Does Satan Really Exist

Posted by CoolCarGuy on Saturday, April 4, 2009, 20:21 | 416 views

The other night on Nightline there was a face-off debate at Mars Hill Church about whether the diabolical fallen angel Satan really exists.

On one side of the debate was the church’s pastor, Mark Driscoll and his teammate Annie Lobert, a former prostitute and founder of Hooker’s for Jesus.  On the other side, was the evolutionist and Indian guru turned author Dr. Deepak Chopra, along with his team member Bishop Carlton Pearson, a former fundamentalist preacher turned humanist.

If you’re interested, you can watch the entire debate at this Nightline link, but personally I thought it was a waste of time because there were too many problems with the arguments of all the participants.

On the one side were the Christians sharing from their personal experience combined with a great deal of emotion, but very little logic.  At one point, the Pastor and his teammate resorted to talking about how people need to accept Jesus to avoid being cast into Hell with the Devil.  This may be true, but it had nothing to do with proving whether or not Satan exists.  It was like an escape hatch because they couldn’t prove their point.  If you haven’t proved that Satan exists and you start talking about Hell to a group of people who don’t believe in the Devil, why would they care?

On the other side were the “agnostics” or “people who define God based on their own terms”, for lack of a better term, who said things like “Believing in the Devil is primitive.”  So is drinking water and having sex.  Should we stop drinking water and having sex because those are primitive forms of human behavior?

They continued with arguments like, “We must embrace the truth of Evolution and get away from these ancient beliefs based on guilt.” So by not believing in Satan does it prove that the Devil doesn’t exist?  This is like saying, “If you stare at the Sun long enough, you won’t have to believe in the moon.”.   Sure you won’t, because you will be blind, but does that mean that the moon no longer exists because you can’t see it?

None of these parties answered the question as to whether Satan really exists.  Can someone really prove whether Satan really exists?

Many people equate Satan with evil, but mankind is capable of good and evil as was pointed out by both parties in the debate.  According to Wikipedia,  Satan (Standard Hebrew Satan’el, English accuser) is a term that originates from the Abrahamic religions, being traditionally applied to an angel in Judeo-Christian belief, and to a jinn in Islamic belief.

Satan is an angelic being who rebelled against God and is therefore considered a fallen angel, at least that’s how most people in America understand the person of Satan as defined by the Bible.

What do we know about Satan?  Satan hates mankind and would like to destroy human beings, who are made in the image and likeness of God.  If Satan does exist, he certainly is not interested in having people believe in him.  He would be much smarter than any human being since he’s a spiritual being, who has been on planet Earth since man first showed up on the scene, so it would be hard to prove Satan exists based on tangible evidence.  This means you have to look at other types of evidence and have an element of faith based on the circumstantial evidence.

Before you jump off the boat because I mentioned faith, there are many things you can’t prove exist based on tangible evidence. Astronomers and other scientists make this leap all the time, like when they say that there are other planets in the Universe like planet Earth that could support life.  For example, I recently read about a planet that is similar to Earth that is 20.5 light years away. That doesn’t seem very far away does it?  Everyone got all excited, but to put it in perspective traveling at the speed of the Voyager spacecraft it would take 319,000 years to reach that planet!  We just need to evolve a little more and we can maybe make the jump to light speed and reach it in 20.5 years.  The point is that many people believe many things based on faith.

When it comes to Satan, there are few people who have ever encountered Satan himself.  If you believe the Bible, Jesus stated that Satan exists and he encountered him on more than one occasion. Apparently, Jesus was important enough for Satan to make a personal appearance, but for most of us, that isn’t going to happen.  Jesus was also known to cast out demons, often referring to them as agents for Satan.  Satan is found both in the Old and New Testaments.

We know that Jesus lived from historical evidence and he’s considered by most world religions and most people to have been a good man, regardless of whether or not you believe he was the Son of God as he claimed.  Would a good man lie to people that Satan exists when he really doesn’t?  We know that the world is full of sin and evil is all around us and most people actually believe in Satan.

Okay, so the real question people have is not “Does Satan Exist?”, but “Why Does Satan Exist?”.  One of the reasons why people struggle with the existence of Satan is because of what Deepak Chopra said, “God and Satan Define Each Other” that you can’t have one without the other.  Is this true?  Does God need Satan?  According to many preachers and theologians, God allowed the Devil to rebel, so that we could choose between good and evil and we could make a choice to show our love to God.  Is this true?  In fact, the preacher on the Nightline program made this argument.

I’m not picking on him, but if you watch this segment you can see what he said.  He actually made a great theological argument, however it’s not a logical argument for most people because they are looking at Satan from the human perspective.  There is a logical problem with this argument and everyone knows it.  The commentator for Nightline eluded to it when he asked the preacher, “Why doesn’t God just wipe out the Devil?”.  How can a God who claims to be a God of love allow a being to be ultimate evil, so that he could then prove His love to another of his creatures or worse yet use him as an agent against His own Creation?  That just doesn’t make logical sense.

As I’ve said many times before to people. God is a God of logic and reason. If I’m smarter than your god than you should worship me and I’m not looking for anyone to follow me anywhere. The reality is that God doesn’t do things that have no rhyme or reason to them.

When it comes to discussing Satan the problem for mankind is that we think that God created us first.  We think that we are the most important part of the story.  We believe that Satan was created for us, instead of mankind being created to prove a point to Satan and all the host of Heaven.  Wow!  That’s humbling isn’t it?  To think that you were created for no other reason than to prove a point.  What if you are a participant in a test in front of all of Creation?  That makes you feel a bit insignificant doesn’t it?  It shouldn’t matter to the Evolutionist since he doesn’t think he was created at all, let alone for any purpose whatsoever.

Kind David understood this when he wrote in Psalm 8, “When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;  What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.”

Contrary to what most people preach, the Bible is not a story of man, as much as it is a story about God’s relationship and dealing with Satan and his angels.  Think about it.  The book of Genesis opens up with God recreating everything after the fall of Lucifer.  Nowhere in the story of Creation do we read, “and on the fourth day God created Lucifer and all his angelic host.”.  Yet, in the first three chapters of the book, we are introduced to this third-party, known as the Serpent who deceives Adam and Eve and introduces sin to the world.  Nobody stops to ask, “Where did this guy come from?”.  A prophecy is given by God that a man will be used to step on the head of the Serpent and destroy him.  We see the purpose of man and the judgment of Satan.

The next chapter we discover Cain killing his brother.  Not long after that the world becomes so wicked that God has to destroy it by water and we are told that His heart is grieved that He has made man.  We are then introduced to other people who all have to enter into a relationship with God based on faith to overcome their selfish desires and corrupt nature.   Why based on faith?  Why is faith so important?  We discover ongoing hardship and each time we learn that this Deliverer is supposed to come, including Moses, David and others until Jesus.

We catch glimpses of this being Satan throughout the scriptures, such as when he is standing before God having a discussion about a man called Job.  Satan we learn is called the accuser.  Why?  Because Satan knows that his rebellion against God was wrong, but he refuses to admit that he was the one responsible.  Instead, he’s trying to make the argument to God and all the angels of Heaven that it wasn’t his fault he rebelled.  Satan is making the argument that God is flawed.  We see it clear in the story of Job, that if God lets Satan at Job that Job will curse God to His face and rebel just like he did.

This is why we read in the Bible where Jesus stated – Luke 15:10 “Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.”  Why would angels rejoice when a sinner repents?  Because it’s a nail in the coffin of Lucifer that there was no excuse for his rebellion.  Are you starting to see that you, as a human being, were not created first, but you were created for a purpose?  Your life is not about you!  That’s why you will stand in the judgment before God and anyone who’s name is not found written in the Book of Life is cast into Hell with the Devil and his angels.  The Bible starts with Satan in the Garden and it ends with Him in the Lake of Fire and God making all things new. He proves His point to His creation and former friend that there was no excuse for his rebellion.  And we as men and women get to participate in this glorious event and become friends of God.

God even says in the end that He is going to make all things new and concludes His promise by saying, “And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.  And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.”

In the end, the question isn’t “Why Does Satan Exist?” No, the real question is, “Why Do We Exist?” and if you read the Bible you will understand that we exist to have a relationship with God based on obedience and to prove to Satan and all the host of Heaven that there was no excuse for his rebellion.

Because we have the opportunity to follow God based on faith. Why faith? Because Satan had direct access to the throne of God, but we can only take God at His word. When we trust God without a relationship like Lucifer had and we choose not to rebel against God when Lucifer had everything and threw it all away, we prove that Satan was wrong and deserves judgment. You were made to prove a point and if you pass the test by accepting God’s free gift, you will inherit a great reward! That is why God allows Satan to exist and that’s why Satan is real because if he wasn’t, there is a good possibility there wouldn’t be any reason for you to be here.

Based on the facts of what we see and experience as human beings on planet Earth, our own selfish desires and sinful nature, this makes logical sense. This is how we know and can prove that Satan exists. How else can you explain the fact that we create things like nuclear weapons, drive God’s Creation to extinction for profit, have the capability of both good and evil, but we are bent toward the latter by our corrupt sinful nature. Why do we reward a kid for giving back a wallet full of cash? It’s not the natural thing to do! We are not evolving toward being better, but are the same blemished creatures we were when we joined Satan in his rebellion and got thrown out of the Garden.