How Smart is the Devil ?

[disciple Clint]

This may be so but the Hebrew people believed that God made the Tempter for the sole purpose to test them. Jesus didn't go into the desert to meet up with an Amw*y salesman. Funny how Christianity has lumped an advrersary, a cherub, a tempter and who knows what else into one being.

That was done way back in the O.T.

 

[SamInNi]

When considering our spiritual enemy the very best place to start in Scripture is James 4:7, 8: “...submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you…”

Then consider 1st Peter 5:8: “Be sober and self-controlled; be vigilant and watchful, because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith…”

It’s significant that in James resisting the devil is sandwiched between submitting to God and drawing near to Him. Those who aren’t abiding in Christ—by faith actively and consciously remaining in Him—and serving God as fully as they should, cannot resist the evil one and have him retreat from Christ’s authority.

The powers of evil will back off only because they recognise Christ’s authority in those who serve Him faithfully. Where there is no authority the enemy is not overcome. Compare Acts 19:15 with Mark 1:24, 25. Christ alone is the One Who “commands… the unclean spirits, and they obey Him.”

It’s been said that the devil is a roaring lion without teeth, but this doesn’t tally with Scripture. He is seeking those he might devour because he’s capable of it. Paul handed 3 men over to Satan because he knew that the spirit of wickedness is a powerful and destructive force (but always subject to Christ's authority).

The devil schemes against us to gain an advantage. Our fleshly behaviour and lack of self-control can give him a foothold in our lives. Paul writes about Satan blocking his progress and it was a messenger of Satan that was allowed to give him his thorn in the flesh. And we should note too that our enemy entered Judas and put evil intentions into his mind.

Finally, with the fullness of Scripture teaching in mind, we shouldn’t call Satan “Lucifer”. This misinterpretation has its source in the 1611 King James Version translation of Isaiah 14:12 where a Hebrew word (הילל) was replaced with a Latin word copied from the Vulgate: “quomodo cecidisti de caelo lucifer qui mane oriebaris corruisti in terram qui vulnerabas gentes.” In Latin lucifer means “morning star” or “day star” and the verse from Isaiah refers to a Babylonian king.

 

[Chaleb]

Read Job, satan can do nothing that God does not allow him to do. God is in charge of everything, He is totally sovereign

Do you have free will to murder?
Do you have free will to fall in love?
Do you have free will to respond to my Post?

Is God causing all that by His "Sovereignity"?

No.<

And its the same with the Devil.
He is LOOSE, and is the "god of this world".

Soon he'll be here running the Globe.

 

[timothyu]

That was done way back in the O.T.

And we should note too that our enemy entered Judas and put evil intentions into his mind.

Did not God's plan require someone to betray Jesus so that He may die and be resurrected? What if Jesus had simply turned Himself in?

 

[Chaleb]

Did not God's plan require someone to betray Jesus so that He may die and be resurrected? What if Jesus had simply turned Himself in?

There is a lot of info required to answer your question.
If you were in my Class, then i could take some time, and really dial this in for you.

Here is the condensed version, timothyu.

God's foreknowledge knows what is to come, as = what will happen next., regarding everything that has ever happened or will happen next.
This does not mean God causes it...it only means that God knows the beginning from the end of all things, regarding all situations.

Now, God, does not exist in TIME, as God has no beginning and no end.... but we do exist in time as God created us to exist within a time frame that starts and will stop.....and this Earth and all that is written in the Bible, is created to happen "in Time", and that is happening all the time.

TIME = where we exist as spiritual beings in an Earth Suit.... has a Beginning, and an Ending.

God's Foreknowledge... saw all that would happen when He Created Lucifer and Man, knowing that Lucifer would end up on the Earth and so would Adam.
God's foreknowledge, prepared for the fall of man, by taking full responsibility for the fall of man. And that is the CROSS of CHRIST.
Jesus is GOD on the Cross, dying for the sin of the world........taking full responsibility for Creation, and the Fall.
This is : REDEMPTION.
This does not mean that God caused the fall.......it means that God created man, and understood that giving man divine free will (We are made in God's image).... would lead to a situation that He would have to resolve = as Jesus on the Cross.
God knew from the beginning that He would have to die on the Cross to resolve the fall of us all., so, God became one of us to save all of us who will come to the Cross and receive "the Gift of Salvation".

Now, the entire bible, is God's account of all of that happening, and including what is Yet to come.

Why is the bible here?
To show you The Love of God.
And to prove God's existence based on the Bible showing you what is going to happen and did, and also what is to happen next.

See that?
That is PROPHECY......and all of God Foreknowledge is actually the pages of the Bible, coming to pass and God did it this way to Prove the Truth of His word..... and prove His Existence., and give us a way to go to heaven, as the ONLY WAY is found in the Bible.

John 14:6 = who is God Himself in that verse.

 

[timothyu]

None of that explains if Judas hadn't done what was required of Him where even Jesus said go and do what must be done, then we most likely wouldn't be celebrating Easter... unless Jesus had turned Himself in. Would that have changed the whole God must be betrayed by man narrative?

 

[Chaleb]

None of that explains if Judas hadn't done what was required of Him where even Jesus said go and do what must be done, then we most likely wouldn't be celebrating Easter...

Judas was not a meat puppet dancing on cosmic strings.

C'mon, timothyu.

Think.<

Judus, just like you, had FREE WILL, and God knew what He would do with it, exactly AS GOD knows what you are going to choose to do with the rest of your life.

Judas was not born to betray.......he was born .......and he betrayed, and before He was born, God's foreknowledge, knew that He would.

Jesus, who is God in the Flesh also knew that Judas was a betrayer, and more then that, Judas was evil.
This is Why The God Man, Jesus The Christ said of Judas....."i have chosen you, and ONE of you is a DEVIL."

See that?
That is God, performing His Foreknowledge on Earth, as Jesus.

= Mind Blowing.

 

[timothyu]

Judas was not born to betray.......he was born .......and he betrayed, and before He was born, God's foreknowledge, knew that He would.

That doesn't change the fact that God needed Judas to betray Jesus as part of the plan

 

[Chaleb]

That doesn't change the fact that God needed Judas to betray Jesus as part of the plan

We are all a part of God's plan, or we would not be born.

Here is the mental trap of Calvinism.

Watch...

Calvinism = God causes it all, and you have no free will to choose what shoes you want to wear.

So, if Calvin is true, and he's not.....then Hitler had to kill 6 million Jews., as God choose Him to do it.

So , that makes God who wrote "tho shalt not kill (murder) the author of 6 million dead Jews, as God CAUSED Hitler to do it, according to the Cross Denying J. Calvin.

So, how can God hold Hitler accountable for MURDER, of 6 million, if God caused Hitler to do it?

You'd have to ask J Calvin's Theology, about that one.
I wonder what Calvin thinks you are "predestined" to do ??

= That is Calvin teaching that God is causing the evil, the law breaking, the VERY SIN, that God says we are not to do.

That's "Calvin".
Calvin was out of his mind., and His Theology is as evil as anything can possibly be, that would claim that God causes EVIL, (created it) which is to break all the Commandments, that God Himself Gave to us to keep.

See that "CRAZY"?

That is Theological Insanity created by J. Calvin.
It is literally a MIND Trap.
It's a "doctrine of Devils'.. Hebrews 13:9

Paul says that when a person, unbeliever or believer is caught in this type of belief system... they are "BEWITCHED".

"WHO.... has bewitched you...." Paul teaches....>"that you should not obey the Truth"....

 

[timothyu]

We are all a part of God's plan, or we would not be born.

Still doesn't change the fact that God needed Judas to betray Jesus as part of His plan

 

[disciple Clint]

Do you have free will to murder?
Do you have free will to fall in love?
Do you have free will to respond to my Post?

Is God causing all that by His "Sovereignity"?

No.<

And its the same with the Devil.
He is LOOSE, and is the "god of this world".

Soon he'll be here running the Globe.

satan is in no way as powerful as God and he is very much subject to God, this is all very clear in the Bible.

 

[Hawkins]

This Satan now is nothing more than a cunning maniac desparately putting his full effort in deceiving humans. It's like a maniac clever and dedicated onto but one thing. However at the end, he's powerless against God's Elect. God as a good Shepherd will not leave a single sheep behind, just as He has promised.

From my own speculation, Satan's biggest lie by far is to deceive humans to believe in 'evidence'. Through our education system, Satan made the human intellects think that they should not believe in something without evidence. This is truly deceptive and fallacious at the same time. Most well educated humans buy into this very deception.

The truth on the hand is, humans, as a mass majority, never ever rely on evidence to get to a truth. Almost exclusively, they rely on the different forms of human testimonies to get to a truth. They rely on faith in human testimonies to get to a truth of any kind, including scientific truths.

 

[Chaleb]

satan is in no way as powerful as God and he is very much subject to God, this is all very clear in the Bible.

THe Devil is "god of this world".

Just Look at it.
Its depraved exactly like Satan is depraved.. There is no bottom to the ditch that is humanity which has been subverted and perverted by the Devil.
It will just get worse as we get closer to the Trib.

 

[Chaleb]

From my own speculation, Satan's biggest lie by far is to deceive humans to believe in 'evidence'.

Having to have "evidence' works in opposition to the way God offers Salvation.
"Its by Faith"....> in, "What can't be seen".
God even states in Romans 1, that what we see around us as the universe, came from, originated from... what can't be seen.... Proves God's Existence.

SCEIENCE says...>"if we can't see it, we can't prove it, so it must not be real".

 

[Chaleb]

This Satan now is nothing more than a cunning maniac

Satan's temptation that He offered Eve was to be become like God.....to have supernatural knowledge.. power.

That was Satan's iniquity, one of them, in Heaven. He was power hungry......"I'll exalt myself, my throne, above God".
So, he offered Eve that same type of temptation that is his own lust.

 

[timothyu]

Rev. Calvin Robinson shows how smart the devil is at Oxford Union​