Before you can win a war, you had better know where it started and who you are really fighting. So let me take you back: further back than Eden, all the way to a rebellion in heaven.
“And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth…” (Revelation 12:9, KJV)
It began in heaven, with a created rebel, not a rival god
Hear that carefully, child of God: Satan is a created being in rebellion, not God’s equal. There was war in heaven, and he “prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven” (Revelation 12:8). His name means adversary; his weapon is the lie. The Lord Jesus nailed him: “he was a murderer from the beginning… he is a liar, and the father of it” (John 8:44).
Scripture also shows what drove that rebellion. Paul warns that a new convert should not lead the church, “lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil” (1 Timothy 3:6). Pride was the devil’s sin. Many faithful teachers also hear that pride in the boast against the king of Babylon in Isaiah 14: “I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God… I will be like the most High” (Isaiah 14:13–14). Whether or not that passage looks behind the king to Satan, the pattern is the same. The creature wanted the Creator’s throne.
And the Lord Jesus saw the fall Himself. When the seventy returned rejoicing, Jesus Christ said, “I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven” (Luke 10:18).
A real enemy, on a short chain
Satan is real, but he is not free to do as he pleases. In the book of Job he had to stand before the LORD, and he could touch Job only as far as God allowed: “Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand” (Job 1:12). The devil is strong, but he is not sovereign. He answers to God.
The New Testament name for him tells you his method. “Devil” comes from a Greek word meaning slanderer, the one who accuses. That is why Revelation calls him “the accuser of our brethren” (Revelation 12:10). He accuses God to man, and he accuses man to God.
It came to earth through a question: “Yea, hath God said?”
Then he came down to Eden, and watch his method, because it has never changed. He attacked the Word of God with a question, “Yea, hath God said?” (Genesis 3:1), twisted the command, denied the penalty, “Ye shall not surely die” (Genesis 3:4), and dressed his lie up as freedom. “The serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty” (2 Corinthians 11:3), and “by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin” (Romans 5:12).
And God answered with a promise: the crushed serpent
But in the same breath God preached the first gospel: “I will put enmity… it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel” (Genesis 3:15). The serpent would strike the Seed’s heel at the cross, but the Seed would crush the serpent’s head. And He did: “that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil” (Hebrews 2:14); “that he might destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8); He “spoiled principalities and powers… triumphing over them” (Colossians 2:15).
How the Lord Jesus fought
Watch how Jesus Christ met the devil in the wilderness, because He left us the pattern. Satan came with the same old question about the Word of God. Three times the Lord Jesus answered with Scripture. “It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). The last time, Jesus Christ said, “Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve” (Matthew 4:10). The devil began in Eden by doubting what God said. The Lord Jesus defeated him by standing on what God said.
So put on the armor, and fight from victory, not for it
That is why Paul says, “we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers” (Ephesians 6:12), so “put on the whole armour of God”: truth, righteousness, the gospel of peace, the shield of faith that quenches “the fiery darts of the wicked” (Ephesians 6:16), salvation, and “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Ephesians 6:17). “Be sober, be vigilant” (1 Peter 5:8); “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee” (James 4:7). And here is your ground, child of God: “greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world” (1 John 4:4).
The believer does not fight to escape the devil’s kingdom. God “hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son” (Colossians 1:13). That deliverance came through the blood of Jesus Christ, received by faith in Him, not by any strength of ours. And the end of the war is already written: “the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone” (Revelation 20:10). You do not fight for victory: you fight from it. The cross already won. Glory to God.
Related Teaching
- Hellish Deception Released Into the World
- Blinded Minds: Why the Gospel Is Veiled
- The Isaiah 5:20 Syndrome
“And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation; To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God. For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.”
2 Corinthians 5:18-21 (KJV)
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