Satan hates God most of all. He only hate humans because God made us and loves us. While Satan’s main target is God, not us, Satan will target people, especially those who love and serve God. We must realize this truth so we don’t take Satan’s attacks personally nor misdirect our spiritual warfare against the demonic realm.
Let’s look at the history of Satan’s hatred for God. In Isaiah 13:13-15, we see Satan’s arrogance against God and his punishment: “You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to the heavens; I will raise my throne above the stars of God’ I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of Mount Zaphon; I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High,’ But you are brought down to the realm of the dead, to the depths of the pit.” Satan wanted to be praised, instead of God, so God had to cast him down. We find more detail about this in chapter 12 of Revelations, but specifically look at Rev. 12:7-8, “Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon and his angels. And the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven.”
Since then, Satan has been trying to hurt God by perverting people so they live in the darkness of Satan’s realm. For example Paul called out a demonically inspired sorcerer by saying in Acts 13:10, “You son of the devil, full of every sort of deceit and fraud, and enemy of all that is good! Will you never stop perverting the true ways of the Lord?” Satan was behind the sorcerer’s evil, and he wanted to stop God. Look at John 3:20, “Everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into the Light,” and remember Jesus is the light of the world (John 8:12b “I am the light of the world. If you follow me you won’t have to walk in the darkness, because you will have the light that leads to life’.”)
Satan does not even fear our testimony if we leave out God. When we speak, Satan is not trying to keep people from hearing about us and our interests. Satan wants to keep people from hearing about God. We might only share that we think God is nice but neglect to speak of Jesus’ sacrifice for us—the price he paid for our sins and the grace of God in His forgiveness. If we do, we decrease the chance Satan will attack us, but we also weaken our testimony. We can hide in our spiritual fox holes, but we must not. Since God is Satan’s number one target, Satan will attack us if we truly love Jesus and clearly speak about Him, but we must do so anyway.
Satan wants to silence our testimony by pointing out our sins. If we consider ourselves disqualified to share the Gospel because of our present or past sins, Satan has fooled us. Furthermore, we might publicly share our faith, but then sin in a way others can clearly see or hear about. If we hide in shame, people may not think, “What a weak Christian.” Instead they may think, “What a weak God who couldn’t stop that Christian from sinning.” It may seem contrary to talk about your sin, but that confession enables you to talk about God’s grace and forgiveness. If you admit you were wrong and have a contrite spirit before others and then speak of the joy you have in God’s forgiveness, you have taken away Satan’s tool of shame and confusion.
This kind of silence, in the face of shame, would have empowered Satan. Of course you must be careful about who you talk to, because some people are unsafe bullies who won’t listen to anything you say. They will mock you. So you can be discerning. The main goal is to speak of God’s grace and forgiveness so God gets the glory and Satan is shamed and silenced. Then our testimony will help people to get away from Satan’s schemes: Acts 26:18a, “to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God.”
We might boldly say we are a Christian, and then others hurt us (gossip, back stab and do other cruel things.) If we carry a grudge, others might not think we are vengeful but “God is not able to forgive.” If we publicly complain and blast others and withhold forgiveness, people may not think, “that Christian is mean.” They may think, “God cannot be trusted.” We have a right to factually say that another hurt us. We can say this was unjust. But if we mope in a complaining spirit and call down bad names on that person, we are feeding Satan’s agenda. Simply admitting the other person was wrong and then saying we chose to obey Jesus and forgive him or her (even if we cannot reconcile with them) pulls the weapon of complaining and retaliation out of Satan’s hands.
When we get out of the way and speak of Jesus, we enable the world to see Him instead of only us. Others will see us (that is still good) but we want them to also see the Lord working through us. But how can they see this if we remain silent, or worse, act arrogantly, vengefully, or with complaining or self pity? Satan wants people to think God cannot be trusted, so if we claim the name of Christ, yet hurt others, we must repent, lest others see God as untrustworthy.
Sometimes we become exhausted, yet others are still asking us to give. We may be tempted to hide the truth of our frailty. We might think we will not hurt others by being dishonest about why we have less to give or even nothing (due to our weakness.) While we might not cause others to think, “She is unfaithful,” we might cause them to think, “God is unfaithful.” When we admit we are frail, even when we feel humbled doing so, we let others know that while Christians are imperfect like any other human, God himself is not weak. If others still complain, we have not erred. Only a fool would insult a Christian for being as frail as other people are. None of us can give all the time, although some people do make such demands of Christians. That is simply unfair and foolish.
Remember, Satan attacks us because we are in the way of his main assault, God. And if Satan can get us to take all the credit for our gifts and abilities, we will be worse than arrogant. We will be obscuring God from others’ sight. We must not deny our abilities and insult ourselves. We simply need to thank God for enabling us to do what we do. Then we can still enjoy people’s loving affirmation of our talents, but also shine the light of God’s gifting us with those talents, (Matt. 5:16, “Let your light shine before men so they can see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”)
Please do not feel guilty; we cannot make every conversation about God. On many occasions we have limited time to interact with others. But any time we can slip in some good words about how Jesus has blessed us, we can intrigue others to think about him. And if we ask others questions about themselves, and truly love them, our words about the Lord will have impact.
We must never personalize Satan’s attacks against us, since they are first directed at God. He only attacks us because of his hatred for God, (John 15:18, “If the world hates you, keep in mind it hated me first.”) We must never fear Satan or think he has specially singled us out due to our weaknesses or strength. It is Jesus in us he hates. If Satan can encourage us to deny our weaknesses or stop shining in our talents (in any area, from work to play) he can actually stop us from speaking about God.
While we can’t talk about our weaknesses and talents with everyone, sometimes these qualities cannot be hidden. Then we must never feel shame for being weak or strong. In our weakness, we can tell others we have to rely on God. In our strength, we can rejoice God gave these strengths to us.
In closing, I want to remind you, Satan loves to keep us from speaking about God, because Satan hates God. Satan wants to coax us to talk about anyone or anything but Jesus. Then Satan is happy for us to speak up. And when Satan attacks us, he likes to trick us into thinking he has a personal vendetta against just us. He does not. His number one vendetta is with God. He only attacks us, because we honor God. So when we understand Satan’s goals and schemes, we can counter them. Then we will bring God the glory and find his comfort for us. God adores us and will protect us. We will be OK, because God is on our side, and remember, Jesus said in John 10:27-29, “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one can snatch them away from me, for my Father has given them to me, and he is more powerful than anyone else. No one can snatch them from the Father’s hand.” No one is more powerful than our heavenly Father. Satan cannot snatch us from him, even though Satan hates God.
I pray we have blessed you with this post this week! Thanks for reading it.