Revelation Calls Satan "The Deceiver of the Entire World." How Does This Fit with God Being Sovereign and Humans Having Dominion?
Spiritual Warfare Made Simple, Chapter 12, Part 5
Recall the three main principles of spiritual warfare:
God is sovereign
You have dominion
The devil lies
These three principles help you make sense of every spiritual warfare passage and spiritual warfare situation you’ll ever encounter.
Let’s take them into the two examples below to see how.
“Satan, the deceiver of the entire world”
The last book of the Bible, Revelation, reveals many secrets of how the spiritual world operates. One passage describes Satan’s fall from Heaven in detail:
And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. (Revelation 12:9 ESV).
Again, the devil lies.
The devil deceives the whole world, which sounds terrifying, until you remember that humans have dominion. The devil can only deceive us if we do not know the truth or do not want to follow the truth. If we use our dominion to resist him in the truth, his deceptions have no power.
Further, notice the emphasis on the sovereignty of God. Satan was thrown down — by whom? By God, who is completely sovereign. God decides to cast Satan down and there isn’t a thing Satan can do to resist it.
God isn’t afraid of the devil. God isn’t in competition with the devil.
God casts Satan down and the devil can’t do a thing about it.
“As an angel of light”
In his second letter to the Corinthians, Paul discussed humans who had entered the church, making demands and presently themselves falsely. Paul reveals where they receive their inspiration to deceive:
For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. (2 Corinthians 11:14 ESV)
Why would the devil need to disguise himself as an angel?
If the devil had dominion, he could do whatever he wanted. If Satan ruled the world as so many Christians erroneously think, he could do as he pleased without having to appeal to us.
But the devil does not have that kind of power.
The devil needs to deceive us, because we have dominion. He does not.
The devil must lie to get us to do anything. He must pretend to be an angel of light to trick us, in order to deceive us into believing his lies are from God.
He can’t force us to believe lies.
He must trick us.
We have the dominion. If we know the truth and resist him, he cannot touch us. We won’t believe an angel of light spewing lies if we know the truth.
This post comprises the fifth part of Chapter 12 of my book Spiritual Warfare Made Simple. We’ll cover the entire book in this series of blog posts, along with additional content and Q&A. If you’d like a permanent copy for yourself or a friend, you can grab the ebook or paperback here!
