Church of God, New World Ministries

The Truth About Satanism - Part 2

Is there a devil? Is he real, an actual living, functioning, thinking spirit-being, living in a different dimension from we humans, yet just as real?

The answer is YES, and the answer is based on clinical, laboratory, scientific evidence: on the veracity of the Bible itself, on biblical history, on archaeology, on geology, and on the testimony of too many thousands of eye witnesses to count!

First, God exists! There are literally thousands of incontrovertible proofs of the existence of a divine, all-wise, all-powerful, Creator Being! These thousands of proofs are represented by the whole picture of the true science of historic and dynamic geology, biology, mineralogy, physics, and a host of other disciplines.

Quickly, here are seven proofs God exists, into which all the hundreds of other proofs may be included: 1) Creation itself; the universe, our solar system, the earth and all life upon it, demands the existence of a Creator. 2) Laws, such as the laws of the conservation of matter, the laws of thermodynamics, the laws of biogenesis: gravity, the magnetic polarity of the earth, isostacy; too many active, living, powerful, dynamic laws to begin to count, demand the existence of a Great Lawgiver! 3) Life, in all its myriad forms, demands the existence of a Great Lifegiver! 4) The intricacy of design, the solar system, all the physical sciences, which deal with everything from astrophysics to nuclear physics, from biology to astronomy, from geology to paleontology, from mineralogy to microbiology. 5) The sustaining of all these forces and energies; the laws which operate so dependably – never failing, never changing; these required a “hands on” Sustainer! 6) Answered prayer is a great proof of God – and the fact that demons are cast out of people in the name of Jesus Christ proves there is a God of great power, who is alive! 7) Fulfilled prophecy – the scope of all history from the most ancient civilizations, documented by the archaeologists’ spade, attested to by the great prophets of the Bible, is a great proof of God!

Each of these seven is a vast subject, capable of being expanded into literally hundreds of books of encyclopedia length! Yes, God does exist and the proof of Him is everywhere about. Paul wrote: “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.

“For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse; Because that, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful: but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened, Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorrupitble God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things” (Rom. 1:18-23).

God is revealed by studying His creation, as the seven proofs above indicated! Then, one must study God’s Word: come to see its divine inspiration, its authenticity! God’s Word has much to say about Satan; about his original state, his appearance; how he was worshipped by ancient civilizations, how he is worshipped today, and how Satanism will become even more rampant in the future! In these series of articles, you will truly see the shocking truth about Satanism!

Many treat the entire subject of the existence of a “devil” as humorous: perhaps quaint, folksy – a capricious tale from mythology with which people can have “fun.”

Who has not seen the weird costumes at Hallowe’en with wicked-looking horns, red body stockings, long pointed tail and pitchfork? Who does not recall people referring a naughty child as “a little devil,” or eat “devil’s food cake,” or seeing geologic phenomena referred to as “the devil’s punch bowl’? A familiar exclamation to some is, “the devil you say!” and a man down on his luck is said to be a “poor devil.”

Everyone laughed when Flip Wilson quipped, “The devil made me do it!” But there is nothing funny about the devil. He is real. He is the embodiment of all evil: an intelligent, perverted spirit being who opposes all righteousness; the father of lies and deceit, and the accuser of the brethren of God’s church.

Originally, the fallen archangel who is called Satan was a beautiful, wondrous cherub, assigned the fabulous position as one of the honor guards about God’s own throne. Notice the description of this great archangel: “Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. Thou hast been in Eden the Garden of God, every precious stone was thy covering . . . . the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee from the day thou was created.

“Thou art the anointed cherub that covers: and I have set thee so: thou was upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou was perfect in thy ways from the day that thou was created till iniquity was found in thee.

“By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled thee with violence, and thou have sinned: therefore, I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.

“Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness” (Ezk. 28:12-17). Here, the prophecy against the king of Tyre blends into an anti-typical reference to Satan’s origins.

Anciently, Lucifer (meaning, “Light Bringer,” or Shining Star of the Dawn”) was one of three archangels placed about God’s throne. The other two are named Gabriel and Michael, and each had under his control one third of the countless millions of angels: “And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, have seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. And his tail drew a third part of the stars of heaven and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman (a type of the church, and reference to the virgin Mary) which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born” (Rev. 12:1-4).

Notice Isaiah’s reference to Satan: “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which did weaken the nations!

“For thou hast said in thine heart, ‘I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne about the stars (all other angels) of God: I will also sit upon the mount of the congregation in the side of the north: I will ascend about the clouds: I will be like the most high’ “(Isa. 14:12-14)!

Lucifer, one of the three archangels, was a created being; a spirit being, given never-ending life as a spirit, originally assigned to a great position next to God’s throne. The Bible says Lucifer was extremely beautiful; that he somehow became corrupted by that beauty – that jealousy, vanity, greed, ego – a desire to overthrow God from His throne, to steal God’s position – possessed him. He influenced his angels, and a titanic battle beyond our human ability to imagine ensued!

This was the real “star wars”! A mind-boggling struggle took place in which the whole universe was wrecked! As we saw in Revelation 12, Lucifer’s angels fought against God, and the other two archangels and all their hosts. The result was Lucifer being hurled back down to this earth, where he wrought terrible destruction! Do you believe the words of your Saviour? Jesus said: “I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven” (Luke 10:18)!

Originally, this earth was a place of order, beauty, harmony. Notice the proof: “In the beginning God created (Hebrew bara) the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form (Hebrew; tohu), and void (Hebrew; bohu): and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters” (Gen. 1:1).

When we are ushered onto the scene of the Adamic creation, we see a ruined world, lifeless, the continents submerged beneath the seas – utter blackness; thick-clouds mantling the earth like a Venusian atmosphere. God’s first act of Re-creation (for that is what it was – the original creation of the earth could have been billions of years earlier) was to command “Let there be light” (Gen. 1:3).

The word “was” is an erroneous translation. Many Bible commentaries and other study helps make this clear. The word should have been rendered “became.” Let’s notice the biblical proof: “For thus saith the Eternal that created the heavens; God Himself that formed the earth and made it; He hath established it. He created it not in vain, He formed it to be inhabited: I am the Eternal: and there is none else (Isa. 45:18)! Here, the identical Hebrew word, which is rendered “vain” is used as was used in Genesis 1:1. So internal biblical proof tells us that, even though we see a vain, empty, waste, lifeless, chaotic, water-filled earth of darkness when God begins the creation week in Adam’s time, the earth was not created that way, originally! He said He did not create the world “tohu,” yet Genesis 1:1 says it was “tohu,” or void, waste!

How did the world become dark, lifeless, chaotic, since it was not originally created that way? As a result of Satan’s rebellion! Like a foretaste of what ultimately awaits Satan, God forced His former archangel and all his rebellious angels to be confined to this earth for an unimaginable period of time prior to the creation of man!

Geologic evidence proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that the earth underwent many, many inundations; that the bulk of all the rocks of the earth are sedimentary in nature (water deposited); that the continents may have been joined in one great land mass as some remote period.

Paleontology absolutely proves there were many great “die-offs” of various creatures, and that each one occurred suddenly, as the result of a great catastrophe. We would urge those who are curious about the true geologic history of the earth to read books like The Deluge Story in Stone by Nelson; How the World Began by Price; Evolutionary Geology and New Catastrophism by the same author; The Genesis Flood by Whitcomb and Morris; Ages in Chaos by Immanuel Velikovsky and others.

No single fact of geology presents clearer proof of the sudden catastrophic disappearance of billions of creatures than the end of the age of dinosaurs! Much of the world’s oil reserve are nothing more than the fossil relics of these bygone ages, wherein this earth teemed with life of hundreds of extinct species which were suddenly buried by massive catastrophes, including massive floods!

For perhaps billions of years, Satan and his demons ruled over an earth which contained no humans; perhaps only pre-adamic life forms, which could have included the dinosaurs, and many thousands of species, including pterodactyls, gigantic lizards, amphibians; perhaps the bulk of the billions of animals that were buried in catastrophes in the past, and whose bodies have provided mankind with his vast reserves of fossil fuels, oil, natural gas, and coal.

From the time of the earlier perfect state of the earth, as described in Ezekiel 28 and Isaiah 14, uncounted billions of years may have elapsed until the day God’s Spirit brooded over the “face of the deep,” which was utterly black; stygian beneath thick, lowering clouds. During all these millennia, the earth underwent lengthy geologic periods; the continents were raised and lowered, drifted this way and that; mountains were formed, then sunk; new mountains formed again.

Today, one may find fossil forms of life on the very highest mountains on earth, including the Alps and Rockies; fossils like ammonites, graptolites, trilobites, shellfish, snails, clams which were once dwellers on the bottom of shallow seas.

For aeons, Satan and his demons beheld only darkness, storm-tossed seas, following the final inundation prior to Adam, when God said, “Let the dry land appear,” and the continents were raised once again. Had earlier inundations been the result of Satan’s continual rebellion? Had God visited the ancient, pre-adamic world from time to time, only to behold the chaos which Satan had produced, and then destroyed the works of Satan by a flood? Perhaps we shall discover a clue, in a little-understood event.

Watch for the next installment in this series.

 
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