Satan hates godly, fruitful, multiplying, ruling, and subduing humans. He hates the Church that is taking back his territory. And he hates most fiercely covenant Christians who catechize their children.

 

There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves (the devils) are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.
—C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.
—Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Between these two quotes exists a powerful point. As it relates to Satan and the demonic realm, we must not dismiss, obsess, or live in ignorance of our greatest foe. Instead, as good soldiers of Christ, we must understand who our enemy is, what he hates most, and where that hatred is aimed in our society today.

A Crash Course on Satan

In the spirit of knowing our enemy well, here is a bare-bones summary of the prince of darkness.

He is called the devil, the dragon, a deceiver, the serpent, the prince and god of this world, and an “angel” who is in charge of the abyss (Revelation 9:11; 12:4,9, 13-14; 2 Corinthians 4:4; 6:15; Genesis 3:1-5, 13; John 12:31). He is chief among the fallen devils who were cast out of heaven for their rebellion against God (Revelation 12:9). Originally made as the most beautiful of all God’s angelic hosts (Ezekiel 28:12-19), he became the father of narcissism, enamored with his own beauty, a megalomaniac who wanted to elevate his throne over and above the Living God (Isaiah 14:12-15). He and his entire demonic horde of minions were cursed to slither along the face of the earth, like a starving pack of famished lions, seeking whomever they may devour (1 Peter 5:8). He is morally corrupted and evil to his rotten core (Matthew 13:19). He is a pathological liar and has been a murderer from the beginning (John 8:44). He is a seditious schemer and slanderer extraordinaire (Ephesians 6:11; Job 1:9-11). All of this along with the fact that he disguises himself as an agent of light while secretly planning your demise (2 Corinthians 11:14). That is who Satan is.

In regards to what Satan does, he is ever working in opposition to the people of God (Job 2:1-7). He attempts to thwart angelic aid dispatched to us in times of need (Jude 9; Daniel 10:13-21). And he stands vigorously in defiance of all of God’s purposes (Matthew 16:23), His written and spoken Word (Matthew 13:3-19), and against God’s righteousness (1 John 3:7-10). He works for the exploitation of human weakness (Ephesians 4:26-27). He labors incessantly to ensure we fall away from God (1 Thessalonians 3:5). And, along with all of this, he is the chief accuser of humanity before the throne of God (Revelation 12:10).

What Satan Hates the Most

When you take all the verses in Scripture as a whole, you begin to see a malevolent spiritual being who salivates in searing hatred against humanity. After this dazzling creature was cast from the halls of heaven, God knelt down in the dust of the earth to craft a being to rule over and defeat him. As Satan stood from a distance, he watched with perfect hate that God would design such a feeble creature to be the one that rules him. The purest form of disgust washed over him as God imprinted His glorious image upon the soul of man. Blind fury consumed him as God breathed His life-giving breath into Adam’s lungs. Jealousy gripped the fallen spirit’s heart as man and woman, embodied creatures with an immaterial soul, communed in paradise with their God. A past time the cursed angel once enjoyed.

With the envy of a teenage girl whose darling former sugar muffin was now dating her bestie, Satan was driven into compulsive hatred. His jealousy propelled him into an unrelenting war against the man and the woman. He placed the crosshairs of his ire squarely on the shiny new couple, and all of their offspring forever. As man had been sculpted from the dust, Satan took on the body of a slithering serpent and snaked his way into the garden to eliminate his opposition.

Through his cunning and craftiness, he tricked the man and woman into vacating their thrones, abdicating their crowns, and being subject to his slavery and death forever. Like prisoners of war, Lucifer gleefully tortured the race of man, laughing every time they squealed, concentrating the lion’s share of his wrath to be aimed right at the center of their purpose. Since man was made to be fruitful, multiplying, ruling, and subduing, and the extenders of God’s dominion, Satan would attack their fruit, make them divisive, weak, and subjected, and the agents who build up his kingdom instead of God’s. Since men were made to be leaders in their homes and to hold fast to the commands, Satan would convince them to be weak, pathetic, passive, and disinterested in what God says. Since women were made to joyfully submit to her husband, build a home, and bear much fruit, Satan would work tirelessly to convince her to oppose her husband, abandon the home, and abandon her motherly instincts.

We must remember, it was Satan who came first to Eve, the one who would bear the race of serpent-crushing men. Under the influence of this unclean spirit, it was Cain who butchered human life, killing his brother in a fit of rage. It was the serpent-wearing Pharaoh who called for all the male children to be murdered in the Nile. It was the serpent-worshipping people of Canaan, who threw their children into the flames of Molech. And it was the maniac despot Herod, who worshiped the lord of darkness, by killing all the infants in Bethlehem. Throughout the Bible, Satan has been attacking the race of man, stealing, killing, and destroying everything man was called by God to be.

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