The Power of the Devil
This kingdom and these angels of Satan have great power; they are therefore called the “power of the air." We wrestle not against flesh and blood (the power of kings and armies and men are nothing) but against principalities, and powers, against spiritual wickedness; against devils that infinitely
exceed all the sons of men: and the word is not only Dunamis, physical power of understanding, insinuation, but Exousia, authority. If God had not given this great enemy so long, and so great, and so extensive a power to set up himself, His Son's kingdom had not been so glorious in the overthrow of it. O the mercy of God in translating us from
the one to the other; we are pulled from the power of darkness by redemption (Col. 1:13), and by Christ Himself being subject to the power of Satan as in Luke 22:53 where the wicked have their hour but the saints shall have their day
of it. -Thomas Goodwin.
IN ALL WE have seen, instead of minimizing the power of the devil, Jesus exalts him to the pinnacle of power as a prince, with this world as his princedom.
In the prominent features of Christ's life the devil appears as the one being and the one evil agent which Christ has in mind, to whose rule He is opposed. We have seen how soon the devil followed in the wake of our Lord's baptism at the Jordan, after the anointing of the Holy Ghost, and His public entrance on His ministry. When He first commissioned His disciples, among other great miracles they were to “cast out devils." When the seventy returned to report their work to Christ, they said, with evident surprise and gratulation, “Even the devils are subject to us through thy name." He replied: “I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven." When He is opening their hearts to receive the great comfort of that great promise of the Holy Spirit, He declares that one of the trinity of great ends to be executed by the Holy Spirit was “to convict the world of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged."
In one of His troubled and impassioned outbreaks, as the shadows and pain of His great agony are coming on Him, He cries, “Now is my soul troubled." The darkness is relieved by a gleam of light in which He sees the ruins of Satan's kingdom and the devil spoiled, dethroned, cast out by the almightiness of His cross, “Now is the judgment of this world; now shall the prince of this world be cast out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me."
But as the darkness grows deeper, and the anguish more bitter, He sees the approaching form of him whose hour and power of darkness it is. Hushed into silence in the presence of this relentless and cruel foe, the Son of God says to His sorrowing and awe-struck disciples: “Hereafter I will not talk much with you; for the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me."
The devil's sad and mighty influence is farther set forth on the circle of chosen disciples. Peter staggers under the blow of the devil; his narrow, shameful escape of Peter is thus referred to by Christ: "Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he might sift you as wheat: but I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not: and, when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren."
Jesus Christ acknowledges the great power and authority which the devil has in the present deranged and usurped order of things. He declares, “Now is the judgment of this world, now shall the prince of this world be judged." How defiant Satan is, and how he opposes Christ stubbornly with reckless and too often successful courage is plainly revealed. Into the chosen circle of the twelve he entered, into the one who had been trusted as their treasurer, the receiver, the depositor and the disburser of their money and their charity.
How close he comes, and how large his successes! One of the sacred twelve he has seduced, possessed and moved to carry out in the most hypocritical, false way his infamous designs. How near he came adding Peter to the black roll of his immortal ones, immortal in infamy, is very evident. That the devil had much every way to do with Peter's dastardly course, his lying and blasphemy, is evident from the words of Christ, "And the Lord said unto Simon, Simon, behold Satan hath desired to have you that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not; and when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren. And he said unto him, Lord, I am ready to go with thee, both into prison, and to death. And he said, I tell thee, Peter, the cock shall not crow this day, before that thou shalt thrice deny that thou knowest me."
In the Parable of the Sower Christ sets forth the unseen but powerful influence which the devil exerts to neutralize the word of God. In the record of this parable by Matthew, the devil is termed the “wicked one," a statement of personality and of the concentration and comprehension of preeminent wickedness. He catches away the word sown with vigilant and diabolical hate. "Then cometh the devil and taketh the word." He is the destroyer of the seeds of good. So powerful is he that the word of God, incorruptible and eternal, is prevented from securing its benign and saving efforts by his vigilance and influence over the mind.
In the story of Job and his sore trials, we see the Sabeans and Chaldeans are ready to respond to his suggestion to make their predatory raids on Job's herds. Satan's power is not limited to outside influence, but is direct and powerful, getting into the inside, and making suggestions of eVil, almost godlike sometimes, and again so inflaming our passions or principles that we cannot see the wrong till too late, as in the case of Satan's suggestion to David to number Israel. His power is so great that even good men, the best, who are able to resist his temptations, yet for a time are under his power. The Christians at Smyrna were so under his power that while he could not alienate their affections or disturb their loyalty, he could put them in prison. Paul felt all his life the rankling poison of a wound inflicted by Satan's power. Peter was in his hands and tossed about, and was brought nigh to the fatal verge by his power. Job was for a while put in his power, and was driven and torn and desolated like a cruel and reckless tempest, wherein everything was wrecked and lost but his patience. How great was Satan's power to destroy fortune and family and friends and reputation! The Son of God was in his mysterious and all desolating power, led to the mountains and led to the temple by the fearful spell of Satan. Angels retired and heaven hushed its music and was draped in silence and trembled in awe while Satan's dread power was allowed to spend its dark force on heaven's Anointed One. The power of disease was in the devil's hands. He smote Job. Christ said of the woman with the spirit of infirmity: “Ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo! these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day? " Doubtless much of sickness is due to the power of the devil. To this there is reference in the statements of Christ's work. “When the even was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils; and he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick. That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah, the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses.” “How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power; who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him."
Satan's power did not extend to death in Job's case, but it did in that of his children. The Smyrna Christians he could hold in prison but ten days, but thousands of others he held unto death. His own cruel, deadly hands weaved for them the martyr's crown of gold and glory.
The power of the devil over the body is further seen and illustrated by numbers of cases in the New Testament, of demoniacal possessions. The devil had possession by some of his imps of the bodies of persons. Some of the cases were fearfully tormented in body and almost wrecked in mind, others had functions of the body suspended, some were made dumb by him, and others made deaf and blind. These cases were many in number and of great variety. The great power and malignity of Satan is seen in that among the most distressing cases were those who were not noted for great sins, but the young and comparative innocent ones were the victims of his dread power. The whole person came under the power of this alien spirit The power of Satan, his nearness and personality, had a constant and destructive manifestation in these cases.
Of these demoniacal possessions it has been well said that the Gospel narratives are distinctly pledged to the historic truth of these occurrences. Either they are true or the Gospels are false.
Nor can it be said they represent the opinions of the times. They relate to us words spoken by the Lord Jesus in which the personality and presence of the devil are distinctly stated. Now either our Lord spoke these words or He did not. If He did not, then we must at once set aside the concurrent testimony of the Evangelists to a plain matter of fact. In other words, we establish a principle which will overthrow equally every fact related in the Gospels.