Ezekiel 27:1-28:26, 33:21-33

Here in Ezekiel we meet Satan, a beautifully perfect creation of God, given a special place in God’s heavenly realm. Satan, Ezekiel tell us, walked in the Garden of Eden and on the holy mount of God. He was blameless and anointed, a model of perfection.

And proud of it.

That pride led to Satan’s downfall. He thought he should be a god. God had different ideas about that.

Some of you might think Satan is merely a picture or symbol of evil, that the created being we call the devil doesn’t actually exist. I believe Scripture tells us something quite different. In fact, we are told this being had a conversation with Eve, then later with Jesus Himself.

It makes me sad that this beautiful angel allowed pride and jealousy to tear him away from the Presence of God, to go from being an ordained guardian angel, to the enemy of God.

I take Satan very seriously. But I don’t fear him. I take him seriously in that I know he would like nothing better than to take me down with him. I take his tactics very seriously, the temptations he throws my way.

But I don’t fear him because greater is the One whom I serve, than that old snake crawling around in this world. As long as God is living in me through the blood of Jesus, I have no reason to fear Satan or his arrows.

Satan can’t snatch me out of God’s hands as long as I’ve placed my life in those nail-pierced hands. One day, Satan will come to a horrible end, and I won’t even care because I’ll be looking into the face of my Savior. Satan, this puffed up, self-aggrandizing, wanna be god will be like an insignificant blip in the eternal scheme of things.

Please don’t waste your time on him, don’t fall for his attempts at leading you to his horrible end. Put your hand in God’s, and be the victor. Is Satan real? You bet he is.

But the devil is nothing compared to my awesome, omniscient, omnipresent, eternal, loving, merciful creator God who is going to crush Satan like a bug. Oh, Satan is real all right. But he’s a loser.