Question: If God is all-powerful, why does He allow Satan to be the “god of this age” (2 Corinthians 4:4)?
Answer: Scripture makes it clear that the devil—Satan—is currently in charge of planet Earth. Even Jesus Christ Himself, shortly before His arrest and crucifixion, acknowledged Satan’s authority: “I will no longer talk muc
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es the devil exert his rule? He influences world events by injecting his evil ideas into the minds of human beings, much as a television transmitter broadcasts its signal into the air to be received in people’s homes. This analogy can help us see why Scripture calls Satan the “prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others” (Ephesians 2:2–3).
Was there always a Satan? No! God created a powerful and beautiful archangel named Lucifer, who—along with Michael and Gabriel—served at God’s throne in heaven. Why did this Lucifer (Latin for “light-bringer” or “morning star”) fall and become Satan (Hebrew for “accuser” or “adversary”)? You can read about this in Ezekiel 28:12–15 and Luke 10:18.
Lucifer and a third of the angels (Revelation 12:3–4) rebelled against their Creator. At some point in the distant past, Lucifer led these angels “above the heights of the clouds” to take the throne of God (Isaiah 14:13-14), leaving their “proper domain” or assigned responsibility (Jude 6) below the clouds here on Earth. Unsuccessful, they were cast back down to the Earth (Isaiah 14:12).
Satan failed in his rebellion, but he remains in the office God gave him, where he is ironically still instrumental in God’s plan. You see, human beings are spending 6,000 years living their own way, influenced by Satan’s spirit of selfishness and evil. They are writing with their own blood, sweat and tears the history of what it is like to live in disobedience to God’s way.