“But when He had turned about and looked on His disciples, He rebuked Peter, saying, get thee behind me Satan, for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men.”(Mark 8:33) Our adversary is subtle, so subtle in fact that I am not sure if any human being has ever even seen him. We have many accounts of him in the Scriptures of course, from the garden of Eden (Gen. 3:1), contending for the body of Moses (Jude 1:9), the Book of Job, Daniel, and Revelation just to name a few, but all of these accounts are of his actions, not the actual manifestation of his being, whether in physical, as much as angels have or do appear in the physical, or in his natural spiritual form. We know that he can appear as an angel of light (2 Cor. 11:14), a great serpent (Rev. 12:9), he has the character of a roaring lion (1 Peter 5:8), a prince (John 12:31), and he entered into the serpent in the garden, but who besides our Lord has seen him as he is.
Lucifer was created by God and as all of His creation is, he is known better, more fully by our Lord than he even knows himself, for “all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.” (Heb. 4:13) We know that the antichrist will be his willing servant, accepting all that he offered Christ in the time of His temptation (Matt. 4:1-10), but as to whether or not it will be Satan himself after the fatal blow to the antichrist (Rev. 13:15) entering into him has always been a subject of debate. If we were to say that it is Satan himself after this moment, it would still not be his own visible personage, he will have done the same as he did to Judas Iscariot in Luke 22:3, he will at that time then have entered into him.
If the Lord has blessed you with eyes to see and ears to hear, if you have earnestly and continuously prayed for a heart that can discern between good and evil, then our adversary’s deceits and lies are not quite so subtle, they become, at least in part a little more recognizable. I was led this morning to this particular verse at the beginning of this fourth part on the series of our adversary for just that reason I believe, to help us to understand him better in this area of our lives. Our personal walk with Christ is Satan’s main concern, it is the one main area where spends the majority of his allotted time, the destruction of the furtherance and continuing growth of the Kingdom of God. Since he savors “the things that be of men,” he detests and despises the things that are of God, and since the only things of God’s creation that will live throughout all of eternity are the angels and the souls of men, men would logically be his main interest.
The lost he concerns himself only with keeping their eyes off the cross, but the servants of the Most High God, the ones whose lives have been devoted to the Glory of God and the Lamb, they are a different story altogether. There is no way that he can kill all of us, though that would be his ultimate desire, in fact he can do no more to us than the Lord our God allows, he is like a strong dog on a chain, he can only reach so far, no further, but everything within his area he destroys. Here is his quandary though, if he were to destroy all that he could, he would have no one left to worship him and that is his number one goal above all others, to receive all the worship that is directed towards God.
I do not know if the third of the angels that followed him worship him, but he is their leader, and that may be enough for him in that area, but as with all megalomaniacs, even all is not enough. Please understand this, Satan is not looking to kill you, though it wouldn’t bother him if you were dead, that would be just fine with him, one less obedient servant of Christ to deal with, no my friends, he wants you to fall, he wants you to fail. He brings temptations, questions, doubts, disbelief, anything and everything to cause you to sin and therefore allow the name of God to be blasphemed, to hinder your growth and the furthering of the kingdom. When a Christ-centered believer commits a grievous sin in his community, even after repenting of that sin before the Lord, many times his witness is destroyed not only in the community, but sadly even within the fellowship of believers in his own church. God always forgives the repentant heart, rarely do men.
Look at what our Lord said here in Mark 8:33, He rebuked Peter saying, “Get thee behind me, Satan: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men.” He looked Peter right in the eyes and said these words. Certain religious organizations will greatly rebuke you if you say that in this moment Satan entered into Peter, spoke the words of Mark 8:32 and then waited for the response from Jesus before leaving Peter. It is much easier for them to counterpoint Luke 22:3, where Satan enters into Judas Iscariot and then went to betray Him for the price of a slave. Have you ever thought about how the pharisees did not recognize Satan? Our Lord did, and He either saw our adversary in Peter in that moment, or perhaps using him as a puppet master would, whispering into the ears of Peter the words of rebuke while Peter spoke them at nearly the same instant. Whichever way you decide to look at it this one fact is clear and undisputable, our Lord looked at Peter and spoke to Satan.
It is possible that Satan had entered into Peter, if only for a few moments, for until the day of Pentecost no one had the Holy Spirit living inside of them on a continuous and ongoing level. To step in and out of human beings is as simple for Satan and the demons as the man who can walk passing thru a door is, simply open it and go through. Not so with the born-again believer, that door inside of us is locked against possession, completely and permanently, it cannot happen, no demon, not even Satan himself can enter into a child of God, for that is the sole property and residence of the Holy Spirit of God, it is an impossibility.
But our adversary can whisper, he is very good at it and sadly many Christians are very adept at listening to him. It was no accident that Satan chose Peter’s mouth to speak to Christ, the man was impetuous, forthright and spoke his mind, sometimes without engaging his brain first. Peter was one of the three that our Lord called to go a little further with Him more than once, and he was perhaps a little easier at that moment to manipulate than the others. Herein is the point of this letter to you, my brothers and sisters in Christ, are you still easy to manipulate, do you still have ears that are easily whispered into, how many of your strings can the puppet master still control.
As far as I am aware only the Holy Trinity when Lucifer was created, the Lord Jesus Christ when He was tempted (Matt. 4: 1-19), and we who will see him as “the one who deceived nations” (Rev. 20:8) are the only ones who have or will see Satan in his true, uncovered, unmasked form. For the believer we can see the consequences of his actions upon us, but we have become as it were deaf to our own inner promptings to resist him so “he will flee from us” (James 4:7) when he begins to whisper. Not enough of us have or even keep on the whole armor of God, the same subtle tricks that he employed on those who came before us work just as well on us as they did on them. The genetics of faith, if you will, are not passed on from generation to generation, we must all learn to stand, to trust, to be obedient on our own by the power of the Holy Spirit, there are no exceptions.
Our adversary knows you better than you know yourself, he has been doing what he does since day one, and we are not the separate individualized people that we like to think we are, in this area we are all as those that came before us. He knows all our weaknesses and he will prey on them, not to kill you, but to do what he has always done, to make you ineffectual to the Kingdom of God. All of us in one area or another will fall to his deceit, and he really could not care less if you repent or not, the damage has been done, your witness will be destroyed and that was the point.
I can leave you today with only these encouraging words, there are earplugs available to you, they are called the Word of God, and they are available and free to all who ask for them. Hide them in your heart, that’s the most direct path to the ears that I know of.
