How To Think About Satan

Sermon at Trinity by Pastor Pankow. 6.16.24

How to think about Satan?

When you think back to a first date or the first time you met that special someone, you might tend to overthink the situation too much. Worry about what they thought, what you said, when you’re going to meet next . . . It can also happen with people we don’t like. All you can think about is how evil they are and how you want to get revenge on them. What’s the best thing you can do? Maybe not think about them at all. Try to ignore them and stay away from them.

Transfer that to the spiritual realm. There’s a Psalm that goes, “On my bed, I remember you. On you, I muse through the night.” It is the Psalmist romantically describing their thoughts on God. It is good to think about God constantly. Then we switch our minds to the other side, that of Satan and the demons. What should we think about them? In our reading from Revelation for today, John predicted that when the thousand years were ended that Satan’s chain would be unleashed. It would appear that the 1,000 years is symbolic of the New Testament times. As the Gospel and the Word of God is tossed aside, the demonic world has more power and influence over people. So what should we do? Should we talk about it more or should we just ignore it?

Some people embrace the demonic and the dark. They get 666 tattoos and put demonic symbols on themselves. I remember growing up how Iron Maiden had an album titled “The Number of the Beast.” Ronnie James Dio liked to use a lot of Satanic imagery in his songs and music. It was thought of as rebellious and kind of cool to listen to their music, very prominent back in the 1980’s. I know of one young man who bought a Satanic Bible but then threw it out when he felt some strange things happening in his room. Movies like Rosemary’s Baby and the Exorcist were pretty popular as well. Richard Ramirez was a serial killer who claimed to be a Satanist and used Satanic symbols as well. There was almost an obsession with Satan.

We know that’s obviously wrong, but how do we think of Satan and the demonic world as Christians? We can be overly obsessed with Satan in a sense, associating everything with Satan. There was a movie called Waterboy that came out years ago where Bobby Bouchet’s mother associated people with the devil constantly. She wasn’t the only one. Back in the middle ages, Martin Luther once wrote, “The devil is able to steal an infant and put himself in its place, to be rocked and nursed. . . I myself have seen such a changeling.” (58:292-293) Strange stuff.

When it came to Jesus’ chasing out of demons in the Gospels, the Pharisees decided that even that was demonic! If chasing out demons is demonic, then everything is demonic. But we know that isn’t true either. There is good in this world. There are angels and saints living among us. God is here too, working through His saints, speaking His Word, and giving His sacraments. The devil has no authority over these.

Demons are real, so we shouldn’t just ignore that fact. Ignorance is not bliss. If God didn’t want us to think about Satan at all, then He probably wouldn’t even mention Satan in the Bible. But there are plenty of mentions of Satan in the Bible, and we saw a few in today’s readings. Peter is clear in 1 Peter 5:8 that we are to, “Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” He wants us to be aware of what Satan is doing behind the scenes and be “alert” about it. If I’m alert to it, I’m on guard, kind of like when you hear the dog bark at something in the backyard. You sit up and think, “What’s he barking at?” You look out the window and shine a light.

As we read through the Old Testament lesson of the Fall into sin, people tend to make fun of such a story and consider it as folklore and make believe, symbolic at best. The thought that an actual demon would actually inhabit a snake and talk through a snake to tempt someone to eat a piece of fruit is thought of as childish and foolish. Yet God’s Word speaks of it as a fact. You can read the story and ask all kinds of questions. “Didn’t Adam and Eve know that snakes couldn’t talk?” “Or did all animals have the capability of speech?” It all deflects from the main danger that Satan was speaking through the snake, using his lies to deceive Eve into sinning. And if Satan could speak through a snake, then who is to say that Satan couldn’t speak through PEOPLE as well? After all, Jesus told Peter, “Get behind me SATAN,” when Peter tried to keep him from going to the cross. Satan crept his way into Peter’s thinking and words with his false expectations of what Jesus should be and do.