Satan’s Armour

Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. If He was to do so, He must deliver them from Satan’s power. And, while He was on earth, He showed that power by driving out devils from those who were possessed by them. Following one occasion when He exercised this power, Jesus told the Jews: “When a strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace” (Lk 11:21). The strong man armed is Satan; his goods are sinners whom he is keeping in his kingdom; his armour is both defensive and offensive, but we will confine ourselves in this article to considering Satan using his power to create and maintain unbelief in the hearts of human beings. While he can maintain that unbelief, “his goods are in peace” – he keeps them in his kingdom; they do not escape. It needs a stronger power than Satan’s to deliver them from his kingdom, and that stronger power is Christ’s; no other power is sufficient.

Satan was created perfect, but he fell into sin and drew other angels, also created holy, into sin. He then entered the Garden of Eden with a purpose to bring the first two human beings into a state of unbelief. The Saviour said of him: “He is a liar, and the father of it” (Jn 8:44). Deceitfully, he asked Eve the question, “Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” (Gen 3:1), a question that was intended to bring about unbelief in her heart, the first step in a life of sin. In that aim, the evil one was entirely successful; she and Adam fell from that state of perfection in which they had been created. They were now unbelievers, living a life of sin and rebellion against the good God, who had put them in a situation where everything was provided for them, not only in temporal things, but also in spiritual – though it was possible for them to fall from that state of perfection. But powerful though the strong man armed was, it was revealed to them that there was deliverance from his kingdom, through the Seed of the woman (Gen 3:15), the One who is altogether stronger than the strong man armed.

Ever since his original success with Adam and Eve, Satan has devoted his considerable powers to keeping sinners in his snare of unbelief, so that he will keep them in his kingdom throughout their lives and bring them down

to be with him in a lost eternity. When the Saviour spoke about him as a liar, He also described him as “a murderer from the beginning”. It was as a murderer that he came into the Garden of Eden to deceive Adam and Eve, and he continues his murderous activities by tempting sinners to continue rejecting what God says to them. Let us consider a number of ways that Satan uses to keep unbelief dominant in today’s society.

1. Satan tempts sinners to reject the fact that God created all things, mankind included. The Bible starts with the fundamental fact: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth” (Gen 1:1). In other words, He created the whole universe and everything in it. And this fundamental fact has significant consequences. It implies that God has authority over all His creatures. Because God created human beings, He has authority to tell everyone how they should live; He has the right to tell us what we should do and what we must not do, how we should speak and how we should think. But people want to feel independent of divine authority; they do not want to be told how they should act, speak and think. So, if they can imagine a theory that gives them an alternative scheme of, in particular, human origins, they can feel free to live as they please – though, in fact, they are in bondage to their lusts and under the dominion of Satan, who wants to bring them down to hell for ever. They have such a theory in evolution: the idea that, over a very long period of time, everything came into its present condition by a very great number of small, cumulative, random changes.

It ought to be totally incredible that any series of random changes, over however long a period, could bring about what is as complex as a human being. Even a single human cell is marvellously complex. David had no inkling of modern scientific knowledge, but he spoke far more wisely than any group of modern evolutionists – no matter how extensive their learning – when he said, “I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are Thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well” (Ps 139:14). We are to resist the temptation to deny God’s creatorship. He made all things; He made us; and He therefore has the absolute right to rule over us.

1. Satan tempts sinners to reject the fact that God has spoken, with complete reliability, in Scripture. It bears witness to itself in the words of the Psalmist, as he addressed the Most High: “Thy word is true from the beginning” (Ps 119:160). From the time that Moses first began to be “moved by the Holy Ghost”, or carried along as a sailing ship is carried along by the wind, these “holy men of God” faithfully wrote exactly what God was minded to reveal to mankind. Satan propagates the idea that the Bible is out of date and therefore is irrelevant in this modern, scientific age. But it is not irrelevant. Scientific theories change from one generation to another; that is the nature

of scientific progress. We can assume that scientific conclusions, even if basically correct, will require some degree of refinement.

But every part of the Bible was unchangeably true when it was written; it is still true today. Our understanding of it may improve, but its truths have remained, and will remain, truths to the end of time. We should remember that not only is the general teaching of Scripture inspired, and therefore accurate, but its very words were given by inspiration of God. And those who teach otherwise are doing Satan’s work for him by weakening the trust that people ought to have in the total reliability of the Bible. Satan has been busy tempting people to reject the Bible and its teachings, with the result that virtually “every man [does] that which [is] right in his own eyes” (see Jud 21:25), not what God says is right. Unbelief in the Bible undermines true religion, leaving sinners to ignore their need of salvation from the wrath to come, as they go on heedless of the call to “strive to enter in at the strait gate” (Lk 13:24), and follow the narrow way that leads to heaven.

1. We have already noticed God’s right to tell human beings how they should live. But Satan tempts sinners to reject God’s commandments. In various ages the devil makes a special effort to tempt people to reject particular commandments. Our generation rebels particularly against the Seventh Commandment: “Thou shalt not commit adultery” (Ex 20:14), which prohibits “men with men [and women with women] working that which is unseemly”, or shameless (Rom 1:27).

In the past, in societies that were at least nominally Christian, most adulterers probably recognised that they were doing wrong. But Satan has successfully tempted very many to think they can ignore God’s commands, that they can live as they please, that they can regard marriage as a purely human institution. But no, they have no right to do so. Jesus affirmed the teaching of Genesis 2: “From the beginning of the creation God made them male and female. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife; and they twain shall be one flesh” (Mk 10:6-8). Marriage, as God instituted it, is between one man and one woman. Society may redefine marriage, but every departure from God’s design has dangerous consequences and is sinful – seriously so. Satan’s temptations undermine marriage and so they undermine society and cause much unhappiness. It is one more area of life into which the acid of unbelief has been poured.

1. Satan tempts sinners to reject the call to repent. Christ warns, “Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish” (Lk 13:3). Everyone recognises that all human beings do what is wrong, but Satan is very often successful in persuading sinners to deny their sin – to deny they are doing what is wrong against God. So, while one person may feel obliged to apologise to another,

he may see no need for spiritual repentance – “whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of his sin, and apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, doth, with grief and hatred of his sin, turn from it unto God, with full purpose of, and endeavour after, new obedience” (Shorter Catechism, Ans 87). Through Satan’s temptations, sinners will also deny that wrongdoing has consequences, and that there is any danger of perishing eternally, or indeed that there is anything at all beyond death. Hence the increased prevalence of suicide, surely a fearful example of Satan’s murderous activity, in tempting people to go to a premature death. But if we submit to God’s gracious revelation of the facts of human existence, we will seek to turn from our sins and lay hold of the mercy of God in Christ, who died for sinners.

1. Satan tempts sinners to reject the fact of the day of judgement. But “we must all appear before the judgement seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad” (2 Cor 5:10). This judgement will demonstrate the justice of God in condemning sinners to everlasting punishment, as well as His justice in inviting believers to eternal blessedness. If Satan deceives sinners to believe that there is no judgement and no hell, they assume that they can live as they wish, with no consequences beyond this life. Unbelief in this form is doing terrible damage to the eternal prospects of multitudes. Truly Satan is a murderer of souls.

2. Satan tempts sinners to assume that there is no significant difference between one religion and another. Yet the fact is that there is one true religion and only one. So Peter declared, “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Ac 4:12). In other words, there is no other saviour, none but Christ. And God has preserved these words of Peter in the Bible, for our direction. Satan has been active in tempting people to move away from Christianity to reject all religions, and to move away from the practice of some form of Christianity to multi-faith religion, and to move away from biblical Christianity to some less pure form of it or even to heresy. But God still tells us: “Hold fast the form of sound words” (2 Tim 1:13).

Here we have briefly considered only some of the more significant ways in which the strong man armed uses unbelief to keep sinners in his kingdom. But, however strong he is, there is a stronger than he, “the King of kings”. It is to Him we must look to take away Satan’s armour, putting a great restraint on unbelief and giving the Holy Spirit to create a living faith in Christ Jesus as the Saviour of sinners. We must not despair because of Satan’s power. The Lord encourages us: “Call unto Me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not” (Jer 33:3).