Topical Studies
Satan's Kingdom
(From Forerunner Commentary)
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First, before all else, the God Family created angels. Angels are spirit beings, immortal, with power of mind superior to human. God creates in dual stages. Angel life was not completed until character had been formed within them. Character may be defined as the ability of a conscious thinking entity to choose the way of life of outflowing love—God's law—and to will to live that way of life, even under outside contrary pressure or contrary self-desire. Once character had been formed and lived, angels, composed of spirit, could never change. I compare it to the pouring of cement or concrete. When first poured its form and shape changes—but once "set," it is hardened and cannot be reshaped or formed. Scriptures indicate a third of the angels were placed on the earth prior to final formation of their character. Following the initial creation of angels, God created the physical universe. Chapters one and two of Genesis state that the earth and the heavens—the physical universe with galaxies—were all created in the same day. Job 38 says plainly the earth was created when angels had been previously created. God placed a throne of government on the earth. Both Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 reveal the cherub Lucifer being placed on the throne of the earth. II Peter 2:4 reveals that angels sinned. Lucifer was a super archangel. Lucifer had been trained in the administration of God's government on the very throne of God in heaven. He was supremely beautiful, dazzling in brightness. Vanity seized him. Vanity is self-glory, self-centeredness, concern for self even to the point of hostility toward others. He became jealous, envious, resentful, and hostile against God his Creator. He turned hostile to the law of God. He turned to a way of life of vanity, covetousness, envy, rivalry, competition, violence, and destruction. And this hostile way of life is itself a law. It is the law of vanity, self-concern, "do your own thing," rebel against the authority of God. That, then, became the basic law of the government of Lucifer, whose name was changed to Satan the Devil. The name Satan means "adversary." So the government of God on the earth had been replaced by the government of Satan. This sin of the angels, now called demons, brought on them the penalty of perversion of mind, bitterness, anger, wrath—but they had been created immortal. Their character now "set" as evil, being spirit beings, they can never change. Forever they must suffer the torture of such perverted and unhappy minds. Their sin brought physical chaos, decay, ruin, and darkness to the physical earth.
Herbert W. Armstrong (1892-1986)
A World Held Captive
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Genesis 3:1-6 (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up)
Though God had warned them of the penalty of eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, Eve was persuaded by the Devil's clever arguments to eat of the fruit that led to self-centeredness and death! Adam also willingly ate the forbidden fruit. Whether Adam fully realized it or not, he thus lost his opportunity to conquer Satan and replace him as ruler of this world. Instead, Adam obeyed Satan, placing himself under Satan's government.
Pentecost: Only 'Firstfruits' Now Called!
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Matthew 4:8-9 (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up)
This and the other verses we have read clearly show that Satan is the ruler of this present evil world, but he retains that power only by God's express permission. God has assigned Satan 6,000 years in which to rule over mankind. When that time expires, Christ will forcibly intervene in world affairs and reestablish the government of God on earth. He will then rule the world for the next 1,000 years. Thus God's plan spans a period of one prophetic "week," since a day is as a thousand years with God, and a thousand years as a day (II Peter 3:8). God has said to Satan, in effect: "Six 'days' shalt thou labor, and do all thy work: but the seventh 'day' is the Sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work" (Exodus 20:9-10). The first six days of this prophetic week God has turned over to Satan, and given him free rein to influence and deceive. Satan's work is a labor of deception—of deceiving mankind—of turning God's truth upside down—causing honest, sincere people to accept a counterfeit for the genuine—deceiving people to sin. And how successfully he has worked at his occupation for nearly 6,000 years! We are now nearing the end of Satan's six millennial days of work. And the coming seventh millennial day shall be the Sabbath of the Lord God. That "day" will not belong to Satan. It belongs to God. In it, Satan shall not do any work. He will be chained, restrained, and thrown into the symbolic "bottomless pit" (Revelation 20:1-3). He will not be allowed to deceive anyone during the Millennium. When Christ returns to earth, He will seize rulership from the archdeceiver who has deceived and swayed humanity. Christ will then restrain the builder and ruler of this world's civilization and bind him for 1,000 years!
Staff
Is This the Only Day of Salvation?
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Matthew 12:25-26 (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up)
The demons are a kingdom divided against themselves. Jesus is addressing a challenge that the demon He had just cast out of this person had been cast out by Satan. Jesus' argument is, "No, Satan would never cast out Satan." It would be stupid for Satan to cast himself out. He is not saying that under every condition Satan or other demons will not cast out other demons. Indeed, that does occasionally take place. They are very capable of doing signs and lying wonders. They can make it look as though somebody has been healed, when God has not done the healing at all, but simply by the removal of one demon by a demon of greater power. One of the things that saves us is that the demons are divided against themselves. Because they are a kingdom divided against themselves, they cannot stand—they cannot get their act together because their character is such that they are always in competition with each other. We can understand this when we recognize that the governments and most of humanity has been subject to and deceived by demons. Carnal, human nature, is a reflection of the nature of Satan and his demons. What fruit does that produce among men? Can men get along? No. The other side of the coin is that the beings who inspire, guide, direct, or motivate men not to get along with one another cannot get along with themselves either! The only thing that keeps them unified is that at the head of this organization is a demon of such awesome power that he is able to whip them into line from time to time to carry out his bidding. He does it by sheer force. They do not serve in love of him. They are a kingdom divided against themselves. They will fall and that is an advantage to us. Being rebellious, they are disorganized. They cannot get their act together. Far more important is they know God exists, and they tremble before Him. They are therefore restrained.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Satan (Part 1)
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Ephesians 2:1-3 (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up)
In this chapter's first ten verses, Paul is showing that the children of God—us—who were once objects of God's wrath, are by His grace legally and spiritually freed from the clutches of Satan's dominion. However, the influences of the world Satan has fashioned remain to be dealt with and overcome. Satan is described as a spirit who is "prince of the power of the air." This phrase has a familiar ring to it, but alternative translations may be better suited to understanding. The New English Bible calls him "commander of the spiritual powers of the air now at work among God's rebel subjects." The Concordat Literal New Testament renders it as "chief of the jurisdiction of the air, the spirit now operating in the sons of stubbornness." Webster's gives as one of the usages for jurisdiction, "the limits, or territory within which authority may be exercised." This particular jurisdiction is where air exists, tying in with the word "heavenly" in Ephesians 6:12: "[We wrestle] against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places." Here, "heavenly" refers, not to the place of God's throne, but to the first heaven, the air surrounding the earth in which birds fly. This also links with Revelation 18:2 and its "unclean and hated birds," symbolizing demons. Birds operate in the same heaven Satan commands. God gave Satan and his demon assistants substantial authority over everything from the earth's atmosphere on down to the earth itself, which includes us, its inhabitants. We must never forget that, in large part, our wrestling, as Paul terms it, is with these spirits. We inhabit the same space they do. These evil spirits indeed use deceived people to carry out their plans to destroy those in whom God lives. These people are likely under the strong influence of those spirit authorities, and because they are deceived, they are unaware that they are being used! They are not necessarily possessed, as the Bible shows some are, but influenced by demons to act against our best interests. A factor God wants us to realize more completely and fully is that we are not alone in this ocean of air. Even as vicious sharks and barracuda prowl the water, their demonic counterparts, symbolized as foul and unclean raptors and carrion-eaters, inhabit the ocean of air right along with us. It is essential to our spiritual well-being to heed Paul's warning in Ephesian 6:10-12 that our battles are against these creatures, and they are fighting tooth-and-toenail to hang on to what they believe is theirs by first-occupancy rights. Earth, the Bible plainly tells us, was "their first estate" (Jude 6, KJV). They hate us because we are becoming like the Father and Son, and because they know this earth, our inheritance, will be taken from them and given to the sons of God, those who are in His image. On the surface, they have advantages over us because they are invisible to our eyes. In addition, they can, without our even being aware, communicate their thoughts and attitudes to our minds through the very air that supports our lives. Most people in this world do not know they are deceived or how they became deceived. Satan and his demons have not sat us all down to tell us, "We are here to deceive you." We know only because God's Word reveals this truth to us, and we believe it. Despite this happening in our lives, deception can still be communicated to us unless we are astute enough to take care that it does not happen again. Nevertheless, deception and its resulting behaviors have been communicated to us through the culture we were born into. The culture, the world around us, is the medium of this corrupting communication. We have been freed from deception by God's revelation of Himself, but the urgent admonition from our Lord and Savior is, "Don't be passive concerning the responsibilities your liberation has imposed. Take action because the communication can be reabsorbed, enslaving you once again."
John W. Ritenbaugh
Communication and Leaving Babylon (Part One)
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1 John 5:19 (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up)
"Lies in wickedness" should be translated "lies [under the sway of] the wicked one," as the New King James has it. John makes an all-inclusive statement of Satan's position in terms of the earth. The wicked one, the Devil, holds authority over all operations of all cultural systems on earth. He is the king, he holds authority, over what the Bible calls "the world."
John W. Ritenbaugh
What I Believe About Conspiracy Theories
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Revelation 13:1-18 (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up)
Chapter 13 begins with a very colorful, almost overpowering, vision showing an overview of the political system that Satan works through. There is just enough given here to connect this with the Daniel 2 and 7. What arises in Revelation 13 actually has its beginnings long before Jesus Christ, all the way back to Nimrod, showing a definite time progression. This is the system that rears its head at the end time, but the vision is given so that we will understand that this is the system that Satan has always worked through.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Revelation 10 and the Laodicean Church
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Revelation 13:11 (Go to this verse :: Verse pop-up)
The book of Revelation foretells that at the time of the end, in the last few years of Satan's dominion over the earth, a religious personality will arise and deceive the whole world by means of miraculous signs. This individual is referred to as "another beast" (Revelation 13:11), as well as "the false prophet" (Revelation 16:13; 19:20; 20:10). The False Prophet is given supernatural power to do things like calling fire down from heaven (Revelation 13:13), and the signs he performs, combined with the demonic words he speaks (Revelation 16:13-14), will cause people to give their allegiance to—and even worship—the Beast (Revelation 13:14). This man will wield tremendous religious influence, and inspired by the Dragon, he will successfully convince most of the world to commit idolatry (Revelation 13:12). The Bible does not reveal the False Prophet's name or even the number of his name, as it does for the Beast. Instead, we will have to recognize him by his fruits—by what he says and does (Matthew 7:15-20). Yet, even this is a tricky proposition. For instance, the False Prophet will be able to call down fire from heaven, and yet Elijah, a true prophet of God, did the same (I Kings 18:36-38). If we see a man calling fire down from heaven, how do we know whether he is true or false? The end time is prophesied to be full of deceptions (Matthew 24:11), and the elect will not be totally immune to having the wool pulled over their eyes (Matthew 24:24; Mark 13:22). It will take careful evaluation to see through the façade and to recognize Satan's servants for what they are, rather than what they appear to be (II Corinthians 11:14-15). The details given about the False Prophet are few. However, if we understand the patterns and motivations that the Bible reveals about the class of people called "false prophets," we will be better equipped to recognize the general mold that the end-time False Prophet will fit.
David C. Grabbe
What Is a False Prophet?
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