Audio Transcript
What does evil look like? And sound like? And feel like? Is evil like a horror film set in a haunted forest in a remote cabin at night with floorboards creaking under uninvited footsteps? Or is evil the most scandalous murder trial in the headlines? Is evil more quiet, like in white-collar crimes and embezzlement? Or is it a bloody civil war? There are many forms evil can take. But at its core, how evil works is more essential than all those things I just described. Today on Ask Pastor John: how evil works.
This week in our Bible reading, we come upon a trio of texts that collectively reveal to us Satan’s multifront assault — how he works in this world. He is a spiritual deceiver of minds, he is a prosecuting accuser in the heavenly courtroom, and he is a behind-the-scenes influence in human rebellion. He seems to work in a lot of different ways. In John 8 we see him as a liar and murderer. In 2 Peter 2–3 we see him as the deceiver and destroyer. And in Job 4–6 we see him as the provocateur and accuser.
Those roles help reveal his work to us in the world. And as we rehearse these roles in our Bible reading this week, we have this email from an anonymous young man. “Pastor John, when I think about spiritual warfare, I often first think about physical things like illness and addiction and even demonic possession. But I wonder if I am missing a larger picture. How much influence does Satan have in this world, and how does he use it? How much of his power is physical? How much of it is unseen? And where do you see him most at work in our modern culture? Is it in obvious sins? Or in subtler ways to keep people from the gospel? How can I see his work without getting preoccupied with him?” A great question with clear purpose. Here’s how Pastor John answered this very question from a young man named Josh in 2018.
How Satan Works
The word Satan is a transliteration of the Hebrew Satan (śāṭān) and basically means “opponent” or “adversary.” The Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament always translates Satan with diabolos in Greek, which means “devil”; we always translate diabolos in English, in the New Testament, “devil.” And diabolos puts a more specific focus on the meaning of the opponent or adversary because diabolos basically means “slander” or “accuse.” It’s used not only to refer to the devil; several times in the Pastoral Epistles of Paul, it’s used to refer to people who are slandering others, speaking evil of them, being false about them.
So, even though this supernatural being, this fallen angel and archenemy of God, has a remarkable power in the material or physical realm — he can make people sick, he can throw them in prison, he can even kill them — nevertheless, his main way of opposing God and destroying God’s people is not in the physical or material realm but in the mental or intellectual or moral realm. In other words, the best way to think about his power is not in terms of physical strength but moral deception.
Let me try to illustrate this from the Bible. Here’s the passage that piles up more designations of Satan than any other passage in the Bible. If you need one or two verses to put the identity and work of Satan before you, it would be Revelation 12:9–10. Here it says, “And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent.” And remember what the Bible said in Genesis 3:1 about him. He’s subtler than every beast. So, it’s his subtlety that’s being focused on in his serpent-like reality. “[He] is called the devil [diabolos: slanderer, liar, cheat] and Satan [adversary], the deceiver of the whole world” (Revelation 12:9).
I don’t think you can say anything more sweeping or more basic than Revelation 12:9–10. “The accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God” (Revelation 12:10). So, at the center of Satan’s purpose is to deceive on earth and to accuse in heaven. If he can deceive you about God and Christ, you will perish. If he can successfully accuse you of unforgiven sin in heaven, you will perish. And Jesus calls him “a murderer from the beginning” (John 8:44). So, the deception and the accusation and the eternal death that results from unforgiven sin is a way of destroying people and opposing God.
Satan’s Influence
Josh asks me, To what extent and by what means specifically does Satan influence the world? My answer therefore is that the extent is worldwide and the means is deception.
“Our weapon against Satan in this world is truth, especially the truth of the gospel of the cross of Christ.”
We can see this in another text. Here’s Revelation 20:8–10: “[He comes] out to deceive the nations,” but he will be defeated. “And the devil who had deceived them” — so, there’s the focus again on his major strategy of destroying the world — “[will be] thrown into the lake of fire.” So, my basic answer to Josh’s question is that the extent of Satan’s influence is global; it covers all nations. And the primary means of his influence is deception. He destroys not mainly by the sword or disease or killing but mainly by lying. Jesus calls him “the father of lies” (John 8:44).
Specifically, he lies mainly about God, about Jesus, about the gospel, about sin. And oh, how wonderful it is that he has been dealt a decisive blow! You can see his deception about the gospel in 2 Corinthians 4:4: “In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.”
Satan’s Greatest Hatred
Josh’s second question is, Where do you see his works most clearly? And my answer is, therefore, wherever saving truth is hated and resisted and distorted and muted so that people are kept from being saved by the truth of the gospel — that’s where I see his works most clearly. Second Thessalonians 2:9–10: Satan comes “with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.”
Satan hates the truth of the gospel and the truth of the cross more than any other truth. You remember that, when Jesus was on earth, Satan tried to keep him away from the cross? When Peter says, “No, no, this isn’t going to happen to you,” Jesus says, “Get behind me, Satan” (Matthew 16:23). That’s what Satan wants. He doesn’t want Jesus to die for the sins of the world — even though, at the end, Satan gave up on that strategy and filled Judas to get Jesus betrayed. He’s trying to make it as horrible as possible. But his first design was, “I’m not going to let him get to the cross. No way.”
And now, Satan is mainly bent on preventing the message of the cross from being spread, from being understood, from being believed. And he does everything in his power to distort and silence the saving message of the cross. Remember how Jesus said he snatches the word. He snatches it. Just as soon as you preach the cross, as soon as you preach the saving word of the kingdom, boy, Satan will, if he can, snatch the word right out of the mind, just like birds snatching seed off of a path (Matthew 13:19).
Satan’s Greatest Downfall
Now, why is he so opposed to this central truth? Because the gospel is the truth that Christ has paid the price for the sins of everyone who believes (Romans 1:16; 3:24; 1 Peter 1:18–19), and that means Satan cannot successfully accuse us in heaven. He cannot make a case against the elect, because our sins have been covered, and that’s the only means he has to destroy us. Which means, of course, he can oppress us, he can distress us, he can tempt us, he can make us sick, he can kill us — and he cannot damn us ever. They are eternally safe. We, the elect, are eternally safe in God’s sovereign grace. And so he rages against the people of God, and he rages against the gospel that snatches people out of the damning hands of his own greedy self.
You can see this in Colossians 2:13–15. God has “forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands.” He has set aside those sins, “nailing [them] to the cross.” And here’s what follows. Thus, “he disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.”
“If our sins are forgiven, Satan cannot successfully accuse us before God.”
When our sins are forgiven, nailed to the cross, the satanic rulers and authorities are decisively defeated. They are undone, meaning their one condemning, damning weapon has been taken out of their hands — namely, unforgiven sin. If our sins are not forgiven, Satan can rightly accuse us before God, and we will be sentenced to hell. But if our sins are forgiven, Satan cannot successfully accuse us before God.
And so Paul soars in exultation over the great gospel of deliverance in Romans 8:31–39: “If God is for us, who can be against us? . . . Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect?” That is in Satan’s face. Who shall bring any charge?
It is God who justifies [Mr. Satan]. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died [Mr. Satan, you couldn’t stop it] — more than that, who was raised [from the dead] — who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us [Mr. Accuser]. . . . [So] I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers [nor Satan] . . . nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.
Our Weapon and Mission
So, our weapon against Satan in this world is truth, especially the truth of the gospel of the cross of Christ. And our great mission is the deliverance of the world: Tell them the truth. Spread the truth. Defend the truth. Live the truth. For “you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” — free from sin, free from Satan (John 8:32).
The words of Jesus to the apostle Paul before he sent him out were, “I am sending you to open their eyes [to the truth of Christ], so that they may turn from . . . the power of Satan to God” (Acts 26:17–18). That’s our great liberating mission in the world: to open the eyes of the blind by the power of the Holy Spirit, by the great instrument of truth, because Paul said, “God [will] grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they [will become free] and escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will” (2 Timothy 2:25–26). May God make us valiant spokesmen and spreaders of liberating truth.
