creates apathy towards the missionary obligation of
the churches in the sending countries, and dries up the
springs of Christian liberality.
He prevents young Christians from committing them­
selves to missionary work by propagating false conceptions
of the missionary vocation.

89
 He pressures the missionary into such feverish activity
that he becomes worn out in body and in spirit.
Can we say, "We are not ignorant of his devices?”

90
 8
Heavenly Armor
This armour is not like those antiquated suits we are
accustomed to look at in the Tower of London or else­
where; it is for present use, and has never been im­
proved upon. Modern weapons are out of date in a few
years— this armour, never. God does not tell us to look
at it, to admire it, but to put it on, for armour is of
no use until it is put on.1
F . C. J e n n in g s

T h e F u l l Pa n o p l y of G od

Soldiers of Christ, arise,

And put your armor on,
Strong in the strength which God supplies
Through His eternal Son;
Strong in the Lord of hosts,
And in His mighty power,
Who in the strength of Jesus trusts
Is more than conqueror.

C h a r l e s W e s l e y c a p t u r e d in this hymn the truth Paul

was teaching in Ephesians 6:10-18. Before the Christian
soldier dons the whole armor of God, Paul exhorts him to
constantly allow himself to be strengthened in the Lord and
in the strength of His might. He takes it for granted that

91
believers possess no inherent power to overcome the un­
ceasing attacks of the evil once. It is useless to have strong
armor without if we are weak within. We must experience
the divine strengthening as well as put on the divine pano­
ply, as Wesley continues:
Stand, then, in His great might,
With all His strength endued;
And take, to arm you for the fight,
The panoply of God.

We note four things about this panoply, or armor. First, it

is not our armor we are to put on, but God’s. We have noth­
ing of our own that will afford us sure protection from and
victory over our wily adversary. The weapons from our own
arsenal are pitifully weak. Only the armor that God sup­
plies will avail. He supplies it freely, but it is for us to take
and use.
Second, armor is of value only when we face an external
foe. It is powerless and utterly ineffective in dealing with
the flesh, that traitor within the citadel of man’s soul. The
only way to deal with the flesh is to mortify it, to count it
as dead.
Third, God makes no provision for armor for the back.
He expects the soldiers of His army always to be on the of­
fensive. God lends no encouragement to us to turn tail and
flee from the enemy when the battle grows fierce .
Last, we need the whole armor of God. If we put on
every piece except one, we leave an Achilles’ heel, a vul­
nerable spot which will enable Satan to gain the initiative
and inflict defeat on us. “What boots it at one gate to make
defense, and at another to let in the foe?” We learn from
Galatians 3:27 that to put on the whole armor of God is the

92
equivalent of nothing less than “putting on Christ.” Wes­
ley’s hymn warns us:
Leave no unguarded place,
No weakness of the soul
Take every virtue, every grace,
And fortify the whole.

Paul also emphasised the conflict in which we are en­

gaged is spiritual in nature.
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against
the rulers, against the powers, against the world-forces of
this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in
the heavenly places (6:12, italics added).

The Christian soldier must be alert to see beyond his flesh

and blood antagonists the spirits of evil that control them.
Behind the men are subtle and powerful demonic powers
against whom he must stand.
That, having all things done,
And all your conflicts passed,
You may o’ercome through Christ alone,
And stand complete at last.

T h e P ie c e s of A rm or

THE BELT
The first piece of armor to be buckled on is the belt of
truth. Paul follows the natural order in which a soldier
would put on his armor. It was to the belt that the other
pieces of armor were attached, and it held them in place.
The belt unified the soldier’s whole equipment. From it the
sword was suspended. It not only afforded him freedom of
movement in conflict, but it also protected his loins.

93
 The truth is the unifying and strengthening factor in the
life and experience of the Christian soldier. Was not Satan’s
first attack on the human race waged in the realm of truth?
Did he not impugn the truthfulness of God? “ Did God say,
You shall not eat of the fruit of the garden?” he asked.
And the woman said to the serpent. . . God has said, ‘You
shall not eat from it or touch it, lest you die.’ And the
serpent said to the woman, ‘You surely shall not die!’
(Gen 3:2-3).

We must be prepared for the father of lies to attack us in

this area of our lives too. He will tempt us to hypocrisy and
insincerity, inciting us to indulge in untruth or half-truths.
Our only security lies in our whole life being encircled and
held captive by the truth of God. To this end we must sat­
urate ourselves in the great truths of God’s holiness, right­
eousness, love, power and unfailing faithfulness.
Am I ready to embark on this spiritual warfare? Does
God find “ truth in the inward parts” in me? Is my heart
sincere, free from guile and hypocrisy? It is God’s truth ap­
plied to heart and life that prepares us for warfare.

T H E BREASTPLATE

The breastplate of righteousness must also be buckled on

to the belt of truth. The function of the breastplate, which
covered the body of the warrior from neck to thighs, was to
protect his vital organs.
Righteousness here is not viewed as an abstract quality,
but rather a quality embodied in a holy life, “ a clear con­
science toward God and towards men.” It is Christ’s right­
eousness imputed to us. But it is more than that. It is God’s
righteousness imparted and inworked in us by the Holy

94
Spirit, resulting in inner integrity of character. Where there
is no moral rectitude in the life, we have no defense
against the accusations of the adversary. But when our
hearts do not condemn us, we have powerful armor against
his attacks and accusations.

T H E SH O ES

In all ages, great attention has been paid to the soldier’s

footwear. A soldier who cannot march is disabled for war-
ware. Hence the necessity of having our feet “ shod with the
equipment of the gospel of peace.” Josephus records that
the sandals of the Roman soldier were thickly studded with
nails to equip him for long, swift marches. The figure here,
then, is of a soldier ready for quick action, the antithesis of
lethargy and ease. We have to scale steep mountains in this
warfare. We have to make forced marches and must have
appropriate footwear.
Paradoxically, this readiness springs from the gospel
which alone brings peace. What message but our gospel
brings peace instead of worries, anxieties and pressures? It
is the glory of the good news that it makes the Christian
warrior ready and eager to wage warfare with the enemy
whose aim it is to destroy the peace of God and man. A
heart at peace with God equips him to be perennially ready
for gospel witness, even to the uttermost part of the earth.
Do I display this constant readiness to share the gospel
of peace with others?

T H E S H IE L D

The Roman shield was made of brass covered with leath­

er, oblong in shape and measuring about four feet by two
foot, six inches. It afforded protection for the whole body.

95
Similarly the shield of faith protects the Christian warrior’s
whole person. The very name indicates its function as a
protection from the flaming missiles of doubt and unbelief.
Arrows in ancient times were often dipped in pitch. Before
they were dispatched they were set afire, and were there­
fore formidable weapons. Before going into battle, the sol­
dier soaked his leather-covered shield in water. The wet
leather quenched the fiery darts, while the brass beneath
blunted and deflected the arrow.
Just so, a calm and confident trust in our God effectively
extinguishes the arrows tipped with fire from hell as they
rain on the shield of our faith.
The tense of the verb does not indicate a mere single act
of faith, but a maintained attitude of trust in the power of
God to give victory. We are to take no holidays from this
attitude of faith, for Satan’s temptations are as erratic as
lightning. One does not know in what area he will attack
next.
Joseph had no idea, when he entered Potiphar’s house
that morning, that he was about to face the crisis on which
his whole life would turn. Indeed, the history of the world
changed because of his faithfulness. He was saved by the
fact that he had cultivated the habit of faith and loyalty to
God.
Paul was using the shield of faith when he exclaimed,
I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor
principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor
powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing,
shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which
is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Ro 8:38-39).
TH E HELMET
The helmet of leather or brass, was, of course, to protect

96
the head. It, too, was a weapon of defense. The helmet of
salvation has special reference to the guarding of the mind,
the thought life. Satan’s fiery darts are directed at the head
as well as at the heart. An unguarded, undisciplined mind
makes the Christian warrior an easy prey to unbelieving or
defiling thoughts, and to other deceptions of the enemy.
The devil fights for control of the mind, hence his pene­
tration of the education system, of literature, and of the
communications media of the world. Paul entertained a
fear of the brilliant Corinthians in this regard. “ But I am
afraid, lest as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness,
your minds should be led astray from the simplicity and
purity of devotion to Christ” (2 Co 11:3).
Note that the armor of God is not physical, but mental
and spiritual. The mind is the devil’s workshop, hence the
necessity to bring “ every thought captive to the obedience
of Christ.” (2 Co 10:5). It is the helmet of salvation that
will protect our thought life— salvation experienced and un­
derstood. It is not sufficient to have correct definitions of
what salvation is. The demons have that knowledge and
shudder. It is a salvation that is a present, enjoyed fact of
experience that the Word means.
Salvation is a spacious word, embracing the past, the
present and the future. We have been saved from the guilt
and penalty of past sin. We are being saved from the power
of sin in the present. We shall be saved even from the con­
taminating presence of sin in the future when Christ re­
turns. The experimental knowledge and enjoyment of “ so
great salvation,” the assurance that it is secure and com­
plete is a great factor in spiritual warfare.
Am I absolutely convinced that, “ He is able to save for­
ever those who draw near to God through him?” (Heb

97
7:25). If I allow a fiery dart of doubt of this fact to find
lodging in my mind, a conflagration will break out in the in­
flammable material of the old nature, and I will be dis­
qualified for aggressive warfare against the powers of dark­
ness.

T H E SWORD

The Roman sword was short, strong and sharp, eminent­

ly suited for aggressive, hand to hand fighting. The Chris­
tian warrior is to take, to accept from the hand of the Issu­
ing Officer, the sword of the Spirit as an offensive as well as
a defensive weapon.
Children are often taught the catchy chorus:
Draw your swords, use your swords,
For the battle is the Lord’s.

The idea behind the chorus is clear and legitimate, but

the words themselves harbor a misconception. The Bible
is not our sword. It is the sword of the Spirit which is the
word of God. Apart from their application to the heart and
mind by the Holy Spirit, the words printed in the Bible are
no more potent than words printed in any other book, ex­
cept that they are truth without error. But the Word of God
proclaimed in the power of the Spirit is powerful. But it is
the Spirit’s presence in the Word that makes it a living
Word.
Many of us know from experience that it is quite possi­
ble for the Word to be proclaimed by a preacher in perfectly
orthodox terms, yet for it to be devoid of spiritual power. It
is only when the sword is wielded by the Holy Spirit that it
is powerful and effective. When spoken merely in human
power and wisdom, that very Word of God can actually

98
have a deadening effect. “ The letter killeth, but the Spirit
giveth life.” How dependent, then, we should be on the
Holy Spirit in our witness and preaching, for it is He who
imparts its dynamic and makes it
living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword,
and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of
both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts
and intentions of the heart (Heb 4:12).

Cromwell’s Ironsides were reputed to have fought with

a Bible in one hand and a sword in the other— an apt pic­
ture of the ideal Christian warrior. It is when the Holy
Spirit is able to wield this weapon through us that we be­
come instruments in the defeat of the devil. Was not this
the secret of the victory of the Spirit-filled and Word-filled
Christ in the wilderness temptation?
If we do not learn the use of the sword of the Spirit, we
are to all intents and purposes rendered noncombatant. Am
I, then, by study and by practicing, skilful in the use of the
sword of the Spirit?

ALL-PRAYER

The last piece of armor we must appropriate is the weapon

of all-prayer. “With all prayer and petition pray at all times
in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all
perseverance and petition for all the saints” (Eph 6:18).
This last weapon imparts effectiveness to all the others.
It undergirds them all and transforms the consciously weak
warrior into an overcomer. We can hope to overcome our
wily, malignant adversary only by this type of praying—
persistent, alert, intense, believing. Are we expert in this
art? It is prayer “ in the Spirit” that receives the answer.

99
Prayer offered in the sphere of the Spirit and in the power
of the Spirit. It is prayer prompted by the Spirit and origi­
nating in His mind. Prayer that originates only in benev­
olent human desires inflicts no damage on the kingdom of
Satan.
It is unselfish prayer—“making supplication for all the
saints.” It is “ all-prayer”— prayer in all places, on all oc­
casions, for people of every nation and station in life. It is
prayer without ceasing. Only thus can the Christian soldier
maintain the lines of communication with his Divine Com­
mander.
When “we do not know how to pray as we ought,” the
Spirit is there to help us in our weakness, and to instruct us
in what is the will of God. He “ intercedes for the saints ac­
cording to the will of God,” so every Spirit-inspired prayer
will have its answer (Ro 8:26-27) .What an invincible
piece of armor is this! Am I wearing it?
Gird thy heavenly armor on,
Wear it ever night and day,
Ambushed lies the Evil one;
Watch and pray.
Charlotte E lliot

100
 Delegated Authority
Among the high privileges that spring from the be­
liever’s exalted position, seated in the heavenlies in
Christ, the highest no doubt has to do with what may
be called ‘delegated authority’. The believer commands
and it is done. In the Name of Jesus the believer exer­
cises ‘executive authority’— he commands the moun­
tains to be moved and to be cast into the sea, and if he
doubts not in his heart it is done.
It will not do to wave the matter aside and say, but
Jesus was not talking about mountains, it is just a figure
of speech! He is certainly referring to mountains of a
different order. But saying that, we have only aug­
mented the problem. These are the mountains as all
Christian workers know, hardest to move. Science can
take care of the former, but who can move the moun­
tains of satanic oppression that are upon the nations
and peoples today? Who will remove the mountains of
satanic machination interfering with God’s Church?1
F. J. Huegel

T he Christian warrior needs not only armor without

but also power and authority within. In the New Testa­
ment two different Greek words are translated by the one
English word, “power”—e.g. “Behold I give you power
(exousia) to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all

101
the power (dunamis) of the enemy” (Lk 10:18KJV). The
Greek word dunamis is used to convey the idea of inherent
power, as distinct from exousia which means delegated
power or authority.
Dunamis, or inherent power, is never predicated of our
Lord by the evangelists, nor do they represent Him as exer­
cising it, even though He possessed it. The only occasion
when both words were used of Him is in Luke 4:36. “ What
a word is this! for with authority and power He command-
eth the unclean spirits and they come out.” But it should
be noted this was only the conclusion of the spectators, not
the declaration of the inspired evangelists. It is always
exousia that they attributed to Him, e.g. “All authority
(exousia) has been given to Me in heaven and on earth”
(Mt 28:18).

Christ ’s Striking Example

This striking fact would seem to indicate that, though
Son of God and Son of Man, our Lord so completely sub­
jected Himself to the limitations of our humanity, that in
all His mighty works He was not exhibiting His own in­
herent power, but only exercising the authority He received
from His Father. It was not that He did not possess infinite
power, but He refrained from using it.
There is much encouragement for us in this fact. When
we read of Christ’s many wonderful works, and the power
He displayed in every realm, we are inclined to say, “ Yes,
but He had the advantage of being the Son of God with all
that involves. I am only a weak man. It doesn’t help me
much in my battling with Satan and sin, to tell me that He
possessed power I do not possess. He had resources avail­
able to Him that are not at my disposal.”

102
 This just is not so. The word used of Him in His working
is exousia, authority bestowed on Him by Another, not du-
namis, inherent power. The power He exercised was dele­
gated to Him and received continuously from the Father.
Christ did not exercise independently the sovereign power
which was His as Son of God. His miracles were performed
in the same way as those of His disciples, not by innate
divine power. Although He never emptied Himself of His
deity, He never drew on His divine power, but depended
on the power of the Holy Spirit indwelling His humanity.
He received His power from the Father in response to con­
tinuing faith.
So instead of being discouraged by the fact that He was
the Son of God and therefore possessed divine power not
available to us, we have strong reason for encouragement.
While possessing such power, He refused to use it and was
content to exercise only such power as the Father was
pleased to delegate to Him.
The traffic policeman on duty does not have much power.
Any motor car could knock him over and kill him in a mo­
ment. But he has considerable authority. Thousands of driv­
ers respect the authority that has been delegated to him, for
they know that the power of the state is behind him. When
we exercise our delegated authority over Satan and the pow­
ers of darkness, all the power of God is behind us. When
we exercise our God-given authority Christ’s mighty power
is released and is available to us.

T he Prayer of A uthority
Within the ministry of prayer, there may be contrasting
spiritual activity. Our prayers may be the expression of a
calm restful faith, as in, “Ask, and it shall be given to you”

103
 (Mt 7:7). Or it may find expression in tense spiritual con­
flict, as when Paul prayed for the Colossian Christians: “ I
want you to know how great a struggle I have on your be­
half” (Col 2:1). “ We wrestle against principalities and
powers” (Eph 6:12). It is the latter type of praying that
seems largely foreign to Christians today.
Jesus was no stranger to this type of praying and He gave
this graphic pictorial representation of the reality of prayer
warfare, and of praying with authority:
But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the
kingdom of God has come upon you. Or how can anyone
enter the strong man’s house and carry off his property,
unless he first binds the strong man. And then he will
plunder his house (Mt 12:28-29).
When a strong man fully armed guards his own home­
stead, his possessions are undisturbed; but when someone
stronger than he attacks him and overpowers him, he takes
away from him all his armor on which he had relied, and
distributes his plunder (Lk 11:21-22).

Thus trenchantly Jesus refuted the absurd charge of the

Pharisees that He was exorcising demons by the power of
the prince of demons. As though the devil would be naive
enough to destroy his own kingdom! Jesus pointed out that
His casting out of demons evidenced His mastery of Satan,
not His subservience to him.

THE STRONG MAN

The strong man fully armed keeps his homestead and his
possessions only until a man stronger than he overcomes
him and takes them. The strong man is obviously the
devil, whose power over the souls and minds of men is

104
mighty, though limited. The One “stronger than he” is none
other than the Lamb, because of whose blood we can over­
come the powers of darkness (Rev 12:11).
The Lamb is engaged in deathless conflict with the strong
man” and He will not rest until he is overcome, his palace
despoiled and his captives released. In this conflict between
rival sovereigns and kingdoms, the intercessor fulfills an
important role. His prayers will be fully effective only if he
has a vivid sense of the completeness of the victory Christ
gained over the devil at Calvary, and knows how to exploit
that victory.
It was the discovery of this aggressive aspect of prayer
that turned defeat into victory in the experience of James
O. Fraser, the apostle to the Lisu people of southwest China.
He had worked for five years with great devotion and self-
sacrifice, but with little to show for it. Not only was he dis­
couraged in his work, but also he had almost reached the
point of desperation in his inner experience. Deliverance
and blessing came through reading an article in a maga­
zine that had been sent to him. Here is his own account:
What it showed to me was that deliverance from the power
of the evil one comes through definite resistance on the
ground of the cross. I had found that much spiritual teach­
ing one hears does not seem to work. My apprehension at
any rate of other aspects of truth had broken down.
The passive side of leaving everything to the Lord Jesus
as our life, while blessedly true, was not all that was
needed just then . . . We need different truth at different
times. Definite resistance on the ground of the cross was
what brought me light, for I found that it worked. I found
that I could have victory in the spiritual realm whenever
I wanted it . . . One had to learn gradually how to use this
new found weapon of resistance.2

105
 An engineer by profession, James Fraser was always in­
terested in seeing things work. And as he began to apply
this truth, so new to him, he was thrilled to find he had not
been misled. The longed-for blessing was poured out on his
loved Lisu, first a trickle, then a mighty torrent.

FIRST BIND----THEN PLUNDER

Here is the Lord’s prescription for victory. We must bind

the strong man before we can plunder his goods. Are we
careful to observe this order, or have we been trying, un­
successfully, to plunder his house while he is still unfet­
tered? If so, small wonder that he has snatched back souls
we have endeavored to deliver from his clutches. It is this
heartbreaking experience that has discouraged so many mis­
sionaries. They have seen people make profession of faith,
seen them take some faltering steps forward, and then have
watched them sucked back into the vortex of heathenism.
Too many of our prayers are just the sincere and repeated
offering of an earnest petition rather than what Jesus termed
“ binding the strong man.” It is more often the prayer of
hope than the prayer of faith, and God is not pledged to
answer the prayer of hope.
Think of this concept as it applied to the Lord Himself.
In addition to many minor ones, he had three great en­
counters with the devil— in the wilderness, in Gethsemane,
at Calvary. The temptations in the wilderness He met and
overcame through the skilful use of the sword of the Spirit.
Vanquished, the devil left Him for a season. Because of this
total victory Jesus was able to confidently affirm, “ The
ruler of the world is coming, and he has nothing in Me”
(Jn 14:30).
His next major encounter with the devil was at Gethse-

106
mane. So intense and agonizing was His conflict with the
powers of darkness that, contrary to nature, instead of rush­
ing to the support of His breaking heart, the blood forced
its way through His pores. How did He triumph over Satan
on this occasion? By merging His will in the will of His
Father. Note the progression in his prayers:
He knelt down and began to pray saying, ‘Father, if
Thou art willing, remove this cup from Me, yet not My
will, but Thine be done’ (Lk 22:41-42, italics added).
He went away again a second time and prayed, saying,
‘My Father, if this cannot pass away unless I drink it,
Thy will be done’ (Mt. 26:42, italics added).

There is no mention of His will in this second prayer. The

shrinking of the human will evidenced in the first petition
has now been lost in glad acceptance of the Father’s will.
There is no longer, My will and Thy will, but only Thy will.
He is now able to cry in exultation, “The cup which the
Father has given Me, shall I not drink it?” (Jn 18:11).
Thus Satan suffered another shattering defeat at the
hands of the Man Christ Jesus, who refused to move from
complete acceptance of His Father’s will, though He knew
it meant death on a cross. With us, too, acceptance of the
will of God is an essential prelude to victory.
The complete and final defeat of the devil was consum­
mated at Golgotha, where Christ triumphed over him by His
death. “ And the hostile princes and rulers He shook off
from Himself and boldly displayed them as His conquests,
when by the Cross He triumphed over them” (Col 2:15,
Weymouth). A major purpose of His incarnation was “ that
through death He might render powerless him who had the
power of death, that is, the devil” (Heb 2:14).

107
 Destroy in the latter verse involves the same idea as the
command to bind the strong man. Christ has destroyed and
bound the devil and thus rendered him powerless. As mem­
bers of His body we may share His victory, for His victory
is ours.

Potential and A ctual V ictory

The practical question arises, How does victory over Satan
become actual and operative in personal life and practical
service? It is not sufficient to know that on the cross Christ
potentially delivered us from Satan’s power, if he still exer­
cises his power over us and holds us captive to sin. The po­
tential must be translated into the actual. This is done only
when we personally and definitely exercise the spiritual au­
thority Christ has given to us.
When the seventy returned radiant from their tour of wit­
ness, rejoicing that even the demons were subject to them,
Jesus made an amazing statement, the full significance of
which is seldom realized “ I was watching Satan fall from
heaven like lightning. Behold I have given you authority
. . . over all the power of the enemy” (Lk 10:18-19), italics
added). And we are in a no less privileged position than
those early disciples.
In this utterance, Jesus linked this delegation to His di­
sciples of authority over all the power of the enemy— an
authority they could use in any situation and at any time—
with the overthrow of the devil. As they exercised the au­
thority, they found that it worked, and even demons were
subject to them. “ In My name”—that is, by My authority—
“ shall ye cast out demons” (Mk 16:17). Similarly, by using
Christ’s authority, we may bind Satan, render him power­
less, and then confidently plunder his palace.

108
 Jesus was well-known to the demons. “ I recognize
Jesus,” was the declaration of the evil spirit (Ac 19:15). “ I
know who You are— the Holy One of God” (Mk 1:24).
For thirty years they had watched His life and knew they
had no hold over Him, and they respected His authority.
Are our prayers effectual in binding the strong man, or does
he laugh at our puny attempts to spoil his house?
In his Apology, addressed to the rulers of the Roman Em­
pire, Tertullian, the Early Church Father made this state­
ment:
All the authority and power we have over them (evil
spirits) is from our naming the Name of Christ, and
recalling to their memory the woes with which God
threatens them at the hand of Christ their Judge, and
which they expect one day to overtake them. Fearing
Christ in God and God in Christ, they become subject to
the servants of God and Christ. So at one touch and
breathing, overwhelmed by the thought and realization of
those judgment fires, they leave at our command the
bodies they have entered, unwilling and distressed, and
before your very eyes put to an open shame.3

Why did the father of the demon-possessed boy lament

over the powerlessness of these very disciples, “ I brought
him to Your disciples, and they could not cure him” ? (Mt
17:16,20). “Because of the littleness of your faith,” Jesus
said. They had no vital faith in the authority He had given
them, and their unbelief had paralyzed them.
When we find ourselves involved in a situation for which
our human power is totally inadequate, it is for us, making
use of Christ’s authority, to claim the victory He won on
the cross, and maintain the stand of faith until the victory

109
becomes manifest in our own situation. This is what “fight­
ing the good fight of faith” means.
God taught this lesson to James O. Fraser as, with a
deepening conviction begotten by the Holy Spirit, he
claimed in prayer more than a hundred Lisu families for
Christ. He wrote:
Satan’s tactics seem to be as follows. He will first of all
oppose our breaking through to the place of faith, for it is
an authoritative “notice to quit.” He does not so much
mind formal, rambling prayers, for they do not hurt him
much. That is why it is so difficult to attain to a definite
faith in God for a definite subject. We often have to strive
and wrestle in prayer, before we attain this quiet restful
faith. And until we break right through and join hands with
God, we have not attained to real faith at all. However,
once we attain to a real faith, all the forces of hell are
impotent to annul it . . . The real battle begins when
the prayer of faith is offered.1

By making use of Christ’s authority, and participating in

His victory, we can be instrumental in binding “ the strong
man” in any given spiritual situation. Only then will we be
in a position to spoil his goods and deliver his captives.
Why should I fear the darkest hour,
Or tremble at the Tempter’s power?
Jesus vouchsafes to be my power.
Against me earth and hell combine,
But on my side is power divine,
Jesus is all, and He is mine.
John Newton

110
 10
Overthrow and Doom
The death of our Lord Jesus Christ destroyed— brought
to nought— ‘him that had the power of death, that is the
devil’. The word ‘destroy’ has no suspicion of any such
meaning as annihilation but rather that of rendering
harmless, useless, worthless. Thus the Lord made a
public example of Satan, and immediately proved the
decline of Satan’s power by taking the keys with which
Satan pretended to some authority over the righteous
spirits and, entering among them until the three days
and nights should be accomplished, announced the
freeing of those who had been detained.1
D. G. B arnhouse

W hile we must not underestimate the terrible might,

power and malignity of our adversary, we must be careful
not to fall into the opposite error and overestimate it. Fear
can paralyze.
And were this world all devils o’er,
And watching to devour us,
We lay it not to heart so sore;
Not they can overpower us.
And let the prince of ill
Look grim as e’er he will,
He harms us not a whit;

111
 For why, his doom is writ;
A word shall quickly slay him’.
Martin Luther
Trans. Thomas Carlyle

Nowhere does Scripture ascribe to him the divine attri­

butes of omniscience, omnipotence or omnipresence. The
fact that he is a created being means that his power is limit­
ed. A quaint preacher asked the question, “ Is Satan omni­
present? No, but he is very spry. Is he bound? Yes, but with
a rather loose rope.” Fortunately he can be in only one
place at one time. When he was tempting Christ in the wil­
derness, the rest of the world was spared his personal pres­
ence and attention. However, through his vast host of fol­
lowers he is able to achieve a “limited omnipresence.”
Then, too, any power and authority he wields is not in­
herent, but derived from God. “There is no authority ex­
cept from God, and those which exist are established by
God” (Ro 13:1). And this includes the devil. In his testing
of Job, he could go only as far as God gave him permission.
He could inflict Job’s body with loathsome disease, but he
was powerless to take his life. “ So the L o r d said to Satan,
‘Behold he is in your power only spare his life’ ” (Job 2:6).
Although Scripture recognizes him as “ the god of this
world,” the devil is not supreme, and the restraining hand
of God is upon him. Even in the matter of temptation he
does not have a free hand. “ God is faithful, who will not
allow you be tempted beyond what you are able” (I Co
10:13).
Contrary to popular conception, there is nothing in Scrip­
ture to indicate that he is able to foretell the future infallib­
ly. He has to gather his information as we do, but he has the

112
advantage of a highly organized hosts of evil but obedient
servants at his call. “Declare the things that are going to
come afterward, that we may know that you are gods,” was
Isaiah’s challenge (Is 41:23).
Repeatedly the gospels record that the devil moved the
enemies of our Lord to arrest or kill Him, but they were ut­
terly powerless to do so until His hour had come. We are
completely safe from Satan’s power while we are walking
in the light with our Lord. We are encouraged to be “ in
nothing terrified” by our adversaries (Phil 1:28, KJV), for
“greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world”
(1 Jn 4 :4 ). Nothing he can do can separate us from the
love of God in Christ (Ro 8:38-39). F.C. Jennings wrote:
Over all His own who walk dependently upon Him, the
Lord throws His protecting shield. Around each one is
the hedge that Satan found it impossible to pierce in Job’s
case, till divine love saw it good even for Job’s sake to give
that permission. And this is a very great mercy. The child
of God need never be distressed by any of these mysterious
phenomena that are now engaging the attention of even
the leaders of mankind.2

We may say then that Satan’s power is not inherent but

delegated. It is not unlimited but controlled. It is not in­
vincible but shattered (Lk 11:21-22). It is not triumphant
but doomed (Rev 20:2-3).

Jesus is stronger than Satan and sin,

Satan to Jesus must bow;
Therefore I triumph without and within
Jesus saves me now.
Author Unknown

113
 Christ ’s D efeat of Satan
Any hope the believer has of being an overcomer in the
truceless warfare against Satan and his hosts must lie out­
side himself. He has no internal resources to enable him to
meet and defeat his experienced and wily adversary.

With force of arms we nothing can,

Full soon were we down-ridden;
But for us fights the proper Man,
Whom God Himself hath bidden.
Ask ye who is this same?
Christ Jesus is His name,
The Lord Sabaoth’s Son
He and no other one
Shall conquer in the battle.
M ar tin L u t h e r
Trans. Thomas Carlyle
His only hope is in laying hold of the victory gained over
him by Christ, first in the wilderness, and finally on His
cross. This victory was foreshadowed and is affirmed in
Scripture:
The Son of God appeared for this purpose, that He
might destroy the works of the devil (1 Jn 3:8).
And He (Jesus) said to them, “I was watching Satan
fall from heaven like lightning. Behold, I have given you
authority . . . over all the power of the enemy” (Lk
10:18-19).
When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He
made a public display of them, having triumphed over
them through Him (Col 2:15).

These and many other passages attest the stunning de­

feat the Lord inflicted on Satan at the cross. It was there

114
that the seed of the woman bruised and mortally wounded
Satan’s head, though He had His heel bruised in the con­
flict. The point is that a wound in the head is mortal, but
the heel is not a vital spot. He partook of our human na­
ture, “ that through death He might render powerless him
who had the power of death, that is, the devil” (Heb
2:14).
Since Calvary, the accuser can never again charge the be­
liever before the throne of God with his sin. Since then the
vaunted power of the usurper is only an empty show. We
remain under his power only because we either do not know
or do not use the authority over the powers of darkness
which our victorious Lord has delegated to us. He has
broken into the strong man’s palace and robbed him of his
prey (Mk 3:27).

A VANQUISHED FOE

The believer who abides in Christ need entertain no fear

of the devil, but should always regard him as already de­
feated and overcome. Note the tense of the verb in Luke
10:19, “ I have given you authority . . . over all the power
of the enemy.” This is not a promise to be claimed from
God. It is a statement of fact from the lips of Christ to be
believed and acted upon. It denotes the present result of a
past action. Once we are set free from Satan’s chains, it is
for us to exercise our divinely bestowed authority to bind
the strong man and plunder his house.
Colossians 2:15 is a key verse to reveal the completeness
of our Lord’s victory over Satan. “ When He disarmed the
rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them.”
Paul had (in the previous verse) referred to the law as an

115
impersonal accuser of the believer (v.14). Now he names
his personal accusers. We have already seen that Satan is
the arch-accuser of the saints who seduces men into sin,
then accuses them of the very sin which he had incited. As
one old Puritan put it “ The devil seduces the Christian into
sin, and then lays his brats at the Christian’s door.”
When Paul wrote this letter, the Colossian Christians
were in the midst of a sinister and subtle attack from the
powers of darkness. Paul brings strength and encourage­
ment to them from the fact that, powerful though these
forces are, God has disarmed and defeated them through
the sacrifice of His Son who is the Head of the church, as
well as the Creator of all authority (1:16, 2:10). He tri­
umphed over Satan in the wilderness and returned in the
power of the Spirit (Lk 4:1-14). By His death on Calvary
He bound “ a strong man fully armed” and took away from
him “ his armor on which he had relied, and distributes his
plunder” (Lk 11:21-22).
By His vicarious death and victorious resurrection, Christ
once and for all answered every charge or accusation that
Satan could bring against the child of God. This truth
caused Paul to break out into his triumphant questions:
“Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? Who is the
one who condemns?” (Ro 8:33-34). This truth inspired
John’s ringing declaration: “Now the salvation, and the
power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of
His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has
been thrown down, who accuses them before our God day
and night” (Rev 12:10).

I hear the Accuser roar

Of evils I have done,

116
 I know them all and thousands more,
Jehovah findeth none.
A uthor Unknown
Paul further expounds Christ’s victory over Satan
through the illustration of the triumphal march of a victori­
ous Roman general returning after a triumphant campaign.
His reward was to march his army through the streets of
Rome, leading behind him the captive, weaponless kings
and peoples he had conquered. He boldly displayed them as
his conquests. This is the picture in Colossians 2:15. God
made a public example and exposed to public disgrace the
evil principalities and powers, showing to all that the vic­
tory of Calvary had disarmed them and left them impotent.
Satan and his hosts have only as much power over the be­
liever as he allows them to have. For did not Christ say,
“Behold I give you power over all the power of the en­
emy?” Their power over mankind is forever broken.
Christ’s victory over Satan is our victory over Satan, and
it is complete.
T h e A n t ic h r is t

Calvary also spelled the doom of the Antichrist. No treat­

ment of our theme would be complete without some refer­
ence to one who is the second person of the Satanic trinity.
The word “ antichrist” is found only in the letters of John.
“ Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that
antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have arisen;
from this we know that it is the last hour. They went out
from us, but they were not really of us” (1 Jn 2:18-19).
“ This is the antichrist, the one who denies the Father and
the Son” (1 Jn 2 :2 2 ).
“ Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in
the flesh is from God; and every spirit that does not confess

117
Jesus is not from God; and this is the spirit of the antichrist,
of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is al­
ready in the world” (1 Jn 4:23).
“ For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those
who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh.
This is the deceiver and the antichrist” (2 Jn 7).
The word antichrist means simply opposed to Christ, and
can-refer equally to a system or a person. John appears to
use it in three senses: (a) a spirit or attitude (1 Jn 4:3);
(b) the antichrists, plural (1 Jn 2:18; 2 Jn 7); (c) a person
(1 Jn 2:18).
Harold J. Ockenga expressed the view of many when he
said that the word antichrist describes any anti-Christian
system of thinking or acting, but will represent an apothe­
osis in an individual expressing this anti-Christian teaching
and tendency at the end time.3
Speaking in general terms, an antichrist is a movement or
person that opposes Christ as Head of the Church and Lord
of creation. Such anti-Christian movements have existed
ever since the birth of the Church, and antichrist exists in
every anti-Christian philosophy.
Augustine, and many both before and since, have identi­
fied John’s antichrist with Paul’s man of sin or man of law­
lessness (2 Th 2 :3 ). That this devil’s Messiah is a human
person is attested by the fact that he, like Christ, will have
his parousia (2 Th 2:9) and his apocalypse (2 Th 2:8).
The Early Church Fathers expected a sinister and ominous
figure to arise who would be motivated and actuated by Sa­
tan. “Whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan,
with all power and signs and false wonders” (2 Th 2:9). It
would be difficult to match this language with an imper­
sonal force or movement.

118
 Through the ages there have been many attempts to name
the one who would fill the sum of all antichrists who had
preceded him— Nero, Alexander, Napoleon, Hitler, all of
whom partook of some of his characteristics. But there are
many more features yet to be fulfilled.
The Scriptures foreshadow a tremendous climax to the
conflict of the ages. The supreme challenge of Satan and his
hosts still lies in the future, and it will be headed by this
“Man of lawlessness.” The world will be engulfed in a holo­
caust of unimaginable horror.
The issue is certain. The antichrist’s destiny is enshrined
in one of his names, “ the son of destruction, who opposes
and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of
worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God,
displaying himself as being God” (2 Th 2:3-4). He is a
lost soul fighting a lost cause, for “ the Lord will slay with
the breath of His mouth and bring him to an end by the
appearance of His coming” (2 Th 2:8).
The execution of the final sentence is recorded in vivid
and awesome terms: “ And the beast . . . and the false
prophet . . . were thrown alive into the lake of fire which
burns with brimstone” (Rev 19:20).

119
 11
Invincible Weapons
Satan cannot stand an exposition of the blood of Christ.
He turns pale at every view of Calvary. The flowing
wounds are the signal of his retreat. A heart besprinkled
with the blood is holy ground, on which he not only
dares not tread, but He dreads and trembles and cowers
in the presence of the blood-besprinkled warrior.
A clear-ringing word of testimony to the power of
that blood he fears more than the attack of a legion of
archangels. It is like the charge of an irresistible phalanx
which bears everything down before it. It is the blood
applied, and testimony to its application, the martyr
witness in life and by tongue of the power of that blood
is more a barrier to Satan than a wall of fire.1
Edward M. Bounds

“T here was war in heaven , Michael and his angels wag­

ing war with the dragon. And the dragon and his angels
waged war, and they were not strong enough” (Rev
12:7-8).
As we saw in our study of the Christian’s armor, the
weapons he uses in the unseen battle between God and Sa­
tan are spiritual, not material. “For though we walk in the
' flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons
of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for
the destruction of fortresses” (2 Co 10:3-4).

120
 The war begun in heaven becomes evident on earth. “The
devil has come down to you having great wrath, knowing
that he has only a short time” (Rev 12:12). With the short­
ening of his time, the devil’s anger increases. May not this
be the explanation of the incredible intensity of Satanic ac­
tivity in the world today? No part of the world, however
remote, is exempt from the revolutionary pressures of our
day.
Before detailing three invincible spiritual weapons at our
disposal in our spiritual warfare, a loud voice from heaven
announces:
Now the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our
God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the
accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, who ac­
cuses them before our God day and night. And they over­
came him (12:10).

And who are these conquerors? The weak, failing men

whom the devil has been accusing!
We have already studied some of our weapons of war in
the chapter on the Christian’s armor. But a variety of figures
of speech are necessary to explain adequately the way of
victory in this many-sided warfare. We are now introduced
to three other spiritual weapons. “They overcame him be­
cause of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of
their testimony, and they did not love their life even to
death” (12:11).

T he Judicial W eapon
‘‘The blood of the Lamb”— this weapon derives its po­
tency from Calvary. We cannot emphasize too strongly that
the secret of victory over Satan and sin lies not in our in­

121
herent powers but in our union with Christ in His victori­
ous death and resurrection.
The phrase the blood of the Lamb is not a kind of magic
charm, a ritual that we import into sermon or prayer to at­
test to our orthodoxy or to secure supernatural results. It is
not a formula to be credulously mumbled, nor is it a par-
rotting of mystical words. It is the expression of an intelli­
gent, active, vital faith in Christ the Lamb of God, who, by
the shedding of His blood, bruised Satan’s head and utterly
defeated him.
This is one of the most pregnant and luminous phrases in
Scripture. In five words, the blood of the Lamb, are concen­
trated all the virtue and value of Christ’s mediatorial work.
Blood is life in solution. The life of the Lamb of God, vio­
lently shed by sinful men at the instigation of the devil, was
voluntarily laid down. But He rose from the dead and as­
cended to God’s right hand by virture of His own blood,
which now becomes the ground of our victory.
Note that the by in this phrase connotes “because of,” not
“by means of.” Because He broke the power of sin and Sa­
tan by shedding His blood, we who are united with Him
may share His victory. We are now to regard Satan as al­
ready defeated and to claim Christ’s victory over him as our
own. Satan has no counterweapon to the blood of the Lamb.
So then, when in prayer we plead the blood of the Lamb,
we are really saying that our faith is resting for victory over
Satan and sin upon all that Christ achieved for us by His
vicarious death and victorious resurrection. This is our first
weapon of offence.

T he Evidential W eapon

The word of our testimony. The exercise of faith in the

122
death of Christ is to be followed by witness to His living
and powerful Word. It is not absolutely clear whether the
reference is to the Word to which they bore testimony or to
the testimony itself. Probably both are included, for any
testimony that is not Bible-based is powerless to achieve
spiritual results. Grounded in the Word of God, our testi­
mony becomes a sword in the Spirit’s hand.
It is not argument or logic or denunciation, but testimony
that silences the devil. The Word of Christ and His apostles,
tested in experience, becomes testimony to us. The Word
in the memory alone is not sufficient for warfare with Satan.

T he Sacrificial W eapon
They loved not their lives even unto death. They held
their lives cheap. The Greek word for “ testimony” in this
verse is that from which we derive our word “martyr.” The
inference is obvious.
This third weapon is not to be directed at the enemy as
are the first two. It is a sword which we take with both
hands and plunge into our breast. The weapon of testimony
of one who has the martyr spirit is mightily effective. To
him, life is of secondary importance when compared with
the outcome of the battle and the victory of his Lord. His
supreme concern is to see Satan defeated and Christ vic-
torous, even if his life is sacrificed in the process. He re­
gards himself as expendable.
In this our Lord set a shining example to His followers.
The sacrifice of His life did not begin at Calvary, or even at
Bethlehem. He was “the Lamb slain from the foundation of
the world.” The word of our testimony will be sterile unless
we too tread the way of the cross. Yet is not this martyr
spirit, this spirit of self sacrifice, largely absent from con­

123
temporary Christianity? Is this, in part, why the Church
makes so minimal an impact on society?
They conquered him. Here is a note of undefeatable op­
timism. Had Jesus not said, “Upon this rock I will build My
church; and the gates of Hades shall not overpower it?”
(Mt 16:18). Satan’s judgment and defeat were secured at
Calvary. But until the sentence is executed, we have these
invincible weapons:
We reckon on the victory of Calvary
We bear testimony to its conquering power
We are willing to lay down life itself for our Lord.

T he Power of the N ame

Another weapon in the hands of the Christian warrior is
the name of Christ. One cannot read the story of the tri­
umphs of the Early Church without noticing the promi­
nence given to the name of Jesus. In our day, but even more
in eastern lands and in Bible times, the name stands for the
whole person with all his characteristics, capacities, powers,
and resources. A name written on a check transforms it
from a worthless piece of paper into one of great value. A
simple signature on a document can mean the transfer of
property worth millions of dollars. The name is the person.
Our Lord has given us the privilege and right to use His
name. “In My name they will cast out demons” (Mk
16:17). “ If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it”
(Jn 14:14).
When we use Christ’s name, we acknowledge we are not
acting in our own name or authority, but as His personal
representatives. The use of the words “ in the name of
Jesus” in prayer should not be regarded as a kind of in­
cantation or a pious phrase with which to end our prayer.

124
It has power, but only when accompanied by a living faith
in the One to whom it belongs.
Paul knew the power of Christ’s name, and used it, as
Luke records:
As we were going to the place of prayer, a certain slave-
girl having a spirit of divination met us .. . Paul. . . turned
and said to the spirit, “I command you in the name of
Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And it came out at that
very moment (Ac 16:16-18).

It is interesting that when the sons of Sceva, Jewish ex­

orcists, presumed to use the very same formula—they “ un­
dertook to pronounce the name of the Lord Jesus over those
who had evil spirits”—instead of the demon coming out of
him, the demoniac turned on them and overpowered them.
The name of Jesus has power only on the lips of those
who own His Lordship and themselves know the victory of
Calvary.

Jesus! the name high over all,

In hell, or earth, or sky,
Angels and men before it fall,
And devils fear and fly.
Charles Wesley

125
 12
Be Sober! Be Watchful!
Although demonic activity in human history has always
been undeniably great since the sin of our first parents
exposed mankind to its baneful attacks, yet the full
realization and augmentation of its destructive power
are reserved for the consummation of the age. Demon­
ism bears a striking relation to the doctrine of the last
things; and all classes of mankind, Jew, Gentile and the
Church of God will be intimately and vitally affected
by the last-day upsurge of evil supernaturalism.1
M. F. U nger

“Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom,” a familiar

maxim of the political sphere, is not a whit less appropriate
in the spiritual realm. The element of surprise— attack with­
out warning—is an important factor in military warfare.
“ One belligerent must surprise, the other must be sur­
prised,” said General Waldemar Erfurth. “ Only when the
two commanders play these respective roles, will a battle
lead to the annihilation of one army.”

Christian seek not yet repose,

Hear thy guardian angel say,
Thou art in the midst of foes,
Watch and pray!

126
 Principalities and powers
Mustering their unseen array,
Wait for thy unguarded hours,
Watch and pray!
Charlotte Elliot

In Gideon’s epic victory over the Midianite hordes, the

surprise element played a prominent part. With a paltry
300 men, Gideon surprised their 135,000 warriors and an­
nihilated them. Pearl Harbor was another example. But in
that case deception was an added factor, for Japan’s envoys
were seated at the negotiating table at the very moment the
attack was launched.
May we suppose that our resourceful adversary will ne­
glect to use this obvious and effective tactic? A cursory re­
view of Bible history demonstrates how often and success­
fully he employed it. The only effective counterstrategy is
the exercise of eternal vigilance.
But to face the attacks of Satan, the believer should al­
ways bear in mind that Satan is a created being, and there­
fore is neither omnipotent nor omniscient. His apparent in­
ability to forsee the divine strategy cost him victory in the
the battle of the cross. “We impart a secret and hidden wis­
dom of God,” wrote Paul, “which God predestined before
the ages to our glory; the wisdom which none of the rulers
of this age has understood; for if they had understood it,
they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Cor
2:7-8). No commander would knowingly bring about his
own destruction.
In his conduct of spiritual warfare, Paul did not neglect
the “intelligence service.” “ We are not ignorant of his de­
signs,” he could say. He was not battling a foe of whose
strategy and tactics he knew nothing. In his Principles of

127
War, James L. Wilson points out that intelligence of the
enemy ensures knowing who he is, his intentions, and his
methods of operation. The opposing commander gains this
information by listening to all the enemy says and reading
all he writes.2
One of the purposes of this book is to confront the reader
with the body of relevant biblical teaching on the subject,
so that he will no longer be spiritually illiterate on this cru­
cial theme, and will be able to combat the adversary intel­
ligently.

W atchfulness a D uty

Twenty times in the New Testament, watchfulness on the

part of the Christian is enjoined. In the majority of cases it
is Jesus who commands it. Failure to heed His injunction
involved the eleven in tragic failure in Gethsemane. Is there
no significance in the fact that Jesus placed watching be­
fore praying in His counsel to them? If we fail to watch,
and thus are caught off guard, the result is a foregone con­
clusion.
On another occasion Jesus said to them, “What I say
unto you, I say unto all, Watch!” Although these words had
primary reference to watchfulness in view of His return, the
warning is no less applicable to our spiritual adversary, the
devil.
A review of areas in which a lack of watchfulness can
afford the enemy an advantage in achieving his aims can be
of profit.
Ignoring his existence or ignorance of his methods and
great power gives him an enormous advantage. If we are
uncertain whether such an antagonist really exists, or if we
do not seriously take him into account, he has a flying start.

128
How many days are there, for example, when we do not
give our supreme enemy even so much as a thought? Could
you conceive of such a situation in earthly warfare? Let us
retake this lost ground. Let us review the past to discover
the successful methods of attack he has adopted in our own
experience, and set a watch at that point.
Uncontrolled anger will cost a high price in lost territory.
“ Be angry and yet do not sin ; do not let the sun go
down on your anger, and do not give the devil an oppor­
tunity” (Eph 4:26-27). When we allow even justifiable or
unselfish anger to simmer for too long, we give the devil an
opportunity to defeat us. And how much more so when our
anger is self-centered, and therefore sinful. Are we watch­
ful in this area?
A resentful or unforgiving spirit concedes yet more terri­
tory to our adversary.
“Whom you forgive anything, I forgive also; . . . what I
have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, I did it for your
sakes in the presence of Christ, in order that no advantage
be taken of us by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his
schemes” ( Co 2:10-11).
An unwillingness to forgive gives him another opportunity
to overcome us. We are not to yield him an inch. Are we
careful to watch our heart attitudes?
A flippant jesting about the devil may sound smart, but
really is very foolish. Both Peter and Jude give strong warn­
ings on this point which we should heed. Peter speaks of
those who
despise authority. Daring, self-willed, they do not tremble
when they revile angelic majesties, whereas angels, who
are greater in might and power do not bring a reviling
judgment against them before the Lord (2 Pe 2:10-11).

129
 Jude adds:
But Michael the archangel, when he disputed with the
devil and argued about the body of Moses did not dare
pronounce against him a railing judgment, but said ‘The
Lord rebuke you’ (Jude 9).
Whatever else these mysterious passages mean, they sure­
ly convey a warning against the presumption of superficial
Christians who make light of our ancient foe. The more in­
telligent and powerful angels refrain from this folly. The in­
junction, “Be sober, for your adversary the devil prowls
around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour,” is
sufficient warning that conflict with the devil is serious
business.
Being mismated with unbelievers is likened by Paul to
Christ being linked with Belial (or Satan), an unthinkable
association. “What harmony has Christ with Belial, or what
has a believer in common with an unbeliever?” The believ­
er must not tolerate association with unbelievers in their
characteristic activities (2 Co 6:15). To do so is an open
invitation to the devil. While the reference here is primarily
to marriage, its scope is wider, and includes any voluntary,
binding associations.
The leaders in the Church also need to exercise care in
the appointment of men to hold office, lest they give vantage
ground to the devil which he will be fast to exploit. Paul in­
dicates two areas in which special watchfulness must be ex­
ercised.
“A bishop [or overseer as the word may equally be
rendered] must be above reproach, . . . He must not be a
recent convert, or he may be puffed up with conceit and fall
into the condemnation of the devil” (1 Ti 3:6, author’s
para.).

130
 Caution here is especially relevant today. In a laudable
desire to gain and retain the interest of young people, there
is a widespread tendency to rush them into activities or re-
sponsibilties for which they do not yet have either the spirit­
ual maturity or experience. It can damage their own spirit­
ual experience and be disastrous for the work of God. By
all means, we should give our young people all the responsi­
bility they are qualified to bear. But the Spirit of God indi­
cates there is a spiritual apprenticeship to be served.
“ The condemnation of the devil” probably refers to the
judgment which the devil incurred as a result of his un­
holy ambition and pride. The wisdom of this counsel has
been demonstrated so often that it needs no emphasis.
There is a very real danger in pushing young converts into
prominence too early.
Then too, “ He must have a good reputation with those
outside the church, so that he may not fall into reproach
and the snare of the devil” (1 Ti 3:7). If a potential church
officer has a questionable reputation in the world, both he
and the church are open to easy attack by the enemy.

U nholy Curiosity
In this day when morbid curiosity about all aspects of the
occult has reached incredible proportions, we would be
culpable not to draw attention to the dangers of dabbling
in occultism. A rapidly growing range of literature on this
subject may easily lure an unwary uninformed person into
situations that can have sinister consequences. Scriptural
warnings against such unholy curiosity are plentiful, and
should be taken seriously:
There shall not be found among you anyone who makes
his son or his daughter pass through the fire, one who uses

131
 divination, one who practices witchcraft, or one who inter­
prets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who casts a spell, or a
medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. For
whoever does these things is detestable to the Lord; and
because of these detestable things the Lord your God will
drive them out bfeore you. (Deu 18:10-12).

Note how exhaustive and comprehensive this command

is, and how categorical the prohibition. These practices
have their modern counterparts in the Satanism of today.
Asks A. T. Pierson:

Will anyone show us one substantial benefit accruing to

the human race from any attempts to invade this forbidden
realm, even scientifically, which begins to overbalance the
sad wrecks of body and spirit that lie all along the shores
of this Mare Tenebrum?

He goes on to add this caution:

To meddle with this awful realm of spirits may bring us

under the sway of malignant supernatural agents and
forces. Not only God, but wicked spirits wield weapons
which, to us, are superhuman and supernatural, because
alike beyond our knowledge and control. In Revelation
16:14, the spirits of demons are represented as “working
miracles”. The devil, belonging to created intelligences of
the highest order, can sway man by powers which belong
to a higher realm; and to dare to invade those hidden
precincts is to venture into an unknown territory, and run
corresponding risks; risks which are proportionate to the
success of the experiments!3

Be sober! Be watchful!

132
Watch, as if on that alone
Hung the issues of the day;
Pray that help may be sent down,
Watch and pray.
Charlotte Elliot

133
 13
Whom Resist
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil
and he will flee from you.
There is an order to observe. Submit is Godward.
Resist is Satanward. One comes before the other. The
Christian who resists the devil must do so in the Spirit.
By that / mean, one cannot think to approach Satan in
the flesh and expect him to flee. That is laughable, for
Satan controls the flesh. True, he does it by suggestion,
but nonetheless he does it. He will not flee from our
flesh. He uses it. Satan has no fear of us. To stand up
to him apart from Christ would only bring out his sense
of humour. It would be like an ant crawling atop the
railroad tracks to tell a fast-moving train to stop!
When you submit to someone, you put yourself under
their control. This means that we are to approach Satan
under the influence of God’s Spirit.1
C. S. Lovett

From two passages of Scripture it is clear that the con­

cept of the believer taking an attitude of resistance to the
devil is thoroughly scriptural:
Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will
flee from you (Ja 4:7).
Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of
God . . . be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the

134
 devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he
may devour: whom resist steadfast in the faith (1 Pe
5:8-9, KJV, italics added).

But in both cases the command to resist is linked with

cautionary conditions: (a) His resistance must be pre­
ceded by an attitude of submission to God. Defeat of the
devil will never be accomplished by those who act in inde­
pendence of Him; (b) It is the humble man, not the arro­
gant and self-confident man who can overcome the enemy;
(c) It is the man who is steadfast in the faith who over­
comes. It is not the exercise of an unstable and vacillating
Christian, but one whose feet are firmly planted on the great
verities of our faith.
These cautions cause us to recognize that the one whom
we resist is a vastly experienced, powerful antagonst against
whom only the power of God will suffice. Unless we are
deeply convinced that the devil is already a vanquished foe,
we will not be likely to resist him in the way suggested. Do
we have this unshakable assurance? It is the resistance of
faith James and Peter advocate, and where there is faith,
doubt is absent. Calvary is the basis of our resistance.
Note the ringing assurances of Scripture: “ Since then the
children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also
partook of the same that through death He might render
powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the
devil” (Heb 2:14-15). The Son of God appeared for this
purpose, that He might destroy the works of the devil” (1
Jn 3 :8 ). “When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities
He made a public display of them, having triumphed over
them through Him [the cross] ” (Col 2:15).
With these divine affirmations under our feet, and in de­
pendence on the mighty Spirit of God, we are in a position

135
to do battle with our ancient foe. We will resist the devil
only when we know there is adequate power at our disposal
for us to successfully resist him. Scripture never counsels
us to ignore the devil. But it does tell us never to fear him,
for “ Greater is He who is in you than he who is in the
world” (1 Jn 4:4).
The attitude of believers should be one of determined re­
sistance to the enemy who holds them captive, and of per­
sistent faith in the sufficiency of Christ’s victory at Calvary
to set at liberty those who are bound.
A woman told her minister she did not believe the truth
of James 4:7. “When 1 resist the devil, he flies at me,” she
said. The minister unveiled the cause of her problem when
he asked her if her life was fully submitted to God. She had
to admit that it was not. Only when a life is submitted is di­
vine power operative and the devil will flee.
Dr. Donald G. Barnhouse tells of an experience as a
young Christian. In a period of struggle he kept crying out
to God that He had told His people to resist the devil and
he would flee from them; but as he resisted, it seemed the
enemy “fled at him.” He opened his Bible and put his finger
on James 4:7, but no relief came. Finally the voice of God
said, “ Read the whole verse.” He then saw he had been
quoting only half the verse. When the whole truth was read,
the perspective was quite different.2 Before we are told to
resist the devil, the preceding line is a prerequisite truth
‘Submit yourselves therefore to God.’ If we fail to do the
submitting, we will fail to see the devil fleeing.
To the assertion that, since Calvary, Satan is a defeated
foe, the easy answer may be: “ If that is so, why does he
appear to be so active in the world today? He seems to
be very busy in the world I live in.” Colossians 2:15 cate­
gorically states: “ He (Christ) disarmed the principalities

136
and powers and made a public example of them, triumph­
ing over them in him.”
The context of this victory is stated in the immediate pre­
ceding words, “ nailing it to the cross.” The cross of Christ
marked the absolute defeat, the judgment of the devil and
all allied with him.
But does it not happen in our society that a criminal is
judged and sentence passed and announced sometime be­
fore it is actually executed? Men sometimes live in “ death
row” in a prison for years after they have been sentenced.
So is it here. For some reason which God deems wise and
good, mysterious though it may seem to us, the sentence on
the devil is not yet executed. He and his servants are re­
served for a last judgment that is still future (1 Co 6:3).
He has been granted limited liberty, although his utter de­
feat has been effected.
In World War II, when the first atomic bomb dropped
at Hiroshima, the Japanese were utterly defeated and the
Allies gained a final victory. Nevertheless the fighting con­
tinued for some time. In many parts of the world small
pockets of resistance were still being mopped up months
later. But that did not mean the outcome of the war had not
been decided at Hiroshima.
A partial explanation of the continued freedom granted
to Satan has been suggested by Dr. L. S. Chafer:
It seems the course of divine wisdom to make a sufficient
and final trial of every claim of His adversaries; and when
this age with all its developments shall have passed by,
every mouth will be stopped, and the whole world and
Satan will see their own failure and sin before God. They
will stand self-condemned; and nothing could accomplish
this but the testing, by actual trial, of all the self-sufficient
claims of Satan and man . . . Though the day of execution

137
 is, in the purpose of God delayed, it is nevertheless sure,
and the day is fast approaching when an awful destruction
of self-enthroned beings will be executed . . . It would
seem that Satan cherishes the expectation of accomplishing
his purpose until near the end of his career (Rev
12:7-12).3

Perhaps the clearest light upon the fact that Satan has not
yet been bound and cast into the lake of fire is found in
Matthew 13:24-31. In this parable of the tares and wheat,
the Master said,
Allow both to grow together until the harvest; and in the
time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, ‘First gather
up the tares; and bind them in bundles to burn them up;
but gather the wheat into my barn’ (13:30).

We may not be able to understand God’s strategy, but faith

can affirm, “As for God, His way is perfect.”
But the time of harvest is fast approaching when the sen­
tence will be executed. We have already noticed the doom
of the beast and the false prophet, both of whom were cast
alive into the lake of fire (Rev 19:20).
In Revelation 20:2-3, John sees “ the dragon, the serpent
of old, who is the Devil and Satan,” seized and bound for a
thousand years and thrown into the pit, so that his nefarious
activities would be curtailed.
H. B. Swete’s suggested explanation of this loosing of Sa­
tan is that in a period of peace and righteousness, in a time
when there was no opposition, people might easily come to
take their faith too lightly and as a matter of course. The
loosing of the devil would be a time to test believers, when
the reality of their faith would be demonstrated.4
The execution of the deferred sentence on the devil is

138
compassed in very few words. When he led his last attack
against the people of God, his hosts were decimated. “Fire
came down from heaven and consumed them” (Rev 20:9).
And what of their leader? “ The Devil who deceived them
was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the
beast and the false prophet are also; and they will be tor­
mented day and night forever and ever” (Rev 20:9-10).

He shall reign o’er all the earth,

He who wore the crown of thorn,
Whom they deemed of little worth,
Whom they met with shame and scorn.
Send the tidings forth that all
Humbly at His feet may fall.
S. G. Stock

139
 Notes
C hapter 1
1. F. J. Huegel, That Old Serpent the Devil (London: Marshall, Morgan,
and Scott, n.d.), p. 14.
2. Edgar Brightman, quoted in ibid., p. 39.
3. J. I. Packer, source unknown.
4. Alan Richardson, Dictionary of Theology (London: SCM, 1969), p.
304.
5. Owen C. Whitehouse, in A Dictionary of the Bible, ed. James Hastings
(Edinburgh: T. & T. Clarke, 1911), S. V. Demon, Devil.
6. A. T. Pierson, The Bible and Spiritual Life (New York: Gospel Publ.,
1908), p. 162.
7. Maldwyn Hughes, source unknown.
8. Denis de Rougemont, La Part du Diable, as quoted in D. G. Barn-
house, The Invisible War (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1965), p. 156.

C hapter 2
1. F. C. Jennings, Satan: His Person, Work, Place, and Destiny (New
York: Gaebelein, n.d.), p. 58.

C hapter 3
1. F. C. Jennings, Satan, p. 66.
2. William Hendriksen, Epistle to the Ephesians (Grand Rapids: Baker,
1966), p. 113.

C hapter 4
1. L. S. Chafer, Satan (New York: Gospel Publ., 1922), p. 16.
2. W. H. Griffith Thomas, Genesis (Chicago: Moody, n.d.), p. 46.

C hapter 5
1. A. T. Pierson, The Bible and Spiritual Life, p. 170.
2. The Scofield Bible (New York: Oxford, U., 1945), p. 1342.

C hapter 6
1. A. T. Pierson, The Bible and Spiritual Life, p. 172.
2. L. L. Morris, source unknown.
C hapter 7
1. D. G. Barnhouse, The Invisible War (Grand Rapids: Zondervan,
1965), p. 156.

140
2. C. S. Lewis, Screw tape Letters (London: G. Bles, 1942), p. 9.
3. Mildred Cable, Ambassadors for Christ (London: Hodder & Stough­
ton, 1935), p. 74.
4. Barnhouse, p. 170.

Chapter 8
1. F. C. Jennings, Satan, p. 152.

Chapter 9
1. F. J. Huegel, The Enthroned Life (London: Overcomer Trust, n.d.),
pp. 35-36.
2. Quoted by Mrs. F. Howard Taylor, Behind the Ranges (London:
Lutterworth, 1944), p. 91.
3. Tertullian Apology.
4. Quoted by Taylor, p. 114.

C hapter 10
1. D. G. Barnhouse, The Invisible War, p. 226.
2. F. C. Jennings, Satan, p. 77.
3. Harold J. Ockenga, The Epistle to the Thessalonians, Proclaiming the
New Testament No. 10 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1962), p. 114.

Chapter 11
1. E. M. Bounds, Satan, His Personality, Power, and Overthrow (Grand
Rapids: Baker, 1963), p. 143.

C hapter 12
1. M. F. Unger, Biblical Demonolgy (Wheaton: Scripture Press, 1952),
p. 79.
2. James L. Wilson, Principles of War (Anapolis: Christian Books,
1964), p. 29.
3. A. T. Pierson, The Bible and Spiritual Life, p. 189.

C hapter 13
1. C. S. Lovett, Dealing with the Devil (Personal Christianity, 1967),
p. 82-83.
2. D. G. Barnhouse, The Invisible War, p. 184.
3. L. S. Chafer, Satan, p. 20.
4. H. B. Swete, source unknown.

141