Should Christians Be Afraid of Satan and Demons?
Listen to the podcast episode: https://open.spotify.com/episode/11QS1IufXyF4W1sNLisvB9
No, Christians don't need to live afraid of Satan and demons. They are real, and the Bible takes them seriously, but they are not the bad guy of the Bible's story. Sin is. Satan is a fallen angel, not an equal to God, and for everyone who trusts Jesus, He has already answered every accusation Satan can bring. If we trust Jesus and stay away from sin, we don't have to worry about Satan or demons.
This is the second message in Side Quests, a short series where we step away from preaching through a book of the Bible to cover topics Christians talk about that don't fit neatly into a verse-by-verse study. Last week was the rapture and the tribulation. This week is Satan and demons, and since it came up around Halloween, we talk about that, too.
The Real Bad Guy in the Bible Is Sin
We want a clear good guy and a clear bad guy, so we look for the one in the black helmet and cape. Most people say it's Satan. He is definitely a bad guy, possibly the worst in the history of the universe, but he is not the bad guy of the Bible's story. That idea owes more to pop culture than to Scripture. A better comparison is A Christmas Carol, where the villain is Scrooge's own greed.
Picture the Bible as a dad who takes his kids to the beach and tells them to stay out of the dangerous water. The riptides, rocks, and sharks are all out there, but the sharks only become a problem if you go in the water. The bad guy of that story is disobedience. Take the sharks out, and the water is still dangerous. In the third chapter of the Bible, we decide to go swimming. The Bible is the story of God rescuing people from sin, not God fighting Satan over the universe.
So, if this is true, why talk about Satan at all? He is not the focus of the Bible, but he is still dangerous. Our ideas about him come more from Greek mythology than from the Bible (Satan torturing people in Hell is Hades and his minions). We need a biblical view, not a pop culture one.
Who Is Satan?
Satan is a title, not a name. It means "the adversary," and the other names we use for him are descriptions, too. We don't really know his name. The Old Testament drops clues about him without explaining them, and the New Testament connects the dots.
The Serpent in the Garden
He first appears in Genesis 3 as a talking snake, and nothing in the story says it's him, but the curse hints that more is going on.
The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”
Genesis 3:14-15
The first half is a punishment on an animal. The second half only makes sense if more than a snake is involved, because a snake can't have a cosmic battle with Eve's descendants. Readers back then knew something was off, but not what.
The Dragon Revealed
We have to go to the other end of the Bible to find out who the serpent really is.
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
That is where the two dots get connected: the ancient serpent is Satan.
The Adversary in Job
In Job, Satan shows up in God's throne room, but the people reading it then saw an angel whose job was to be an adversary and test people, not a fallen angel. God points out Job as His best servant, Satan says Job is only faithful because life is easy, and God gives permission to take it all away. We learn there is an opponent of people, and not much more.
The King Who Wanted to Be Like God
Isaiah 14 starts by describing the king of Babylon, then shifts.
How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low! You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’
Isaiah 14:12-14
A king with a clear birth date isn't the Day Star who sets his throne above the angels. In this kind of writing, stars refer to angels. The passage has moved on to someone who was in Heaven and opposed God.
The Guardian Cherub in Eden
Ezekiel does the same with the king of Tyre, a small island nation with a lot of power.
Moreover, the word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, raise a lamentation over the king of Tyre, and say to him, Thus says the Lord God: “You were the signet of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God; … You were an anointed guardian cherub. I placed you; you were on the holy mountain of God; in the midst of the stones of fire you walked. You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created, till unrighteousness was found in you. In the abundance of your trade you were filled with violence in your midst, and you sinned; so I cast you as a profane thing from the mountain of God, and I destroyed you, O guardian cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. Your heart was proud because of your beauty; you corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor. I cast you to the ground; I exposed you before kings, to feast their eyes on you.
Ezekiel 28:11-17
A human king doesn't walk in Eden as a guardian cherub. Someone else is being described.
Putting the Clues Together
For about 500 years between the Old Testament and the Gospels, people heard nothing from God, and they started making things up. One was a chief of demons they called Beelzebub, the name of a Philistine god. Jesus corrects them. He says He saw Satan fall from Heaven, and when He is accused of working for Beelzebub, He names Satan instead.
Put together, Satan was a beautiful guardian cherub, possibly over Eden, which would explain his access to Eve. He rebelled, tried to take God's throne, and took a third of the angels with him. Hell was created as their punishment, not ours. We end up there because we broke the same law. That means Satan and the demons won't be torturing anyone there. They will be the ones being punished, alongside those who rejected Jesus.
Satan also keeps partnering with something else, whether a snake, a king, or in Revelation the Antichrist, and both are punished. His story ends after the tribulation. Jesus returns, throws him into a temporary Hell called the pit, and reigns for a thousand years. Then Satan is released, raises an army, is defeated, and is thrown into the final Hell.
What Satan Does to Us
The Accuser
So, what does Satan have to do with us? Zechariah shows us.
Then he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him.
Zechariah 3:1
Revelation calls Satan the accuser of our brothers, and that is his job. In the Bible's picture of judgment, God is the Judge, we are the accused, and Satan accuses us of sin. He doesn't have to make anything up, and he's right. We are guilty, and the punishment is Hell and death.
Then Jesus steps in as our advocate. He doesn't argue that we're good people or that we tried hard. He says yes, they are guilty, but I have already taken the punishment, and that one is Mine. God doesn't declare us innocent. He says, "It is finished," and we are released and given new life.
What Are Demons?
Demons are fallen angels, the third that went with Satan. We see little of them in the Old Testament and much more in the Gospels.
Demons in the Old Testament
The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.
Genesis 6:4
"Sons of God" always refers to angels in the Old Testament, so angels and women had children, and the Nephilim were giants. We know they weren't just famous warriors because they were still around after the flood. The Anakim, descendants of the Nephilim, met Israel in the Promised Land, and later came Goliath.
Some object because Jesus said angels don't marry, but not marrying doesn't mean not having children. Others say "sons of God" means Seth's line, but normal parents don't produce giants, and if it were just Noah's bloodline, we would all be Nephilim. I don't especially want this to be true, but there is no other conclusion that I can draw. What it means for us is that demons were interacting with people. Paul adds that sacrifices offered to idols are sacrifices to demons, so in the Old Testament demons set themselves up as false gods to draw people away from God.
A Fight We Can't See
Daniel prayed and heard nothing for 21 days.
The prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days, but Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I was left there with the kings of Persia,
Daniel 10:13
The angel says a demon fought him for three weeks until Michael came to help. We could write whole books of pretend theology about that. What we can say for sure, though, is that there is spiritual conflict we know nothing about, and it is above our pay grade. If a YouTube video tells you to start fighting a particular angel, stay away from that nonsense.
In the New Testament, demons are inside people, causing self-harm, violence, muteness, and paralysis. This isn't The Exorcist. People could sometimes still talk and act, and it came and went.
Why the change? The Bible doesn't say. My favorite theory is that demons adapt to the culture. Where people will worship other gods, they pose as gods. In a monotheistic society, they discourage people and lead them away from faith. The final fate of demons is the final Hell with Satan.
Is Halloween Worshiping Demons?
I think no. Elevating or celebrating demons or Satan is a bad idea, but ask this: is watching Home Alone worshiping Jesus? It's a Christmas movie, there are Christmas decorations everywhere, and they give gifts, so why isn't it worship? Because, it may happen at the same time as a celebration of Jesus, but it isn't a celebration of Jesus. Neither is a kid dressing up as a princess on Halloween.
We get offended when people strip Jesus out of Christmas and keep the holiday. If Halloween is Satan's holiday, I'm happy to disrespect him on it by removing every reference to him. If the Holy Spirit leads you to sit Halloween out, follow Him. I respect that. My kids are going to dress up. We are not going to worship or celebrate Satan, but we are going to dress up and have some candy.
Should We Worry About Satan?
Yes and no. Yes, because his role is to accuse us so that God has to find us guilty. Without faith in Jesus standing in your place, you have a huge problem. The thing to worry about is not possession or the devil making you do things. It is that we are guilty, and he has evidence.
The second thing is Peter's warning.
Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
1 Peter 5:8
Peter's instruction is to stay humble and not be open in our sin. Satan isn't going to take over your car or possess a believer. He wants to shake your faith. If you think a little sin isn't a big deal, you are in the water, and he is the shark. He is dangerous not because of him, but because of you.
Should we look for him everywhere? No. He can only be in one place at a time, and probably none of us is important enough for him to bother with. There are other spiritual influences, but don't tell me the devil made you do it. Satan can't do anything to a believer that God doesn't allow, and if God allows it, we can trust Him.
Are Demons Still Active?
There is no reason to think they aren't. The Bible never says they went away. First-century people assumed every struggling person had a demon. Some did, and others were probably drunk or mentally ill. We do the opposite and dismiss everything as mental health. Real mental health problems exist, but there's no reason to assume that everything is mental health and never demonic activity.
Can a Believer Be Possessed?
The Bible never says outright that a believer can't be. But three things point the other way.
First, the New Testament gives churches instructions for dealing with sin and everything else among members, but none of the writers say what to do when a member has a demon. If this were going to be a problem, we would have instructions.
Second, we are no longer under Satan's authority.
He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son,
Colossians 1:13
If we are no longer under his authority, he can't step in and take over.
Third, Jesus described people as houses where an empty one gets a demon, but what moves into us at salvation is the Holy Spirit.
Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
1 Corinthians 6:19-20
The Holy Spirit is not shacking up with a demon. There is no room for one.
Trust Jesus and Stay Out of the Water
Satan is a significant figure in the Bible, in world history, and in the end times, but he is not where our focus belongs. Look at what Christians waste time on, whether on YouTube or Reddit: Bible translations, the end times, and demonology. All three matter in their place, but when they become your hobby, they are there to distract you. So, trust Jesus, stay out of the water, and focus on obeying Him, not fighting demons.
If you have been worried about demonic influence, turn your focus to Jesus. And if you have never put your faith in Him, there will come a time when you stand before God and are accused of your sin. You need Jesus there to say, "They are guilty, but I died in their place," so you can go free. You are in real danger without Him, so place your faith in Jesus today.
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