23/03/2024
Chapter 2
The Nature of
Our Enemy
Be sober, be vigilant; because your
adversary
the devil walks about like a roaring
lion,
seeking whom he may devour.
—1 Peter 5:8
The Origin of Evil
Satan's Fall
In order to understand the nature of
spiritual warfare, we must
comprehend how evil and sin began.
Satan was once an angel in heaven
named Lucifer. However, he became
arrogant and tried to exalt himself
over God. The Bible says this about his
beginning and his fall:
This is what the Sovereign Lord says:
"You were the model of perfection, full
of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You
were in Eden, the garden of God; every
precious stone adorned you.... You
were anointed as a guardian cherub,
for so I ordained you. You were on the
holy mount of God; you walked among
the fiery stones. You were blameless in
your ways from the day you were
created till wickedness was found in
you.... You were filled with violence,
and you sinned. So I drove you in disgrace from the mount of God, and I
expelled you, O guardian cherub, from
among the fiery stones. Your heart
became proud on account of your
beauty, and you corrupted your
wisdom because of your splendor. So I
threw you to the earth; I made a
spectacle of you before kings."
(Ezekiel 28:12–17 niv)
Although Lucifer was a magnificent
angel in heaven, he was not content.
He gloried in his beauty and
brightness, but it wasn't enough for
him. He aspired to supremacy. He
coveted the honor and glory that
belongs to God alone. So Lucifer began
to sow a spirit of deception and
discontent among the angels that were
under his command. Before long, this
discontent blossomed into open revolt.
And war broke out in heaven:
Michael and his angels fought with the
dragon; and the dragon and his angels
fought, but they did not prevail, nor
was a place found for them in heaven
any longer. So the great dragon was
cast out, that serpent of old, called the
Devil and Satan, who deceives the
whole world; he was cast to the earth,
and his angels were cast out with him.
(Revelation 12:7-9)
Satan was kicked out of heaven
because of his rebellion. He was no
longer Lucifer, which means "the .
morning star,"1 or “a shining one.”2
Instead, he became Satan, which
means "the accuser"3 or "the
adversary.”4 The Bible gives us a
number of designations and names for
the fallen Lucifer, such as the
following:
“the prince of the power of the
air” (Ephesians 2:2)
• "the ruler of the demons"
(Matthew 12:24)
"king" over the demons in “the
bottomless pit” (Revelation 9:11)
“the ruler of this world” who is
already judged (John 16:11)
• “the god of this age” (2
Corinthians 4:4)
“the serpent” (2 Corinthians 11:3)
• “a great...dragon” (Revelation
12:3)
• “the enemy” (Matthew 13:39)
"the tempter” (Matthew 4:3)
• a false “angel of light” (2
Corinthians 11:14)
"the accuser of our brethren"
(Revelation 12:10)
• “the Devil and Satan” (Revelation
12:9)
Satan's Cohorts
The angels who rebelled with Satan
were thrown out of heaven, too, and
they became demons, or evil spirits.
The Bible indicates that one third of
the angels may have rebelled. (See Revelation 12:4.) Any spiritual being
who did not obey the Lord received
swift judgment. "God did not spare the
angels who sinned, but cast them
down to hell and delivered them into
chains of darkness, to be reserved for
judgment” (2 Peter 2:4). The term
“unclean spirit[s]” occurs in the Bible
twenty-two times to describe Satan's
cohorts. (See, for example, Matthew
10:1; Acts 8:7.) “Foul spirit” (Revelation
18:2) is also used. Paul referred to
demons that operate through people to
deceive others as “deceiving
[“seducing” kjv] spirits” (1 Timothy
4:1).
Satan's Deception of Humankind
Remaining rebellious against God
after his fall, Satan turned his
attention to destroying humankind. He
likely used the same tactics on human
beings that he had used with the
angels who rebelled in heaven. In the
Garden of Eden, the devil deceived our
first parents into thinking they could
be equal with God. Then he enticed
them to rebel against Him, too. (See
Genesis 3:1–19.)
When humanity succumbed to the
adversary's temptation, disobeyed
God, and fell, Satan enlisted the human
race in his war against God. The spirit
of rebellion still dwells in all
unbelievers—those whom the Bible calls “the sons of disobedience”
(Ephesians 2:2). Even believers have to
fight this spirit of rebellion, which tries
to rear its head even after we have
received salvation through Christ. The
Bible calls this spirit of rebellion or
disobedience the “old man,” or the
“flesh” that serves the “law of sin":
Put off, concerning your former
conduct, the old man which grows
corrupt according to the deceitful lusts,
and be renewed in the spirit of your
mind, and... put on the new man which
was created according to God, in true
righteousness and holiness.
(Ephesians 4:22-24, emphasis added)
But I see another law in my
members, warring against the law of
my mind, and bringing me into
captivity to the law of sin which is in
my members. O wretched man that I
am! Who will deliver me from this
body of death? I thank God; through
Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the
mind I myself serve the law of God, but
with the flesh the law of sin.
(Romans 7:23–25, emphasis added)
The sinful nature revolts against
God's Word. It opposes all the things of
God; it fights against His will. Unless
the hearts of the disobedient are
turned toward God, they are naturally
evil, living as children of their "father,” the devil. Jesus said to some with
unchanged hearts,
You are of your father the devil, and
the desires of your father you want to
do. He was a murderer from the
beginning, and does not stand in the
truth, because there is no truth in him.
When he speaks a lie, he speaks from
his own resources, for he is a liar and
the father of it.(John 8:44)
Those who follow the devil willfully
(or even ignorantly) are called the
“sons of the wicked one” (Matthew
13:38). The apostle John said they are
the “children of the devil” (1 John
3:10). Paul called false apostles
“ministers” of Satan (2 Corinthians
11:15). They belong to the devil's
“church”: In Revelation 2:9, the Holy
Spirit said that some who only
pretended to be God's people were
from the “synagogue of Satan.”
Satan's Army
How does Satan carry out his
warfare in his attempt to undermine
God's ways and purposes? In the book
of Ephesians, the devil is pictured as
heading a well-organized army of evil
spiritual agents. The terms
“principalities,” “powers,” “rulers of
the darkness of this age” and “spiritual
hosts of wickedness in the heavenly
places” (Ephesians 6:12) are believed by some biblical teachers to denote the
ranks in his army.
The power of Satan's influence is
multiplied through his vast army of
evil spirits, which implement his will—
gathering information, carrying out
orders, and affecting human affairs.
The Old Testament reveals that Satan
influenced the rulers of Persia and
exercised authority over them through
a demon called the “prince of the
kingdom of Persia.” (See Daniel 10:12–
13.) The angel who spoke to Daniel
identified another evil spirit, who
influenced a different kingdom, as the
“prince of Greece" (verse 20).
Satan and his evil spirits can assume
visible form, as the devil did when he
appeared as a serpent in the Garden of
Eden, or they can cause a visible
reaction, or manifestation, on people:
• Demons can cause blindness and
muteness. (See Matthew 12:22.)
Demons can cause convulsions
and seizures. (See, for example,
Mark 9:17-20.)
• Demons can cause a person to act
in a self-destructive way or with
bizarre behavior. (See, for
example, Luke 8:27–29.)
• Demons have been known to
compel animals to destroy
themselves. (See, for example,
Luke 8:30–33.) • Demons can create powerful
illusions and mimic the power of
God. (See, for example, Exodus
7:11-12.) The devil and his followers can
perform signs and wonders. (See
Matthew 24:24.)
Just as a strong general can impose a
high degree of control over his army,
and through his troops carry out his
program over a vast area, so the devil
rules much of his worldwide kingdom
of darkness through his subordinates.
Satan Is Defeated
Yet the power that Satan has is
limited. Remember that Lucifer is a
created being whose powers are vastly
inferior to the Creator's.
In addition, in His sovereignty and
mercy, God the Father did not want
humanity to remain in its fallen state
and be captive to the wiles of the
enemy. Because of His incomparable
love for all people, and His desire to
redeem them from sin and death, God
sent His Son Jesus to the earth to
engage Satan in open warfare and
defeat him. “For this purpose the Son
of God was manifested, that He might
destroy the works of the devil” (1 John
3:8).
Jesus attacked Satan and his
strongholds directly by casting evil
spirits out of people, opening blind eyes, straightening crooked limbs,
unstopping deaf ears, raising the dead,
and releasing people from spiritual
bo***ge. For example, Jesus healed
and delivered...
the man who was blind and mute
because of demon-possession. (See
Matthew 12:22.)
the boy who had epileptic-like
seizures and was deaf and mute
because of an unclean spirit. (See,
for example, Mark 9:17–29.)
• the man who became a maniac
and isolated himself from society
because he was demon-possessed.
(See, for example, Luke 8:27–33.)
• the woman who was afflicted and
bent over for eighteen years
because she had a "spirit of
infirmity” from Satan. (See Luke
13:10-16.)
• the little girl who was ill and was
said to have been “severely
demon-possessed.” (See, for
example, Matthew 15:22–28.)
• the man in the synagogue who
was thrown to the floor by a
“spirit of an unclean demon.” (See
Luke 4:33–36.)
The climax of Jesus' ministry on
earth was His death on the cross for
the sins of the world and His
triumphant resurrection from the
grave. He freed us from the snare of the enemy so that we could be
reconciled to God the Father and start
living in His kingdom of love and
truth. Through His death and
resurrection, Jesus struck the enemy
with a mortal wound that will
ultimately lead to the total demise of
the devil.
In His victory, Jesus assures us that
we, the born-again children of God,
can also have victory in every battle
against Satan. “But thanks be to God!
He gives us the victory through our
Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:57
niv).
Christians are the redeemed who
have turned from sin and Satan back
to God and have joined His fight
against the forces of darkness. The
final outcome of our spiritual warfare
with the enemy was actually
determined by God from the
beginning. Right after the devil led
mankind into disobedience, the Lord
told Satan, “And I will put enmity
between you and the woman, and
between your seed and her Seed
(Jesus); He shall bruise your head, and
you shall bruise His heel” (Genesis
3:15). As the Second Adam, Jesus
resisted evil and obeyed God even to
the point of death on the cross.
When Christ overcame sin and
death, Satan lost his claim over humanity. The Bible says that Jesus
released us forever from the satanic
bo***ge of fear:
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; and might deliver those who
through fear of death were subject to
slavery all their lives. For assuredly He
does not give help to angels, but He
gives help to the descendant of
Abraham. Therefore, He had to be
made like His brethren in all things,
that He might become a merciful and
faithful high priest in things pertaining
to God, to make propitiation for the
sins of the people.
(Hebrews 2:14-17 nasb)
In Revelation, John described Satan's
final, cosmic defeat in the drama of the
ages: “The devil, who deceived..., was
cast into the lake of fire and brimstone
where the beast and the false prophet
are. And they will be tormented day
and night forever and ever”
(Revelation 20:10). Centuries earlier,
the prophet Isaiah had also seen
Satan's demise through the telescope
of prophecy:
How you are fallen from heaven, O
Lucifer, son of the morning! How you
are cut down to the ground, you who weakened the nations! For you have
said in your heart: “I will ascend into
heaven, I will exalt my throne above
the stars of God; I will also sit on the
mount of the congregation on the
farthest sides of the north; I will
ascend above the heights of the clouds,
I will be like the Most High.” Yet you
shall be brought down to Sheol, to the
lowest depths of the Pit. Those who see
you will gaze at you,...saying: “Is this
the man who made the earth tremble,
who shook kingdoms, who made the
world as a wilderness and destroyed
its cities, who did not open the house
of his prisoners?”(Isaiah 14:12–17)
Satan takes people prisoner, but
Jesus frees them. At the beginning of
His ministry, Jesus announced,
The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,
because He has anointed Me to preach
the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me
to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim
liberty to the captives and recovery of
sight to the blind, to set at liberty those
who are oppressed.
(Luke 4:18)
Spiritual Warfare Continues
Since Christ has defeated Satan, why
is the devil still our enemy? You might
think that he would have no more
strength to use against us. But this is
not the case, because we have not yet
reached the end of the age, and God's purposes for the world are not yet
complete. God's people are still locked
in a tremendous conflict with satanic
forces. Satan has not ceased fighting
God and God's people. Evil spirits are
still active and dangerous. As Paul told
us, “We do not wrestle against flesh
and blood, but against principalities,
against powers, against the rulers of
the darkness of this age, against
spiritual hosts of wickedness in the
heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12). Our
greatest struggles in life are against the
powers of this dark world.
Why are so many people in the
world today caught up in indescribable
anguish and suffering? Some of this
pain, as I wrote earlier, has to do with
the fact that we live in a fallen world.
Yet other suffering is due to the devil's
increasing attacks. At the end of time,
when Satan is defeated, he will no
longer be able to exert any power or
influence over the world. Satan knows
his time is short, and he wants to
destroy as many people as he can in
the time he has left.
The fallen angels who followed
Satan in rebellion also know their time
is limited. In fact, they fear a
“premature” final judgment. In
Matthew 8:29, a legion of demons
asked Jesus why He had come to
punish them "before their time.” "Suddenly [the demons) cried out,
saying, 'What have we to do with You,
Jesus, You Son of God? Have You come
here to torment us before the time?””
They were startled because they knew
they would lose a final confrontation
with Jesus, but they didn't expect Him
to appear at that time and exercise
authority over them. In Luke's account
of this incident, the unclean spirits
begged Jesus not to send them to the
abyss. (See Luke 8:27–35.)
Satan and the angels who fell with
him know there is an appointed day
for their final judgment, and they also
know they are always subject to Jesus'
commands. In the Bible, Satan is never
referred to as having power beyond
the ability to deceive those who are
willing to believe his lies and trust in
the limited power granted to him. Yet,
although he is limited in what he can
do, he uses everything in his power
and at his disposal to deceive and
destroy
Therefore, until the day when Christ
returns and the enemy is ultimately
defeated, spiritual warfare will
continue. Even though we know that
Christ will eliminate the forces of evil
in the end, this knowledge does not
lessen the fierceness of the struggle or
its importance. The enemy that
prompted rebellion in heaven still inspires rebellion on earth. Remember
that the Bible refers to Satan as the
“god of this age” (2 Corinthians 4:4).
The antagonism between the Spirit of
Christ and the spirit of Satan is evident
in every arena of life.
We should not be surprised at these
battles. Peter wrote, “Do not think it
strange concerning the fiery trial
which is to try you, as though some
strange thing happened to you” (1
Peter 4:12). Jesus said, “In the world
you will have tribulation; but be of
good cheer, I have overcome the
world” (John 16:33).
We now have the means of victory!
Instead of being at the enemy's mercy,
we can defeat him through Christ and
the power of His resurrection. The
victory is ours to receive and apply. We
are to battle against injustice, evil, and
all the works of Satan.
Successfully Battling the Forces of
Darkness
How can we successfully do battle
with the forces of darkness? It is
through the anointing of the Holy
Spirit and the ministry of the Word of
God that we can learn to appropriate
what Jesus won for us at Calvary and
defeat the work of the enemy. To
begin, we must do the following.
Be Redeemed from the Power of
Satan In order to understand and engage
in spiritual warfare, you first have to
be redeemed from the power of the
enemy. Have you asked God to forgive
your sins, and have you received Jesus
as the Lord and Savior of your life?
You need to do this right now, so that
you can comprehend and put into
practice scriptural truths concerning
this spiritual war.
When Saul was converted and
became the apostle Paul, Jesus told
him that he was to “turn [people] from
darkness to light, and from the power
of Satan to God, that they may receive
forgiveness of sins and an inheritance
among those who are sanctified by
faith in Me” (Acts 26:18). God redeems
all those who put their faith in Jesus.
He transfers them out of the
“dominion of darkness," or the realm
of Satan, and brings them into Christ's
realm, which is the kingdom of God.
(See Colossians 1:13 niv.)
If you do not know which kingdom
you truly belong to, why not pause in
your reading right now, and pray this
prayer?
Dear God, I confess that I have lived
in rebellion against you and tried to
live my life in my own way. I haven't
acknowledged You as My Creator and
Lord. There are conflicts and problems
in my life that I cannot cope with alone. I cannot counteract the assaults
of the enemy against me. I need Your
help. I confess to you all my sins and
shortcomings. I ask you to forgive me
and come into my heart. I ask you to
free me from my guilt. Lift the heavy
burden of condemnation from my soul
through the blood of Jesus. Fill me with
Your Holy Spirit and help me to live by
Your Spirit from now on. Grant me the
joy and peace that can come only from
You. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen.
At the very instant of your
conversion, you become a child of God,
fully justified, fully forgiven, and
sharing in the inheritance with Christ.
Your life can begin to be conformed to
that of Jesus Christ as you bring your
thoughts and actions in line with God's
Word and respond daily to the leading
of the Holy Spirit.
Learn Satan's Tactics and How to
Counteract Them
Second, to effectively engage your
spiritual enemy, you must know his
tactics and how to counteract them.
You cannot leave yourself open to all
manner of satanic assaults and
constantly be crippled or defeated by
the enemy. Our example is Jesus and
how He confronted the devil. He
demonstrated mastery over all the
powers and forces of evil. During the
ministry of the Master, He challenged Satan whenever He had an
opportunity, whether it was in the
synagogue or in a cemetery. (See, for
example, Luke 4:33–35; Mark 5:2–15.)
The devil is deceitful, presumptuous,
cruel, fierce, wicked, subtle, and
powerful. Yet he also is cowardly and,
again, has limitations. He flees at the
name of Jesus or when a believer
pleads the blood of the Son of God over
a person or situation. Through Christ's
victory, we can tread on the head of
Satan; we can keep him under our feet.
Through the precious blood of Jesus,
we can overcome the devil.
In New Testament days, the Romans
enjoyed throwing Christians to the
lions in a mainly futile attempt to have
them renounce their faith in Christ.
The Romans gathered in the Coliseum,
where they would throw fifty or more
Christians into the arena and wait to
see who would deny Christ first. Those
who didn't deny the Lord were literally
eaten alive.
Satan is more like the lions than the
Romans. "Be sober, be vigilant;
because your adversary the devil
walks about like a roaring lion, seeking
whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8). He
is not interested in entertainment; he
wants to annihilate the work of the
church. He wants to destroy people
and usher them into hell. Again, Satan knows his fate—eternity in the lake of
fire-is sealed, and he will do
whatever it takes to carry as many
souls with him as he can. He is willing
to use any tactic or device to make
people listen to him and follow him.
We must be equipped for spiritual
combat. We need to learn to resist the
rebellion that caused the fall of Lucifer
and to do spiritual battle on behalf of
those who are vulnerable to the
enemy. This book is designed to show
you the spiritual armor God has given
you and how to use it.
Satan is the foe of every human
being, and especially of believers who
trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. In
spiritual warfare, we must clearly
understand that we are not at war
with other people. We do not fight
against unbelievers, “sinners,” and
reprobates; we are at war with Satan,
who holds people captive to his will:
A servant of the Lord must not
quarrel but be gentle to all, able to
teach, patient, in humility correcting
those who are in opposition, if God
perhaps will grant them repentance, so
that they may know the truth, and that
they may come to their senses and
escape the snare of the devil, having
been taken captive by him to do his
will.
(2 Timothy 2:24–26) We often try to change people who
are not doing what is right. But their
behavior has its roots in something
much larger. This does not excuse the
wrong things they do or relieve them
of their responsibility, but it helps us to
focus on the real enemy. As bad as
some people may seem, they are
merely conduits for spiritual battle.
Satan has been successful in getting us
to fight people rather than battling
what is really causing people to be the
way they are.
The Front Lines of Spiritual Warfare
We are on the front lines of spiritual
warfare every day. God's people are
experiencing attack as perhaps never
before. Trouble is all around us. The
natural consequences of our fallen
world are depicted in our daily
newscasts and newspapers with sad
accounts of violence, suffering, and
disaster. We can sense a spirit of
rebellion in the attitudes of the world.
We confront the world's temptation
and the devil's deceit in our everyday
lives as we struggle with unseen,
sinister forces that want to pull us
down and destroy us. Sin is rampant in
the earth as we draw closer to the final
confrontation between God and Satan.
The devil is frantically working to try
to wreck the plans and programs of
God. Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 2:11 that
we are not to let Satan “take advantage
of us; for we are not ignorant of his
devices.” Many times, he gets the
advantage over people who are not
aware of how he works. It is time for
God's people to know the tactics of the
devil. It is high time for the army of
God to rise up and say, “Enough is
enough!"
The Lord has promised in His Word
that we can be wiser than our enemies.
The psalmist said to God, “You, through
Your commandments, make me wiser
than my enemies; for they are ever
with me” (Psalm 119:98). Satan is our
greatest enemy, and yet we can be
wiser and stronger than he is through
the power and guidance of the Holy
Spirit.
I have been engaged in spiritual
warfare for a number of years. I know
from personal experience what it is
like to be opposed by unseen,
diabolical spiritual enemies that have
great strength and power. I have been
attacked by the devil and his coalition
of evil forces, but the almighty God has
always given me the victory.
In the same way, certain victory is
assured to you through Christ. When
we are in Christ and have
appropriated the grace and protection
of His sacrificial death on Calvary, we have nothing to fear. The message of
deliverance and empowerment by the
Holy Spirit that Jesus came to earth to
proclaim is His message for us today.
Hallelujah! Jesus provides the
promise of glorious victory. In Him, we
have won and will win over the
enemy.
