The Enemy in the Camp Part 8: God and Satan
I have spoken to countless men and women who claim to be Christians. Sadly, far too many have no idea of who God is or who Satan really is. Most seem to feel or think that Satan is the antithesis, or opposite, of God.
That is a misunderstanding—Satan is not the opposite of God, Satan is the opposite of Michael the Archangel. God created Lucifer, just as He created Michael, Gabriel, and all the other angels. Ezekiel 28:13 You were in Eden, the garden of God every precious stone was your covering, sardius, topaz, and diamond, beryl, onyx, and jasper, sapphire, emerald, and carbuncle; and crafted in gold were your settings and your engravings. On the day that you were created they were prepared.
Let me define a great separation between God and Satan, who was once Lucifer. I have heard it put this way: “God creates and the devil invents.” You might be wondering, “What’s the difference?” God made grand things from nothing with His thought and spoke them into existence. Satan (Lucifer) made things from the assets available.
The magnitude of separation between the ability to create versus invent is a separation as far as the East is from the West—there is no comparison. For years, I have corrected people when they speak of someone being creative. People are not creative, they have artistic tendency, or they see ways to take what is available and make something useful or nice to look at, but people cannot make anything from nothing.
Many call Satan a fallen angel without an understanding of the meaning of “fallen” in this description. Satan did not fall from Heaven. Satan (Lucifer) fell from the Grace of God because of his pride, arrogance, vanity, and jealousy. Satan (Lucifer) was cast out of Heaven by God.
Not only was he cast out of Heaven to the earth, but in a sense he was also disowned. Lucifer lost not only his position in Heaven, but his name as well. He was no longer Lucifer the most beautiful and, at the time, most powerful Angel. God renamed him “Satan”. He was no longer respected and recognized as a leader. Satan had became an enemy of God and man, so much so that God created a prison designed specifically for the purpose of Satan’s eternal punishment. Folks will often make it known that they have little understanding of who the adversary is and why he continuously attacks Christians and manipulates people for evil purpose.
The answer is simple: Satan hates mankind because God loves mankind. I feel no need to go into why God loves us and Satan attacks us. It suffices to say that Satan hates mankind. Satan preys on the weak of spirit. This is why the lost are of no trouble to him. The weak of spirit will go along to get along; they fall for everything and stand for nothing.
The Christian, however, is often found strong in spirit, and a strong spirit will resist the devil and the devil will flee from them. It is very difficult to convince most people that we live a spiritual battle every moment of every day and that this life is a life of our spirit living in a vessel of flesh.
We are not naturally fleshly beings but rather we are spirits existing within a body of flesh. God formed our bodies from the dust of the earth and breathed into us a living soul. That living soul is what we are —a Creation by the Supreme being God.
You may be wondering why I choose to speak of God toward the end of this writing. The answer is I want God to be on your mind rather than the adversary. A couple of months ago, I began a writing titled “The Majesty of God.” It is still unfinished.
I believe that is because I promised God I would write and teach what He inspires me to put out into the world. The aforementioned writing was my own choosing; I just wanted to write on the topic. If you have never written much, then you may not understand what many call “writer’s block”. I can affirm it is a reality. In my case, when I can’t write on a subject, I believe it is either because it isn’t the time for me to write on that subject or it’s because I am not supposed to write on it at all.
In closing, I will say this: I do not believe the human mind can even begin to grasp the true majesty of God. God is capable of far more than the feeble human mind can even begin to imagine. After much in-depth thought, I concluded God Himself stated His majesty far better than could be written in depth when He stated who He was—God is the “I AM”! The Scripture relates many attributes of God: He is strength and gentleness, love and judgement, the rule-maker and the enforcer.
God loves and He also hates. To some He gives condemnation and to others grace. He casts down and He lifts up, all this and more at His pleasure. Many feel God is unfair somehow when in fact He is perfection in all things—God is Holy! Psalm 115:3 Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases. That is his authority, so whatever God does is fairness in its purest form.
If you ever want to go through an exercise of contemplating a topic that will humble you to virtual nothingness, spend some time contemplating God being the “I AM”. If you do, I think you will come to the same place as I did, and that is the understanding of why the Apostle Paul referred to himself as a worm.
I have become content in what I do not understand, by knowing God is sovereign in all things.
Kenneth Kellar
A Man Called by God to Teach and Disciple