Article VII

Article 7 – Satan

1. Satan is a created angelic being who fell from his first estate.
   1. Isa. 14:12-17; How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit. They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms; That made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof; that opened not the house of his prisoners?
   2. Jude 1:6; And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.
2. He is the god of this age, ruling by the permissive will of God.
   1. Eph. 2:2; Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:
   2. II Cor. 4:4; In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.
3. He exercises authority over the unsaved, tempts the believer to sin, and continually accuses the brethren before the throne of God.
   1. I Thes. 3:5; For this cause, when I could no longer forbear, I sent to know your faith, lest by some means the tempter have tempted you, and our labour be in vain.
   2. Rev. 12:10b; for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.
4. He has been defeated by the finished work of Christ on Calvary. During the millennium he will be confined to the abyss.
   1. Rev. 20:2,3; And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, and cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.
5. To be released at the end of that period to lead the armies of evil against God. He will be finally judged and doomed to the lake of fire.
   1. Rev. 20:10; And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.