When many people, religious or not, think about Satan, they often think of something like this: a red demon with horns and a pitchfork, trying to obviously tempt others to sin, to live and take in all the worldly pleasures and wealth, disregarding the consequences.
Satan is often depicted as the ruler of hell, some malevolent being whom you sell your soul to. He often is shown targeting people who are from God or people who are debating whether or not to do something morally questionable (the angel vs devil on the shoulder bit). Satan has also been shown working in places such as a lawyer’s office or as some top business executive.
But in reality, have you really given much thought about where Satan actually works? And who does he actually target?
How Satan Actually Works and His Targets
Satan’s purpose is to oppose God (“Satan” actually means “opposer”). He wants to stop God’s work, which is providing salvation to the world, and the way he does that is by trying to stop God’s people from spreading God’s truth and plan. When we look throughout the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, Satan opposes God in every era. But how exactly does he do it?
Satan Works Through Deception
In the beginning, after God created the Garden of Eden and put Adam and Eve in charge of it, Satan came to them. Why? Because they were the ones whom God wanted to use to teach the world about Himself. Satan wanted to take what was God’s and make it his, and he did that through deception.
How did he deceive them? It wasn’t with some flashy promise, but by slyly twisting God’s words, and making Adam and Eve doubt what God had told them. Satan lied but he made it so subtle that Adam and Eve fell for it and in the end, they turned their backs on God’s command and disobeyed Him, halting the work God had been doing.
Satan Works in Disguise
Since then, every time God sent a prophet or pastor to speak to His people, Satan was right there trying to get the people to disobey God and persecuting God’s prophets. He was able to do this because he doesn’t use obvious outsiders, but people who look and sound like God’s people – a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Let’s read a passage in 2 Corinthians:
“For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds.”
2 Corinthians 11:13-15
Satan Works Against Those Who Believe in God
Would Satan need to deceive the Egyptians, Babylonians or Assyrians? No, they didn’t believe in God and worshiped their own gods. Why would Satan work on getting people who already don’t belong to or follow God? It would be like a king trying to conquer a land he already owns. He gains nothing.
God’s people are the ones Satan wants because they belong to God. So he will do everything he can and works from the inside to get them.
Where Was Satan During the Time of Jesus?
As mentioned earlier, Satan has opposed God’s work in every era of the Bible. In the beginning, he deceived Adam and Eve into disobeying God and sinning. During the time of the prophets, Satan worked through the leaders and people of Israel as they persecuted and killed the messengers who were sent by God to let the Israelites know of their wrongdoing (Matthew 23:29-31). So what about at the time when Jesus came to earth?
Jesus was the Messiah promised through the prophets, to bring salvation to the people of Israel. He was the one whom God was with (Matthew 3, John 10:30). God sent Jesus to preach to the Israelites, telling them to repent and to believe in Jesus to be saved. So if they listened and believed the words of Jesus, they would receive salvation. But as the opposer, Satan wanted to stop that.
Satan Worked Through the Religious Leaders
Satan worked through the Pharisees, the religious leaders of the Jewish people, to obstruct and take people away from Jesus.
We see throughout the gospels that the Pharisees came to Jesus and tried to argue with him, to challenge his authority, and eventually, to arrest and kill him. Jesus preached that he was the way to God. He was the truth and the life, and that truth would set the people free. But was Satan going to allow that? Of course not.
As we can see, when Jesus came at the time of the first coming, Satan wasn’t with the gentiles (non-Jewish people), but with the Jewish religious leaders, the Pharisees and teachers of the Law. Satan didn’t work outside of God’s chosen people, the Jews, but within them.
Where Is Satan Working Today?
That was 2,000 years ago, but where is Satan working now at our time? Satan always goes to where God and His people are because he is trying to stop God’s work from being done and to stop people from truly knowing God. So who would those people be today? That group of people who believe they belong to God and Jesus? And where is the place they gather?
“He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God.”
2 Thessalonians 2:4
Satan Works in the Christian Church
According to 2 Thessalonians 2:4, Satan sets himself up inside God’s temple – and today that would be the Christian church. Why? Because that’s where God’s people, who believe in Christ, are. He wants to deceive Christians and keep them from truly knowing and understanding who God is and what God wants from us as believers. Why is this important to be aware of?
When Jesus came at the time of the first coming, he made a promise to return. He did this through prophecies and figurative language that cannot be understood until he makes it known plainly (John 16:25). Until that time, as Christians, we must seek to know those prophecies so that we can keep ourselves from being deceived about them.
But what do you think Satan will do in the meantime? Would he want believers to learn Jesus’s words correctly and be aware and alert of how Satan himself works?
What Else Do We Need to Know About How Satan Works?
Let’s revisit that passage from 2 Corinthians:
“For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds.”
2 Corinthians 11:13-15
We saw this deceit happen when Satan used the Pharisees, the Jewish religious leaders, to deceive the Jewish people. He used people who looked and sounded like God’s people so that he could oppose God’s work and keep His people from salvation.
For us today, who would Satan look like and who would he try to work through? Wouldn’t it be a similar group of people, those whom we trust and look to for spiritual guidance within the church?
Be Alert for Satan’s Deception
If Satan works through people inside the church, then how can we tell who is God’s worker and who is Satan’s worker? The answer can, of course, be found within Scripture. 1 John 4:1 says,
“Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.”
The Bible tells us to test the spirits. Well what do we test them against? What does Satan use to deceive? Words. So what is the standard that we need to know in order to make sure we are not being deceived? God’s Word. When we know the Bible, and know what is promised, what it warns of, we can protect and armor ourselves against the deception of Satan.
In order to not fall into Satan’s trap, we must be spiritually alert. We have to remember that wherever God is working, Satan will be working there too, trying to obstruct and deceive. So we should listen to the words we hear from religious leaders and compare them to what the Bible says.
As Jesus said in John 17:17, God’s Word is Truth. Let us armor ourselves with the truth, remain alert, and make sure we know what God has promised to us.
Written by Kenny
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