Know About the Enemy

I believe the three greatest challenges we face as Christians are:


1. Know God (be journeying on that quest.) Scripture is clear: nothing is more important than knowing God. God speaking in Hosea 6:6 (TLB) says: "I don’t want your sacrifices - I want your love; I don’t want your offerings - I want you to know me."

2. Know self. It is impossible to integrate knowledge of God without knowing self. The Psalmist’s prayer of 139:23-4 "Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."

3. We’ve examined the topics of knowing God and knowing self. The third segment of our study is: Know about the enemy. Examine with me, the enemy and his product: evil

CS Lewis writes in Joyful Christian, “God made all things good and for the sake of goodness; that one of the good things He made, namely, the free will of rational creatures, by its very nature included the possibility of evil; and that creatures, availing themselves of the possibility, have become evil.”
Lewis is saying that in God’s creation of goodness, He gave humans free will to choose. With that ability to choose, rational creatures have availed themselves of the potential of choosing evil and in the process have become evil.


In Genesis 8:21, we hear God saying, Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood.

The Source of Evil
The origination of evil and the ultimate example of this choice for evil is satan. The Bible has other names for him: the devil, accuser, adversary, angel of the bottomless pit, god of this world, murderer, prince of devils, prince of the power of the air, prince of this world, ruler of darkness, tempter, unclean spirit, wicked one.

So who is satan?
His origination -
Ezekiel 28:11-15 The word of the LORD came to me (Ezekiel): "Son of man, take up a lament concerning the king of Tyre (another name for satan) and say to him: 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: "'You were the model of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone adorned you: ruby, topaz and emerald, chrysolite, onyx and jasper, sapphire, turquoise and beryl. Your settings and mountings were made of gold; on the day you were created they were prepared. You were anointed as a guardian cherub, for so I ordained you. You were on the holy mount of God; you walked among the fiery stones. You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created till wickedness was found in you.

Satan, the model of perfection until wickedness took over.

Tomorrow we look at satan's problem.