Saturday

Its 7o degrees here in Dallas. I have been training in my new Job all week. I also wrote a paper on the history of Satan. That involved reading lot of early Christian/Medieval writing about Satan and his activity. An interesting subject, especially since in our day a vast majority do not believe in the existence of Satan.

Our society is preoccupied with pleasure, happiness, and instant gratification. A hallmark of our time is that when things do not go our way we are far more likely to blame God than to associate our predicament with the powers of evil. I admit that as I wrote the paper I realized that I myself do not think about Satan very often. In fact I really had no idea what I thought about him. I also generally do not think that he is out to get me, or that he is someone who I should be concerned with.

But then you have the writings of the desert fathers like Anthony who tell of physical fist fights with Satan, or demons taking the form of sexy women and attempting to seduce them while in prayer. Maybe we would have similar experiences if we were to practice asceticism while living in solitude in the desert. Who knows. All I know is that throughout history Christians have believed that Satan exists, and that he is a force to be reckoned with while on the earth.

I thought of the passage in Hebrews 11:6 that says: "without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him." By tweaking it I can summarize my conclusions regarding Satan: If anyone is to resist Satan, they must acknowledge that he exists, and will destroy those who are ignorant of his schemes. Satan is likely very pleased that by in large he is treated like Santa Clause or the Easter Bunny in our day.