The god of This World

The devil is the father of lies (John 8:44) and the deceiver of nations (Revelation 20:3,8). He “disguises himself as an angel of light” (2 Corinthians 11:14), and he will do whatever is in his power to get us to forget him altogether and to live as if he doesn’t exist. As believers, we know Satan exists, but many of us still fall into his subtle trap of ignoring him and hoping he’ll leave us alone.

But just as we cannot read a page of Scripture without running into the sovereignty of God, neither can we read very long without coming face-to-face with the harsh reality of the power of the evil one. And so, we recognize that we cannot completely ignore his existence.

We often fall into Satan’s trap of thinking he’s not really there, or that he’s not very active. It can be a pleasant thought to believe that he’s not around or, at least, that we’re really not a significant enough target for him to spend his time on. But the reality is that we do wrestle against cosmic powers—“spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12). These forces of evil have set their sights on all true believers, and they are unrelenting.

Paul teaches us that the god of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers so that they might not see the light of the glory of the gospel of Christ (2 Corinthians 4:4). The implication is that in having blinded their minds, the devil then focuses his primary work on the followers of his enemy. It would seem to be the case that before we trusted Christ, the devil was certainly our enemy, but not to the degree that he became our enemy after we trusted Christ.

We must make every effort to make use of the means our Lord has given us to fight. He has given us the ordinary means for our daily warfare; namely, the word of God, prayer, baptism, and the Lord’s Supper. He has given us the Lord’s Day, and He has given us weekly, gathered worship with our family where we sing and proclaim our battle songs of final victory and affirm the faith once delivered to the saints.

Above all, our Lord has given us Himself in Christ, and He has given us the Holy Spirit. And although Satan is not afraid of us, he is terrified of the One within us. And our protector never sleeps nor slumbers (Psalm 121:3-4), and in Him we are more than conquerors (Romans 8:37) because greater is He who is in us than he who is in the world (1 John 4:4).

—Burk Parsons, condensed