The Best Of Greek For The WeekSample

Satan Can’t Escape His Troubles 

Satan is thrown down, but some Christians don’t realize it. They say things like, “Satan is just lying to me today,” “The devil is making me anxious,” and “The enemy keeps telling me I’m no good.” Can you relate to this?

While we experience spiritual attacks throughout our Christian lives, we shouldn’t be intimidated. God’s Word makes it clear that Satan has been defeated and we don’t need to fear him. 

In Revelation, we are given a description of a spiritual conflict: God’s holy army versus Satan and his forces. Naturally, Satan is defeated: “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…” (Revelation 12:9 esv). However, the Greek says something a tad different. Before I tell you what it says, I need to explain something. In Biblical Greek, there is no word order when writing sentences. So in the Greek, Revelation 12:9 reads this way: “Thrown down the great dragon, the ancient serpent, the one called the devil even Satan, who leads the world astray, he was thrown down…” You’ll notice the sentence begins and ends with “thrown down,” and sandwiched between are all the titles of our enemy! A reader in biblical times would know the devil was in a heap of trouble. His downfall had closed in on him and there was no room for escape. The armies of God had dealt a crushing blow. From this point forward, the readers of Revelation would associate Satan as a weakened foe. What a powerful picture! God wants us to associate the enemy with total, complete, embarrassing defeat.

Is this how you view the devil? When you consider him, do you take into consideration the magnitude of his overthrow? Or does your mind give him a position of power that God’s Word tell us he doesn’t have? If the latter is the case, you need to renew your mind to the truth about Christ’s victory in your life. Instead of counting all the bad things the enemy has done to you, meditate on the Bible and the saving work of Christ. Remember, Satan is the one dealing with defeat on both sides, not you. So maintain your ground, hold your head up high, and rejoice in all the good things that God has given you in Christ. You are victorious with Him.