Do You Know Satan’s Story?

Inside: The best part of Satan’s story is the ending!

Who was he? What happened? What is Satan’s story and how did he come to rule this world? So often, God is blamed for what’s going on. Believe it or not, Adam had the power until he handed it over to Satan when he fell from grace in the garden. Jesus confirms that when He refers to Satan as “the ruler of this world” — three times!

Did you know that Satan, or Lucifer, as he was called in heaven, was the most beautiful of all the angels when he led worship as an angel of light?

Is Heaven Real?

After another scrape with death, I sat under the stars and let my thoughts roam free.

What if I died?

I shook my head and shivered again. I’ve walked through life thinking I have all the time in the world when people of all ages die every day. That’s when I wondered, Is heaven real? And if it is, what do I have to do to get there?

A series of memories surfaced like a dead whale. In first grade, I was shy. I had no idea how to make friends. Recess terrified me until Karen Williams included me. I put her on a pedestal.

In third grade, we went to Vacation Bible School at her Baptist church. And all I remember is:

“God loved the people of this world so much
that he gave his only Son,
so that everyone who has faith in him
will have eternal life and never really die.”
(John 3:16, CEV)

Related Post: Have You Got Your Ticket to Heaven?

I liked that, but I didn’t like the scary story she told me when she spent the night.

Lucifer

She said, “He got jealous of all the attention the angels gave God. He rebelled in a battle so huge that it divided the angels. Satan took a third of the angels with him when God threw them down to earth . . .”

” . . . And if we don’t make Jesus Christ Lord of our lives, we end up in hell with Satan for all eternity” (Karen’s paraphrase of Isaiah 14:12-14 in the Bible).

Is that true?

“We don’t talk about that in my church,” I told her. But her words scared the crap out of me. What if they were true?

I didn’t sleep a wink after that bedtime story!

I’d heard about hell, and I didn’t want any part of it. And I didn’t know if I had a ticket to heaven, but I certainly didn’t want to go to hell. The weird thing is that her story didn’t make me want to pick Jesus either, “Choose me or you wind up in hell.”

I hated the my-way-or-the-highway stuff I’d been taught. I didn’t have a death wish, but did I want Jesus? Not if He’d boss me around like everyone else did. I hated control and the way its marionette strings caused me to dance.

At the Last Minute

I’d planned to turn to God at the end of my life after I had fun.

At the very last minute, I’d get right with God, but what if . . . I didn’t have time.

Death scared the crap out of me. And I thought I was headed to heaven because I was a good person, but this close call made me wonder.

Was I?

So what does the Bible say about Satan?

“Look how you have fallen from your heavenly place,
O shining one, son of the dawn!

You have been cut down to the ground,
you who conquered nations.

You said in your heart, ‘I will ascend into heaven
and exalt my throne above the stars of God.
I will rule on the mountain of the congregation,
on the highest place of the sacred mountain.

I will rise past the tops of the clouds
and rival the Most High God!’

Yet down to the underworld you go—
“Look how you have fallen from your heavenly place,.

So, my little storyteller was right, but somehow I didn’t understand the amazing end of the story.

Nothing Compares to This

Satan tried to test Jesus. In the Bible, Satan came at Jesus three times and said, “All of this, with all its power, authority, and splendor, is mine to give to whomever I wish. Just do one thing, and you will have it all. Simply bow down to worship me, and it will be yours! ” (Luke 4:7, TPT).

But Jesus passed all three tests. He stood on the Word of God and remained sinless. If He hadn’t done that, He would not have provided the way for us to go to heaven.

Nothing in this world, or dare I say universe,
compares to the victory Christ won over Satan
through the cross and resurrection.