Since the death and resurrection of Christ, Satan has been bound. God’s sentence upon Satan in Genesis 3:15 has been executed. Revelation 20 says that Satan can no more deceive the nations. That means he can no longer prevent the spread of the gospel among the nations. Satan has been chained by the death and res­urrection of Jesus Christ. The great obstacle to the evangelization of the nations — Satan’s deceptive hold over the nations — has been removed.

But this doesn’t mean that Satan has stopped work­ing in today’s world. God continues to allow Satan to work in the world for now. Demons still do Satan’s bid­ding, as do unsaved people who are in Satan’s service, and even, from time to time, God’s people, when caught in Satan’s sieve. Under the permissive decree of God, Satan rules unbelievers through the present evil world system (2 Cor. 4:3-4; Eph. 2:2; Col. 1:13).

Demon Possession Today⤒🔗

Occasional cases of demon possession continue to be reported by many missionaries, especially those who introduce the gospel into pagan territory. As people increasingly revert to pagan ideas and drift into the occult, we ought not be surprised to hear increasingly of such cases in the future.

Frederick Leahy concludes that present-day demon possession may be voluntary or involuntary, perma­nent or spasmodic. Generally, one’s personality is sup­pressed or a double personality emerges. In either case, the demon uses the victim as his instrument in ways that distinguish demon possession from mental insan­ity. Deliverance, when it comes, is usually sudden, and the one healed seems to have no recollection of what he said or did (Satan Cast Out, pp. 80, 90, 91).

There is a vast difference between the casting out of demons by Jesus and the apostles and present-day exorcism, which is rooted in pagan practices. Leahy writes,

Pagan exorcisms are simply a trick by which Satan brings people increasingly under his power. The stronger demon in the sorcerer will most certainly expel the demon in a possessed person. But that per­son is not healed. He has not been delivered from the power of the enemy. The expelled demon can and prob­ably will return. p. 103

Ministers and ordinary believers today should not try to be exorcists. Grave dangers are involved with dabbling in exorcism. One such danger is the potential of leading a person into unreality and psychosis.

Dan VanderLugt writes,

As fallen people, each of us has a deep, largely unconscious fear of seeing our sins as they really are. Even Christians who have grown in maturity for many years are quick to admit that they have not yet even begun to understand the darkest depths of their personal depravity. It is therefore very dangerous to suggest to a person that his bad thoughts and actions may be due to demonic influence. Such a suggestion (can) cause a disturbed person to become obsessed with the demonic.

VanderLugt goes on to say that the victim of demonic obsession could then “exhibit the symptoms of false possession, in which he uncon­sciously imitates the symptoms of actual possession, including voice changes and apparent alterations of personality” (“What is Satan Doing? Satan is Possess­ing,” http://www.gospelcom.net/rbc/ds/q1001/point 5.html).

Leahy concludes that “before there can be perma­nent dispossession of a demon there must be a spiritual repossession of the victim” (p. 104). He then goes on to show how that repossession takes place through the saving work of a Spirit-owned ministry of the Word (Luke 10:1ff.). The preaching of Christ’s Word in the fullness of His Spirit is mightier than all the power of Satan (Luke 4:36). It is “the power (dunamis, from which we derive “dynamite”) of God unto salvation” (Rom. 1:16). Jesus faced Satan with the Word of God; so must we.

Satan and today’s Christians←⤒🔗

Satan and his devils are also in continual conflict with God’s people, tempting them and seeking to corrupt and destroy their lives, their faith, and their testimony (1 Cor. 5:5; 1 John 5:16).

True Christians have never denied Satan’s existence. When God becomes real to a believer, Satan also becomes real. The conflict between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent prophesied in the Proto-evangelium of Genesis 3:15 continues in the soul of each true believer. Each believer knows that strug­gle. Oh, what battles there are between the old and new man, flesh and spirit, nature and grace! Like Rebekah, whose twin babies warred within her womb, God’s people often feel two seeds within them, struggling to break forth, until they cry out in desperation, “Why am I thus?” (Gen. 25:22). What inexpressible struggles we have with the triple-headed enemy: Satan, the world, and the flesh! How torn we are by doubts, questions, unanswered riddles, unfulfilled promises, and satanic bruisings. No wonder our souls are often a mystery to us.

Before we knew Christ, we did not know such struggles. Only when we became believers could we understand this holy battle. God’s people are intimately acquainted with Satan’s daily attempts to bruise them. As a child of God, you are especially bruised when:

• Satan puts blasphemous thoughts into your mind, then whispers that you cannot be a child of God if you have such thoughts.
• Satan gets you to question the truth of the prom­ises and the mercy of the God who has never treated you ill.
• Satan seeks to persuade you that you have no part in the matter of salvation, for you only have begun with the Lord and not He with you.
• Satan argues with you that no child of God could be like you: so weak in faith, so corrupt, so hard and prayerless, so foolish and vain.
• Satan comes as your accuser, leading you to despair, or as an angel of light, leading you to presumption.
• Satan presents the world to you in fair colors, attempting to move you back into worldly customs, friendships, and vanities.
• Satan presses you to indulge in the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.

Bruised warriors often fear they are losing the bat­tle against Satan. They wear themselves out in strug­gle, only to discover that they are sliding down the slope of sin toward destruction. At times, spiritual poverty and weakness threaten to overcome them. The tempter follows closely, bruising their heels. Like David, a bruised warrior cries with groans and plead­ings, “I shall one day perish by the hand of Saul” (1 Sam. 27:1). The hand of God is hidden and the brink of hell visible. Voices within urge the exhausted believer to abandon his pursuit of God and His grace; other voices condemn the believer, and justly so. Satan is a liar, but much of what he whispers to a believer about condemnation sadly is true. Conscience condemns. The law commands and curses. Divine justice is unsatisfied.

Bruised believers cannot walk with bruised heels. They can only fall if they do not recognize that they cannot help themselves. They must die to self-help. They must sign their own death sentence, admitting that God is righteous and just to cast them away for­ever. In this they often fear that Satan has not only won the skirmishes, but also the war.

Yet the amazing wonder of the gospel is that, despite a believer’s self-condemnation, God gains the victory through the woman’s seed, the victorious Christ. As Genesis 3:15 tells us, “It (that is, the Seed, Christ) shall bruise thy head.”

Satan’s heel-bruising is burdensome for a believer, but not fatal, for God overrules all the efforts of Satan for the good of His people. Through surrender of self comes victory in Christ. Christ gathers those whom Satan harasses. He shelters believers in His arms and says, as it were, “Dear sheep, Satan may bruise your heels, but I have bruised Satan’s head on your account through my death and resurrection, and through judgment.”

First, Christ bruised Satan’s head in His atoning death. While Satan was bruising Christ’s heel (His “lower part,” which is symbolic of His human nature) on Calvary, Christ was bruising the head of Satan (Gen. 3:15). The same heel that Satan bruised on Calvary was fatally bruising Satan, for at Calvary Christ made full payment for the sins of His elect. As Hebrews 2:14 says, “Through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil” (cf. Col. 2:13-15).

In commenting on Genesis 3:15, Phillips says,

In his sentence of doom, Satan discovered that he had been too clever after all. Seeking to avenge himself upon God for having cast him out of heaven, the evil one had opened the way for God to settle the mystery of iniquity once and for all. The very planet on which Satan had sought his vengeance would become the place for the final battle. And man himself would be the instrument of his defeat and doom, for God would become a man to accomplish that glorious end. The seed of the woman would put a final end both to sin and to Satan. Suddenly, the earth assumed an awesome significance in the universe.

Second, Christ bruised Satan’s head in His victori­ous resurrection. Satan could not keep Christ the Vic­tor in the grave, for God’s own Son would not see corruption. Christ rose from the grave. He appeared alive to believers for forty days, then ascended in tri­umph to His Father, leading captivity captive (Ps. 68:18). Christ is now in heaven at the right hand of the Father, beyond the reach of all the bruising powers of hell. The exalted Christ has the keys of death, hell, and the grave in His hand. The church is safe in Christ, for in Him victory is assured.