If anyone knows anything about Satan and his kingdom, it is Jesus Christ. He had to deal with him during the time He lived on earth, directly and through people. A short impression.

Jesus' incarnation is immediately under pressure. Evil takes action: in an attempt to kill Him after His birth in Bethlehem, countless children from the region are killed by King Herod (Matt. 2:13-18). How intense, what a drama! Jesus characterises Satan as a human murderer (John 8:44); Herod, with his fear and ego, allows himself to be used to commit horrible injustices.

As a thirty-year-old, Jesus starts his mission from God to make known to people the gospel of God's Kingdom. Even then, there is great resistance: Jesus is tempted by Satan around physical needs and human desire for prestige. Deep down, Satan is concerned with getting Jesus to kneel before him and thus submit to his power and commands (Matt. 4:1-11).

Later, in Matt. 12:24, the Pharisees claim that Jesus casts out evil spirits (demons) through Beelzebul, the ruler of the spirits. So they recognise a hierarchy. And Jesus asks the question in that conversation: how then will Satan's kingdom endure? He, too, identifies a system, an order, a kingdom with a king. So there is a kingdom of God, of light, love and life and there is a kingdom of the evil one, of darkness, destruction and death.

Jesus does not reveal often, but clearly, that Satan is a reality. When looking back on a faith adventure of His disciples who are under the impression that evil spirits have submitted to them, Jesus says to them: I saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning. Behold, I have given you power ... against all the host of the enemy (Luke 10:17-20).

Jesus came from heaven, the spiritual world. He is the Prince of Peace, and also for this reason He informs us about the one who wants to rob us of our peace, His opponent, Satan. In John 8: 44, Jesus speaks about the reality of the devil who wants influence in and through people, and that he is fundamentally a murderer and liar. What a contrast with Jesus who brings (eternal) life and offers us truth.

We also read about the influence of Satan in people:

• That a woman had been held in bondage by Satan for 18 years with a spirit of weakness (Luke 13:10-17)
• That Satan had/had an entrance in Judas (Luke 22:3), who took money from the treasury and thus led a double life, sinned.
• That satan wants to sift disciples of Jesus like wheat (Luke 22:31); Jesus prays that their faith will not fail (such a prayer we read in John 17:15)
• That the weeds among the good seed are the children of the evil one; the enemy that sowed them is the devil (Matt 13:39)

When Peter, after Jesus' first announcement of His suffering, cries out ''God forbid, Lord, this will not happen to You in any way'', Jesus, after turning around, says: ''Get away from me, Satan; you are a stumbling block to me, for you are not mindful of the things of God but of the things of men'' (Matt 16:23).

So much for the direct Bible passages in which Jesus speaks about the spiritual world and the nature of Satan.

There is more to read about in the rest of the Bible. Five concluding passages:

1. In Ephesians 6: 12, Paul says that we are not to wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the authorities, against the powers, against the rulers of the world (Gr: cosmokratorterm for devil with his demons) of this darkness, against spiritual evil (Gr: pneumatika poneria) in the heavenly (Gr: epouranios = heavenly) regions.

Those heavenly places could be in the second heaven, if the 1^e heaven is our universe, created by God (Gen. 1:1) and the 3^e the place where God is (2 Cor. 12:2-4)

• Daniel gets a peek "behind the scenes" when Archangel Michael brings him an answer to prayer (Dan. 10:13 and 20)

• John writes in his first letter that the whole world is in the evil one and that the evil one has no hold on those who are protected by God (1 John 5:18,19)

• The book of Revelation speaks frequently about Satan, the dragon; both about his influence in the church (Op. 2:2, 2:10 and 2:20), cities (2:13) and in world history and the end times (Op. 12:9 and 12; 18:2) with as end point his final condemnation (Op. 20:10)

• In Deut. 32:17 we read about sacrificing to evil spirits (from prosperity that God gave the Israelites as a blessing they rejected God and despised the Rock of their salvation, they started to worship foreign gods). Among the abominations are child sacrifices which - naturally - are expressly forbidden by God (Deut. 18:10) and which actually took place among the inhabitants of Canaan (Deut. 12:31) and were also done by God's people (Jer. 7:31)! How far can we stray from God and give room to bizarre, devilish practices!

Read more?

Spiritual combat - Derek Prince

Letters from Hell - C.S. Lewis