Why study Satan? 1) The Bible identifies Satan as public enemy #1, the greatest adversary (Heb., Satan = Adversary) of all sentient beings – including God. To fight him we need to know him[1] (2Co 2:11).[2] The following profile is based on the conclusions that may be drawn about Satan when considering the teachings of Scripture and traditions of the Ancient Near East (ANE).

Distilling what we have learned from studying Satan with some additional conjecture for good measure:

1. Satan’s big reveal: Shortly before Jesus’ return, Satan is going to appear in human form and  convince the entire world to unite under his leadership and go to war against Yhwh and the last small vestige of Christ’s churches and devout Jews in Jerusalem that still exist and stand against him (Rev 20:3 [“short time”]w/7-9a “nations which are in the four corners of the earth” = Every nation on earth; “God and Magog” w/Eze 37-39 = The biblical symbol of a world led by one leader and the majority united in fulfilling his evil agenda; “the number of them is like the sand of the seashore” = Vast majority of the population will follow Satan; “surrounded” = Implies these groups are not spread out or numerous, but rather limited in location and small in number; able to easily be contained and captured; “the camp of the saints” = Christ’s churches; “the beloved city” = Devout Jews in Jerusalem crying out to God/sacrificing red heifers to purify themselves for Messiah’s return who will repent and be saved the moment Jesus lands on the Mt. of Olives – Rom 11:25-28 “The Deliverer will come from Zion, He will remove ungodliness from Jacob” = Seeing Jesus wb their salvation [Rev 1:7]; “they are enemies for your sake” = They will not listen to Christians [FAG has ruined our witness to them]).

2. Satan’s ability: There are three reasons Satan will be able to “deceive the nations” and unite them in a global war against Yhwh:

2.1. The apostasy of the New Covenant Church = Over the course of human history God has employed various corrective measures to restrain (slow down, push back, limit) the moral corruption and spiritual darkness continually infecting and progressively destroying the “code of Creation” (what God used to create the material world – Gen 1:3,6, 9, 11, 14, 20, 24, 26 “Then God said”) – which includes the invisible, dimensional barrier separating our world from the heavenly realm above (Gen 28:12; Act 1:9-11; Eph 4:8).[3] Among these was the establishment of covenant communities (churches) with codified law, a consecrated people and an empowered priesthood. Though a vast improvement on the original design, the New Covenant community/Church – like her predecessor, was not perfect. As a result, she too would eventually succumb to her self-inflicted wounds of gospel and moral compromise, forfeiting not only God’s presence and power among her, but her ability to act as salt and light in the world. Such loss of restraint would mean those spiritual gates once locked were now open and those behind them once more free to exercise the full range of their evil powers – including the use of those communities (now apostate) for their own purposes (2Th 2:1-9 “apostasy comes first, then the man of lawlessness is revealed/released…you know what restrains him now” = God’s CC not going apostate):

1) >70 AD = OCC is apostate (Eph 6:11-12 w/Rev 2:9, 18:2) w/the NCC on the brink of apostasy (5 of the 7 churches in Rev 2-3) leads to Satan’s release (Rev 12-13).

2) >2030 AD = NCC is apostate leading once more to the restraints being removed/to Satan’s release (Mat 16:18-19 w/Mat 12:22-29 w/Joh 12:31 w/Luk 10:17-18 w/Rev 2:5 w/Rev 20:3,7 [“thousand years = The complete time the church remains faithful and therefore able to restrain Satan/keep the gates of Hades closed after being put there by Jesus]).

2.2. The power of pseudo-incarnation/body-snatching (2Th 2:8 [2Th 1:7-9 w/Isa 11:1-4, 66:15-16] w/Rev 20:9; Rev 13:1-2 w/Rev 17:8), miracles of healing and advanced tech (2Th 2:9 “all [every kind of] power [e.g., high-tech weapons, UFOs, telepathically/spirit/demon controlled drones] and signs [attesting miracles; e.g., healing of all diseases, granting of superhuman health and abilities] and false wonders” [eye candy; e.g., everything wb tune to not only entertain us but convince us that we can break through the weakened dimensional barrier and make an attack on heaven/God’s throne - Rev 20:9 “they came up on the broad plain” = An allusion to Gen 11:1-8 [“they found a plain in the land of Shinar”] = God’s corrective measure is not to tear down the tower but disrupt their ability for global communication and unification – which He states will give them the power to eventually do what they are attempting [break thru into heaven and make an attack on His throne]; v6).[4]     

2.3. His prior success in indoctrinating the world in his “anti-God, self-love, live by your flesh” religion = Such success is due not only to the amount of time (Job 38:4-7 = Almost 6k years) and travel speeds Satan has possessed to push his propaganda (Eph 2:1-2 “prince of the power of the air” w/Isa 6:2 w/Job 1:7, 2:2) but also his knowledge of our Achilles’ heel – our test given to us at Creation, which he immediately exploited with our first mother (Gen 3:1-5) = What makes this life a test is not that God prohibits certain things that our flesh wants to do, but that our flesh wants to do them only because we cannot see their true value (how undesirable, harmful and horrible they really are). Though our flesh (our five senses) are unreliable when it comes to moral decisions, what we feel (the signal they send) is often the opposite. IOW: our flesh gives to us the feeling that we should trust our senses alone. As a result, we naturally trend in the direction of our flesh – trusting it more than God’s laws – even when we have put them to memory (Gen 2:2-3).

Satan knew this and exploited it with Eve the same way he has been exploiting it w/us for ~ 6k yrs. How Satan exploited this w/Eve: 1) By causing her to feel distrust for God; that His laws may be unjust (“You surely will not die!”). 2) By causing her to feel love for self and confidence in self over God; that she deserves to be god and has the right to determine right and wrong for herself (“you will be like God knowing good and evil”). That Eve took the bait is made clear by how the text reveals she made her decision (“when the woman saw that the tree was good…desirable to the eyes”) = IOW: She decided in accord with her flesh/senses or feelings were telling her (which is insanity given our feelings don’t think). Psychologists, the most popular spiritual practitioners of our day, proves that Satan has indeed been successful in indoctrinating the world in his anti-God, self-love, live by your feelings (or morality determined by our flesh) religion.   

3. Temptation to apostasize: Scripture predicts that the aforementioned three things will mean that the temptation to apostasize at the time of Satan’s big reveal will be so strong that: 1) We should expect that a number of us will fall away (Mat 24:10; 2Th 2:9-15) = Paul’s parting admonishment to the Thessalonian church [“So then, brethren, stand firm…”] reveals they were not immune to Satan’s deception. 2) If the time from Satan’s reveal and Jesus’ return were not short, all Christians would eventually fall away (Mat 24:22).

4. A possible picture of what Satan’s big reveal (and message to humanity) may look like: Satan shows up in human flesh, with lots of UFOs, super advanced tech and proves he can heal every disease and grant superhuman health and abilities to every human if they will follow him in fighting against the evil Yhwh Who only retains the title “God” because He controls the “God particle” to create. Taking His throne would mean we could not only use it make our world better – but bring back our dead loved ones (we could re-incarnate them with new bodies). Yhwh - Satan claims, is just another angel (like him). He is not uncreated and infinite, which means He can be defeated. All of this (of course) means that Yhwh is also a liar – and His book the Bible, a book of lies. Yhwh uses it to control people – to brainwash them into believing in His religion of fear and hate. We don’t need atonement or to feel guilty about our sin. What we need is unconditional love and the freedom to live the way we feel is best – to follow our hearts without consequences or the threat of punishment. Why does everything have to be “His way or hell?” Why does His way have to be the only way? As long as my choices don’t hurt others, then I should be able to do what I want. We all deserve to be happy according to our preferences (rather than forced to follow His). This is most especially true when it comes to our love for others. Why does a (so-called) loving God condemn people if who they choose to love – or have sex with, is not on His approved list? How can love ever be wrong? Yhwh’s rules destroy families and are the number one reason human beings mistreat each other. Yhwh is the inventor of racism (He loves Jews more than anyone else) – and slavery (the Bible condones it). These (then) are the reasons Satan has been fighting Yhwh. Satan believes all people should be truly free. We should have the freedom to love and live according to what makes us happy – without (once more) being condemned for our choices. That (again) is what he and his fellow angels have been fighting for (from the beginning). And because Yhwh doesn’t want to lose control, they have been slandered as the bad guys and kept away from humanity so that they wouldn’t find out the truth. But now the truth is out, and Satan needs our help to see that we don’t go back under Yhwh’s evil thumb. Satan needs our help to defeat Him and free all of us (him, his angels and humanity) before He destroys our precious world (something he also shares is coming within a matter of a few years). Join him (however) and we (together) can use Satan’s tech and power to rush into heaven, defeat Yhwh, get the “God particle” and save not only our world and dead loved ones, but live forever. As his final point to ponder, he leaves you with this, “Why are you choosing to trust Yhwh Who doesn’t care enough about you to ever show up? At least I showed up (and would have sooner had He not taken away my ability to do so). Why trust the One you can’t see – or won’t show up, versus the one who is already here and making good on his promises?”

5. Who Satan’s message will appeal to: 1) Those not practicing faithful obedience to God – especially when under pressure (i.e. living a double life). 2) Those who cannot demonstrate why Satan is wrong or lying.

CLOSING CONTEMPLATION: 1) How are you going to discern whose right and telling the truth (Satan or Yhwh)? 2) What makes Gen 2:16-17 just or fair? 3) Why is the worldly view of love (as unconditional – not based on performance) unjust and unfair? 4) Besides the covenant community, what other corrective measures has God employed to keep the possibility of salvation alive for the entire 6k years appointed for this world? 5) Why is Satan so concerned with destroying the church and the devout Jews? 6) We should we as Christians be pursuing to overcome the power of our flesh and ensure we don’t  apostasize at Satan’s big reveal? 7) How might what we find in Luke 16:19-31 explain why Satan must go through our world to gain access to the heavenly realm? 8) What will Satan be saying to recruit/conscript those who went apostate from our church – yet still believe they are Christians?

[1] “If you know the enemy and you know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself, but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat…The opportunity for defeating the enemy is provided by [knowing] the enemy himself…Force him to reveal himself, so as to find his vulnerable spots.” – Sun Tzu (The Art of War)

[2] “Trying to grasp the darkest of the dark and understand it is a way to ensure we never become it (or its victim)…You don’t want to be fooled; you don’t want to become a victim, so what can you learn to avoid it." – Anne Burgess (criminal forensics nurse, founder of the FBI’s criminal profiling program; agent responsible for the capture of America’s most notorious serial killers).

[3] There is no barrier between Hades/Sheol and our world. One is superimposed on the other with immaterial beings traveling (e.g., spirits, demons) through the same geographic space as us in the physical/material world. The only exception would be those “no fly zones” or restricted areas (e.g., sacred areas/heavenly outposts or demonic strongholds) (e.g., Dan 10:13).

[4] It is reasonable to think that Satan has been sharing his historical developments in tech with us (e.g. cellular communication, computers and internet, AI, robotics, etc.) understanding that this would better serve his end game agenda of uniting our forces with his (See 1 Enoch; Consider also Isa 28:24-26).