The devil: His Past, Present, and Future

As Christians, we are on a battlefield.  Whether we like it or not, or believe it or not, we are being watched and attacked by the devil and his army of demons. 

 

he targets Christians: to bring them down, to destroy them or to get them to stop following Jesus.  Jesus said the devil comes to steal, kill, and destroy (John 10:10 NIV).

 

Our demonic enemies are like snipers; they are invisible and they love to surprise attack us. 

 

Fortunately, God’s design is for us to defeat the enemy.  The Lord has given us some powerful weapons against the enemy, and we’re going to look at some of those in just a minute. 

 

First though, I want to look at our enemy for just a moment. 

 

Who is the devil?  Where did he come from?  Where is he now?  And what is his future?

 

First of all, who created the devil?

 

Jesus did.  Colossians 1:16 tells us that in Him (in Jesus) …

 

... all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. (NIV)

 

So Jesus created all things – including invisible rulers and authorities like the devil.  But Jesus created the devil to be good.

 

In Ezekiel 28, we see that the devil was created to be a totally different creature than who he is now. God said this of the devil:

 

“‘You were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone adorned you:  carnelian, chrysolite and emerald, topaz, onyx and jasper, lapis lazuli, turquoise and beryl…

 

You were anointed as a guardian cherub, for so I ordained you.  You were on the holy mount of God; you walked among the fiery stones.

 

You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created till wickedness was found in you.  (Ezekiel 28:12-15 NIV)

 

It sounds like the devil was actually a beautiful creature before he fell. 

 

Verse 12 tells us that he was full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.

Verse 14 tells us that he was placed in Eden to be a guardian angel.

Verse 15 tells us that he was blameless.

 

Doesn’t sound like the devil we know today.  What happened?

 

In Ezekiel 28, God continues to tell the devil’s story:

 

… you were filled with violence, and you sinned.  So I drove you in disgrace from the mount of God, and I expelled you, guardian cherub, from among the fiery stones.

Your heart became proud on account of your beauty, and you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor.  So I threw you to the earth…  (Ezekiel 28: 16-17 NIV)

 

So the devil became proud on account of his beauty and splendor, and he was filled with violence, sinned, and was thrown down to the earth.

 

I like the way that God says, “I expelled you, guardian cherub.”  It’s kind of like He was reminding the devil – “you were the guardian cherub – the guard over the Garden of Eden and all of mankind- yet you tried to destroy the very thing that you were sent to protect.”

 

Pride caused the devil to rebel, and in verse one of Ezekiel 28 we read the details of his pride:

 

‘In the pride of your heart you say, “I am a god; I sit on the throne of a god.’

 

According to the book of Revelation, before the devil was thrown to the earth, he was able to convince one-third of the angels to follow him.  In Revelation 12:3, John said that he saw an enormous red dragon whose “tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth.” (NIV)

 

John continued to say that the…

 

great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him. (Revelation 12:9 NIV)

 

So God cast the devil and one-third of the angels out of heaven, and they became the devil and his army of demons.

 

So now we know how the devil got his start… how he was created by Jesus to be a guardian angel, became prideful because of his beauty, convinced one-third of the angels to follow him, and got thrown to the earth.

 

That’s the devil’s past.  What’s the devil doing now?

 

Remember what Jesus said?  He said that the devil comes to “steal, kill, and destroy.”

 

When the devil was cast down to the earth and started his kingdom of wickedness, he started with nothing.  he created nothing and he earned nothing; he had nothing – just pride, and a desire to be like God. 

 

he wanted to build a kingdom for himself – just like God’s – but he had nothing.  So he built his kingdom by stealing from God.

 

Jesus says the devil is a liar, an accuser, and that he steals, kills and destroys.

 

In Ezekiel 28 verse 18, we see that everything the devil gets is through “dishonest trade.”  Dishonest trade is just another way to say “stealing.”

 

What does the devil want?  he wants everything that belongs to Jesus.

 

Jesus created the angels- the devil wanted them

 

Jesus created all of mankind, you and me- the devil wants us

 

Jesus gave us an inheritance of blessings- the devil wants our blessings

 

We need to understand how the devil steals so that we are not tricked by him.  Knowing that he steals through dishonest trading gives us a powerful insight to the way he works.

 

Let’s look at how he used dishonest trade to steal from Eve.  In Genesis 3, we read:

 

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

 

The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

 

“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman.  “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

 

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.  (Genesis 3:17 NIV)

 

I want to point something out here… satan didn’t come to Eve, hold her up at gun point, and force her to hand over her ruling authority and all her blessings.  What did he do?  he created a trade- a dishonest trade.

 

Here was the dishonest part:

 

you won’t really die,

you will be like God,

God is holding out on you.

 

Here was the trade part:

 

all you have to do is eat the fruit and you will be like God… yes it’s true God told you not to eat this, but who cares?  You’ll be a god yourself!!

 

And with his dishonest trade, satan stole the ruling authority.

 

And so, with persuasive words, lies, and accusations, the devil offered Eve a trade:  disobey God, give up your friendship with Jesus, and eat the fruit.  If you do this, you will be a god yourself. 

 

And Eve believed the devil.  She fell for the dishonest trade.  She gave up her friendship with Jesus and ate the fruit. 

 

I wonder how long it took her to realize that she had been lied to and robbed.  She wasn’t a god at all- her life became hard. From this point on, she had to serve her husband, had to put up with disease, hunger, and hard labor.  She gave birth to sinful, godless children who were violent and evil.  And she died.

 

The devil tricked her, and she lost everything valuable and good in her life.

 

The devil still uses this same dishonest trade technique to destroy people today.

 

Yet God doesn’t want us to be defeated by the devil – He actually expects us to win!  He gives us all the knowledge and weapons that we need to win. In 2 Corinthians 10, we read this:

 

The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.

 

We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.  (2 Corinthians 10:4,5 NIV)

 

We fight the devil by taking every thought that comes across our minds and taking it captive – we make sure that it lines up with the Word of God!

 

If Eve had done this the conversation would have been so much different!!

 

The devil would have said, “you will not surely die if you eat it,”

 

And Eve would have said, “That’s a lie- God said I would die if I eat it.  Get away from me devil!”

 

We’ve got to line up the thoughts that come through our minds with the Word of God – if something doesn’t line up with the Word of God, don’t entertain it – throw it out!!

 

Jesus fought the devil this way in Matthew 4:4-10:

 

The devil said, “hey Jesus, it looks like you’re very hungry.  Why don’t you turn some of these rocks into bread?”

 

Jesus said, “No!!!!!  it is written, man doesn’t live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”

 

The devil said, “hey Jesus, why don’t we go up to the top of this temple, and then you throw yourself off?  The angels will catch you!” 

 

Jesus said, “No!!! It is written- don’t test God!”

 

The devil said, “hey Jesus, I’ll make you a trade… you worship me, and I’ll give you all the kingdoms of the world!!!”

 

Jesus said, “go away satan!!!  It is written, worship God only!!!!

 

The Word of God is a very powerful weapon against the devil, that’s why we need to not only know it, we also need to trust it.

 

And I want to add here that we also have the Holy Spirit to make the Word more clear.  There are two verses I want to look at.  The first one is 2 Peter 1:19:

 

We also have the prophetic message as something completely reliable, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. (NIV)

 

The second verse is 2 Corinthians 3:18:

 

But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. (KJV)

 

In other words, the prophets were told things by the Holy Spirit.  They wrote these words down for us and those words are what we know as the Bible.

 

The words that we find in the Bible are completely reliable, and they act as a light to help us find our way in this dark world.  And, the more that we behold Jesus, the more that we worship Jesus, things get even brighter. 

 

The Bible was already light to us, but as we worship, we go to new levels of glory.  We go from glory to glory to glory.  It’s like we go from a 20 watt bulb to a 60 watt bulb to daylight!!

 

The more we worship Jesus, the more he illuminates the Word that we find in the Bible.  Things that were foggy to us now begin to make more sense! 

 

We begin to understand things that were so mysterious to us before.  That’s why Paul says this: 

 

…we declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began… as it is written:

 

“What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived” - the things God has prepared for those who love him— these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.

 

The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God…

What we have received is … the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us.

 

This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words… 

 

The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. (1 Corinthians 2:7-14 NIV)

 

The Word of God is one of our greatest weapons to fight the devil, and not only does God give us His Word, He gives us the Holy Spirit to make the Word more understandable, more clear.

 

Now we’ve looked at the devil’s past and present, so now let’s take a quick look at the devil’s future.

 

In Revelation chapter 20, we read how after the seven- year tribulation, the devil will be captured by an angel and thrown into a prison for one thousand years while Jesus rules on the earth. 

 

At the end of the thousand years, the devil will be released from prison.  he will form an army to fight Jesus, yet before the ever battle begins, the devil will be thrown in the lake of fire.  Revelation 20:10 says:

 

And the devil, who deceived (people), was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur … (he) will be tormented day and night for ever and ever. (NIV)

 

 

 

Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV  Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.  Used by permission of Zondervan.  All rights reserved worldwide.www.zondervan.com.  The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.

 

Scripture quotations marked (TLB) are taken from The Living Bible copyright © 1971. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.