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In 1510 in Germany master artist Albrecht Durer (1471 - 1528) did an engraving entitled "the Christian Knight with Death and the Devil". The Knight, who some say is a stylized portrait of the scholar, Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466 - 1536), is ruggedly handsome, with a determined look on his face, going forth, armed and armored, on his mission. While the semi-skeletal form of Death tries to distract him to one side. Behind his horse lurks the hideous form of The Devil as mis-shapened goat-wolf - thing with an odd number of twisted horns, and a strange crown on his head, holding an oddly configured somewhat Roman looking hooked spear or battle axe.
The Devil in that picture doesn't look at all like what is mentioned in Scripture in 2 Corinthians 2 : 14 "for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light". We'll come back to that in depth after while and take a look at a painting in that light. And we'll have a few bad puns along the way.
When did the one who can present himself as that 'angel of light' turn into that monstrosity in Durer's image? And then, as we'll see in a moment, when did it change into something cute and fun and... possibly even harmless? Such as the popular image of the guy in a red suit with a pitchfork.
We'll look at those questions, and others, in our study of.... ... of....
"Please allow me to introduce myselfAnd you have already seen how we're going to do it.
I'm a man of wealth and taste ......."
"Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name
But what's puzzlin' you is the nature of my game."
(Sympathy for the Devil by the Rolling Stones, full credit and link to source below)
But first, let's define and draw a somewhat vague and wavering chalk line around what, and who, we're talking about.
As this study evolved, and that's the word, from discussions during CPCC's Tuesday Morning Bible Study of Revelation / The Apocalypse of John,
"He laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years; and he cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal on him, so that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years were finished."And there we have two key clues as to who we are talking about.
Revelation 20 : 2 - 3 (NKJV), see link below
Oddly enough: this goes back to the very beginning of Our Story. Besides the talking snake story in Genesis 3, we find a somewhat amusing quote in the Holy Quran in Surah Al-A'raf :
"Then Satan tempted them in order to expose what was hidden of their nakedness. He said, 'Your Lord has forbidden this tree to you only to prevent you from becoming angels or immortals.' And he swore to them, 'I am truly your sincere advisor""We're certain that final statement is still repeated in the various Halls of Power around the world. And we can see a great deal of similarity when you consider that in the passage in Genesis 3, the Hebrew word for 'naked' also means 'vulnerable' and 'without defense'. You can check that out at the CPCC Genesis study through the Church website linked below.
Quran 7 : 20 - 21 (see link below)
OK, we'll come back to that.
Earlier we mentioned that religions outside of those that have descended from Father Abraham have a 'bad guy'. Let's take a look at one. ... or more.
In the ancient East there is a legend of a bad guy who tempted a holy man in several ways.
No, it wasn't Jesus in the Wilderness.
The holy man we have in mind for this particular episode is Prince Siddhartha Gautama (about 560 - 480 BC), better known as The Buddha.
This bad guy is an embodiment of temptation and distraction which had the sole goal of preventing Siddhartha from focusing his thoughts during meditation and achieving enlightenment, a ranking demon known as Mara.
Mara, after having failed in his primary attack even resorted to sending his three beautiful daughters to do seductive dances in front of the Prince. But they fail as well.
Mara is said to be an embodiment of Yama, the god of death and justice for sinners. Part of his job description is to tempt those on the good path, and, in some ways, represents the inner struggles we all face. Which when you look at the Western 'Devil', that's how he works to get to us, combining inner conflict with real and imagined temptations, and outside distractions to lead you away from the 'straight and narrow'.
In any case, the artwork linked below is a thousand year old epic representation of the Prince's triumph over the forces of sin and delay and celebrates his achieving his goal. Each of the astonishing array of well over 100 figures (not counting the horses and lions!), some comical, some terrifying, surround him in a cacophony of activity... was hand painted on the silk background. Which at some point in its history was then folded up and stored away in one of the Caves of a Thousand Buddhas, and forgotten about until quite recently, which is why it survived.
And sometimes we can relate to that scene. When we just want to sit calmly and pray, or read a few Psalms, maybe with only a fraction of the serenity Prince Siddhartha possessed, but calm none the less. And then the neighbor's dog barks, or our phone rings, and then we wonder if we remembered to pay the electric bill, and is tomorrow our sister's birthday, and on and on it goes.
We may not be tempted to go on a three day Las Vegas bender and do things best left to the script of some cable channel soap opera. "Sin" in all its infamy, isn't part of that picture.
Delay is.
If 'the bad guy' can get us used to not paying attention to that side of our life because of all this other nonsense that demands our time and attention, maybe, eventually, we'll 'let it slide'.
And, with us, it doesn't take a whole army of Chinese warriors, monsters, dancing girls, and what appears to be a couple of circus elephants, to distract us. All that has to happen is the phone to ring. A moment of confusion, apathy, doubt.... anything that way, serves his agenda.
One of the things we saw in the book of Job was that the bad guy can unleash all sorts of mayhem of the sorts we saw in the tapestry we just described, but he can only do so when GOD allows him to do so.
But then we have to say this. Job is an epic poem, it's a "Sunday School Story" about retaining your faith in bad times.... or rather, a "Hebrew School Story". Part of the problem is we have no idea who wrote Job, and when that was. The story itself is ancient, most likely occurring somewhere during the period of the Patriarchs, probably not long after the Flood, but as to when it was committed to poetic verse for retelling is unknown, and then was written down in a mix of Hebrew from the Babylonian period and the local Aramaic of the common people somewhere around 500 BC.
But what Job is is significant insight as to the motivation and actions of Satan. Or, rather, at least what some of the ancients thought of his motivations and actions.
In any case, the text identifies a single individual who works as the manager at the service desk of evil, but he still reports to the overall General Manager of the place. Which is what we see in Job 1 : 6. There the word that is translated as "sons" in English, the Hebrew "ben", also means descendant / subject / or in some cases servant. What it means is that everybody in the drama was a created being except for GOD, and they all came by that day to answer to HIM.
We'll mention the rest of the conversation between the two later, but suffice it to say here, that both GOD and Satan knew Job by name.
And that Satan likes nothing better than seeing good human beings miserable, and failing in their relationship with The Creator.
On the other side of the world you had another concept of the bad guy.
In the case of the Mayan civilization, they had ... several. Each pair of gods (in the Mayan world, most things came in twos, including the 'good guys' the Hero Twins) covering a different attribute of that side of things.
One of their sets of 'bad guys' was associated with illnesses that involve the blood, another that decomposed dead bodies to turn them into skeletons, and they even had a pair of demons that took great delight in the homes of people who didn't keep a neat house, and then they caused them pain. The Aztec, Toltec and other Central American cultures had similar beings in their mythologies with shared attributes and functions by somewhat different names.
Although even with them they had a high ranking bad guy. With the Maya they had a senior embodiment of Death (the ultimate enemy) named Hun-Came (One Death), and his partner (or a second attribute) Vucub-Came (Seven Death). According to the various stories, he, or they, rule over an army of demons, some of which smell bad...
A Demonic NoteIt is somewhat peculiar that while the Gospels, and to some degree a select few other New Testament books describe demonic possession and the overall work of the Devil, there isn't a lot of hard information about it. Including any other names or terms for 'those bad guys'.
That comment about the Mayan demons smelling bad is a true statement, and carries across most mythologies, including into the Christian world.
Ah Pukuh, from the Mayan pantheon and was one of Hun-Came's minions, is something of a reptilian who emits a lot of foul smelling gas from his over-sized belly. And his best friends in our world are spiders and centipedes and other unpleasant things. And, for some reason, owls.
But we are having Ah Pukuh stand up and wave to the people for one reason. As we mentioned, in most mythologies, the bad guys, everything from the head demon, which to us is Satan, all the way down through whoever, and what-ever, is working for them, is regarded as nasty in some way; appearance, attitude, smell, overall effect, etc, by people.
We'll come back to this briefly near the conclusion of this essay, but in most instances, an evil spirit emits everything from bad odors, might be shrouded in darkness or fog, generate disturbing sounds, and even set off repeated flashes of light and color that will upset your digestion, and, as with Ah Pukuh, the presence of nasty real world critters like spiders and snakes. And you can sometimes detect the presence of a demon by these signs, and some say they can tell "who's who, and what's that" by the combination of signs.
Of course, the origin of the foul smell around the corner behind that old building may be a skunk that has set up camp under a dumpster, and you don't need either a demonologist or a cryptozoologist but instead a cleaning crew and a wildlife control officer... who has a gas mask.
But then again, we do NOT live in a mundane world, and if there isn't an overflowing dumpster behind that abandoned building that has a new black and white furry resident under it, you may want to grab some anointing oil and say a prayer before you get too close.
And remember, it wasn't always that way... remember our quote from Sir Mick?
end note
"....the Devil, I'm talking about Satan, Beelzebub, Lucifer, Mephistopheles, the Angel of the Bottomless Pit! None of those bad guys had damned thing to do with this next song."That trend continues in the New Testament where a couple of Mr. Young's terms came directly from, with one notable exception. In Mark 3 : 22 the scribes accused Christ of using the power of a demon named "Beelzeboul" (Beelzebub) to drive out demons. The scene results in Jesus's statement about a house divided against itself. This incident evidently happened before the scene in Matthew 10. When He was about to send out the 12 and reminds them that if the master has been called Beelzebul, then what about those that follow him.
- James Young intro to live version of Styx song Snowblind, (see credit below)
"How art thou fallen from heauen, O Lucifer, sonne of the morning? how art thou cut downe to the ground, which didst weaken the nations?"Of course this is the passage Christ is talking about when He said He watched him falling like lightning from heaven, Luke 10 : 18. But there the word used is Satan as a proper noun.
- https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/1611_Isaiah-Chapter-14/ (link below)
A note about MephistophelesWe could also look at John 8 : 44 which refers to him as a liar and "the father of lies", and then He calls him a murderer who has no truth within him. But we'll skip that and move on.
There are those that will be surprised to learn that Ol' Meph is not The Devil, and that the name is not from Scripture.
The word may be based on German mythology while borrowing the words that make up the name from both Greek and Hebrew sources, and is most famously the bad guy in the story of Faust. Yes, That Faust, who most famously sold his soul to the bad guy. There's a couple of links below to all you'll ever want to know about that sort of thing.
In the story, and various derivative works that way, Meph... is a somewhat minor demon, who works for The bad guy. But, evidently he has the authority to make the bargain with Faust, and we all know how that goes.
It is only somewhat later that he gets the promotion, and the name ends up being synonymous with his original boss, as used in the quote above, perhaps because of the popularity of later theatrical versions of the play, and the audience's own ignorance of the finer points of the subject.
Something highlighted in our quote above, by a musician, who, no doubt, has no clue as to the original sources for the names he is saying, and we're certain the audience at the concert doesn't care and didn't look it up.
Which is something else The Bad Guy encourages. See examples at 2 Timothy 2 : 15 and Acts 17 : 10 and following.
end note
The Hindu faith is ancient, and complex, and ever changing. While they do have an Ultimate Creator God named Brahma who is part of a trinity with Vishnu and Shiva. They do not have a single bad guy.
There is a range of demons and lesser gods that have their own agendas, their own personalities, and, in most cases, hate each other only slightly less than they hate us, and will work to harm other demons when they're not trying to lead humans to ruin. Of course that is way over simplifying things, but it'll work for now.
Most of them fall under the umbrella term "Rakshasa" and a lesser group called the "asuras" who have less power, but are still really unpleasant if you run into one.
Of course they also had an array of minor demons, such as is seen in the New Testament who made life interesting for various people in the stories there.
It is because we don't know what to call the bad guy, or those that work for him.... and we can't be certain what he looks like, or even smells like.... Which is why John, the same John that wrote The Apocalypse, tells us to "test the spirits" in 1 John 4. And he even proposes a short quiz for them that only has one right answer..... but... it seems John had momentary forgotten that even Satan, when tempting Christ, could quote Scripture.
A more reliable test is to not only listen to them, but to watch what they do. Actions always speak louder than words. And while it is possible for them to do the right thing for the wrong reasons, for a time, eventually, their true nature will come out. If you have any questions about that, see James 2, beginning in the low teens to the end of the chapter.
Ahh, yes, a question, you, over there, yes, go ahead....
"We shouldn't even talk about this, somebody might take it the wrong way."
That wasn't a question, but we're used to that.
One of the charges leveled against the Knights Templar was that they had corrupted the Roman Catholic Faith and now worshiped the Devil.
One of the objections to traditional Voodoo (correctly called Vodun) is that it is devil worship with a good back beat.
The main outcry of "Witch! Witch! They'll burn ye!" against many traditional 'wise women' and village healers were that they were in league with the devil, and probably worshiping him as well. Something you can see in the most infamous work against witchcraft available through the link below, as well as some of its Very Modern stepchildren.
One of the false statements made against a recent American Presidential Candidate was that she was either working for the bad guy, or had sold her soul to him, or had demonic powers, or some pleasant combination of all of the the above.
Of course, all of the above charges are, as far as can be reliably researched, false.
The Templars were Christian, and their only fault was that the order itself had become too rich and powerful, with connections, and militarized monasteries, all over Europe, from Spain all the way into Poland, and extending to the Holy Land, with a sizable fleet of warships and transports, and more money than some of the kingdoms in Europe.
Which is why in Paris, on Friday the Thirteenth of October, 1307, King Philip IV kicked off the arrest, mock trials, and executions of every Templar he could lay hands on. And, in the process, the king seized whatever Templar property and treasure he could find.
It wasn't about the Templars having anything to do with the bad guy, it was the King of France worried that he'd lose his throne to them. And perhaps, rightly so when you start looking into Philip's personality and other actions.
Vodun has some colorful characters in it as it is a spicy combination of Roman Catholic beliefs and rites, an assortment of African and Caribbean indigenous tribal traditions, and, at least in the case of Haiti and New Orleans, a good bit of showmanship for the benefit of tourists who have money to spend on magic trinkets and protective medallions that are probably made in China. While the practice does have a bad guy, those who practice the religion as their honest belief in how the Universe works, do NOT serve or worship the evil one. Something the Nation of Israel couldn't say about themselves:
"For ye provoked him that made you by sacrificing unto devils, and not to God."While traditional 'working' witches did use familial spirits to do whatever they did, including the famous witch of Endor in 1 Samuel 28, it was only a small percentage of them who practiced "black magic" due to the "threefold law of return" by which whatever evil you did to another person came back to you three fold. The infamous "Malleus Maleficarum" (the Hammer of the Witches"), published in 1487, contained several times more fiction than it did objective evidence to use in 'witch hunts', and resulted in the murders of several tens of thousands of totally innocent people, up to the latest incidents in Africa from 2024 which include some of the same charges seen in the five hundred year old book, see links below.
- Baruch 4: 7 (see KJV Apocrypha link below)
The accusations against Mrs. Clinton, and certain others, in the 2016 US election cycle, were total nonsense, even the name on the faked video that was 'damning evidence' was ridiculous. However, there were some that believed them, and forwarded them, and, even now, several years later, bring it up in conversation. But when you go back and look at the links provided below from quite recent incidents, and crimes, in Africa from such accusations, you wonder just how far it could go even in the USA. There's also a link below to an article on the famous Snopes.com debunking the video and its claims.
All you have to do is look at the general public's embrace of the annual festival that celebrates death and evil, for over a month, which has even crept its way into the activities of local churches, and if anybody objects it is called a "fall / harvest festival" to try to put a coat of whitewash on what the media calls "spooky season". Yet if you ask those advocating such a thing when "holy season" is, they become confused and then talk about that spring festival with colored eggs and bunny rabbits. No, that is the secular corruption of Resurrection Sunday.
A true "holy month" which would be equal to what has been done to All Hallows' Eve from the middle of September into the first week of November. That would be when those who are so inclined decorate their lawns and homes with statues of their family's patron saint, maybe put up three crosses with a spotlight on the center one, perhaps an action scene with figures that portray something from the Acts of the Apostles, or maybe a scene such as when Martin Luther refused to retract what he had written by concluding his defense by saying this to the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V and various church officials:
"Since your most serene majesty and your highnesses require of me a simple, clear, and direct answer, I will give one, and it is this: I cannot submit my faith either to the pope or to the council, because it is clear that they have fallen into error and even into inconsistency with themselves. If, then, I am not convinced by proof from Holy Scripture, or by cogent reasons, if I am not satisfied by the very text I have cited, and if my judgment is not in this way brought into subjection to God's word, I neither can nor will retract anything; for it cannot be either safe or honest for a Christian to speak against his conscience. Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise. God help me. Amen."The one aspect of the bad guy that is across all cultures is that while he can instigate a massive, undeniable, and ALMOST irresistible attack against Believers, his most sinister work is done incrementally, in baby steps.... a little ground is given here, then, later, some more there, until somebody stands up and repeats Luther's closing statement.
- Martin Luther at the Imperial Hearing at Worms, Germany, 17 April, 1521
Link to full text of speech in English below.
(there is some dispute about whether he actually said the 'here I stand' sentence. If he didn't, he was probably thinking it. We left it.)
"And a servant of the Lord must not quarrel but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient, in humility correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth, and that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will."
A Cromwellian note:Of course when Oliver Cromwell wrote his letter, he was just as convinced that his actions, including the killing of the former king, was in agreement with the "Word of God" as the Scottish church was in their support of Charles the First's son. Which explains their answer: "would you have us to be sceptics in our religion?"
As is the way of things, Cromwell's letter had less to do with religion than with Politics.
After he had been part of the 1649 regicide (execution of a ruling monarch) that removed Charles I from the throne, and the planet, Cromwell had acted to militarily annex Ireland to the Commonwealth. While he did take the island, he didn't win over the people who remained, mostly, Roman Catholic.
However, the Scots didn't see things in the same light as Cromwell, and in 1650 the Scottish people proclaimed Charles II their king. Something which upset Cromwell to no end. Then the Scottish Church announced that is was supporting the new king in spite of Scotland 'supposedly' being part of the Commonwealth. He wrote his letter to the Presbyterian General Assembly, the official Church of Scotland, with his plea as the centerpiece.
The Scots rejected his letter, and him. And set in play another Civil War, and years of internal bickering and ineffective governments that lasted until after Cromwell's death, when the Parliament invited Charles II back to town and restored the crown to the House of Stuart (Stewart) in 1660.
Cromwell's 'experiment' barely lasted ten years. There's a good informational page about him linked below.
End Note
The point there being that while "the Devil... Satan, Beelzebub, Lucifer..." is real and active in our world, he is probably getting too much credit for things that happen inside the church, instigated by active members of the church, for reasons of their own, that didn't require that "man of wealth and taste" to whisper anything in their ear. And that's just within the local body of believers, never mind the world at large.
We see God's conversations with Devil in Job and the results and take it to mean that that sort of attack occurs every other day in our own lives. It might, we're not saying it doesn't, but....
While that is possible, it isn't necessarily reality. As we've said, humans don't need any assistance at all from outside to get into trouble. What Paul referred to as "the natural man" in 1 Corinthians 2, meaning the flesh as it comes into the world, and results in the impact from Romans 8.
And one of the greatest triumphs of The Bad Guy has been to convince people, us, humans, that either he does NOT exist, or that he is relatively harmless, and perhaps even cute and fun.
Which we see in modern representations of The Adversary in works ranging from the 1950's comic with "Hot Stuff" who was cute and mischievous to the comedic line from Flip Wilson in the 1970s who said "the devil made me do it" as an excuse for actions he, or in case of his cross-dressed character of Geraldine, she, later regretted. See links below for more.
To us, here, now, 'the devil', cannot "make you do" anything you wouldn't ordinary do, or say. According to the Scriptures which we have tried to insert every so often in this outing, if you resist him, apparently at all, meaning you do not have to be Christ or Buddha, or even some sort of super-aesthetic well practiced in self-denial, you just have to resist, and he, The Devil, will give up and move on to easier pickings.
But, we'll get back on track.
While we don't know, and can't say, how the Bad Guy, or any of his minions will appear, we do know that that do appear. And we've also established that THEY do not have to appear, because we, as mortals, stuck down here in the mud of This World, carry plenty of them around with us.
WE the People do not need any encouragement to do things counter to the Will of GOD. It just happens. And sometimes we don't even know about it until later. If you have any questions go read Romans 7 beginning around verse 13 to the end of the Chapter. That is Paul, who saw the Heavenly Version of CHRIST, and considered himself the Least of the Apostles, admitting that he failed to do what he knew he should be doing.
If he failed, and knew it, and admitted it, then where does that leave us?
Back to The Devil.
Or was that the point?
While there is a Devil. Satan. By all the names mentioned here and in the article about "Selling your Soul...." linked below. We, as humans, don't need need him. We manage to do enough sinning without any outside encouragement.
And all of it is because of what happened to Humans at the Fall.
Let's look at another Apocryphal book with a reference that's on topic:
"For God created man to be immortal, and made him to be an image of his own eternity. Nevertheless through envy of the devil came death into the world: and they that do hold of his side do find it. But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and there shall no torment touch them.""That was an awful lot to take in, and you managed to get WAY off topic.....
- Wisdom of Solomon 2: 23 - 3: 1 (see link below)
OK, that's a fair question.
Give us a minute for a bit of a transition from a work that was known before the time of Christ, and has been disputed as being an inspired part of the Biblical Canon since the time of Origen in the Second Century.
It is worth noting that the "Wisdom...." book was part of the Septuagint translated from Hebrew to Greek in, give or take, 300 BC. So, it has that going for it. Did Solomon write a word of it? Probably not... but... some of it may be a 'race memory' of things he did say.
What we have going for us is a pot of truck stop grade black coffee... and later, some "oooooh, that's cheap" Double Rectified Busthead. (and that is our John Wayne reference for this article.) And nobody will remember anything we said for longer than it takes for a cup of coffee to cool off. But, onward anyway.
We'll close this out by trotting out the old Five W's of Journalism, in the briefest possible form, and then simply end it by ending it.
First:
WHO
Easy. That would be that there is a SINGLE entity identifiable as the embodiment of Evil. HE, and it is always identified with the male pronoun, and is commonly referred to as Satan (capital 'S') and The Devil, and has a world-wide reputation. He is the antagonist in the Book of Job not long after The Flood, is seen in another guise as the one that tried to ruin Buddha's day, and lost an argument with Christ beyond the Jordan.
He, has been with us for a very long time, And isn't going any where any time soon.
But, in the end, as we see in our Revelation study, in the end, he loses. And he knows it, and he isn't happy about it.
WHAT
We just said he in an embodiment of evil, but, exactly what does that mean?
The ALMIGHTY, GOD, The CREATOR, is Holy, Just, Righteous, Perfect, and so on. In Islam there are 99 names / attributes of God. We don't have that much time left, so we'll just say this: Satan, by whatever name he's operating under today, is the exact, polar, opposite of all of them, at once.
In some mythologies, the Trickster goes out of his way to interfere with whatever good is in progress. That's him. Everything from simple bad luck to the intentional actions of others who can't stand it when something good is going on that won't be credited to them. It doesn't have to actually be a direct action by Shaytan (Islam's bad guy), it can be, as we've said before, human pride, but in the end, it works out the same in the end. WE fail to do God's Will. Which is, by definition: evil.
WHEN
In The Beginning.
We don't know when The Fall of Mankind occurred. Yes, it was Genesis 3. But was that two weeks after The Creation of Man... or was it Two Thousand Years later. By the text, we have no idea. To Adam, the Years did not count, because, then, he was on God's time clock. See the CPCC Genesis Study linked below.
Sometime in there Satan Fell.
The ancient Jewish Legends claim that Satan fell because he didn't think he was inferior to the Gardener in any way. While the story is a bit much to swallow, it is plausible, and explains why we are now the subject of intense interest to The Bad Guy.
So, as we've said, he's been Here with us, for a Long Time.
WHERE
We just said, he's here, with us.
Satan is part of this world. He will not be relocated to Hell until The End. So now he's wandering around the Earth, see Job 1, and possibly running for a Congressional Office in his spare time.
Also, one third of 'the angels' are down here with him to cause whatever problems they can, knowing that when It Is Over... so are they.
WHY
That point above is it.
The Bad Guy, and his followers from Above, have already been condemned for their action. They don't want to be lonely in the Lake of Fire, so they want to take you with them.
It is the people that Christ will say "I never knew you", that have been doing the Devil's work, thinking they are serving God, who will be surprised. That reference is from Matthew 7.
HOW
That is what this whole essay has been about.
While The Bad Guy does directly attack, and brings up challenges, temptations, even direct actions against the work of GOD and those that Serve HIM. He doesn't have to.
Delay, confusion, our own self-righteousness, pride.... all of that serve the will of Satan just as much as anything portrayed in any of the classic artwork as one of his tools.
Yes, you read that right. Our own self-righteousness is filthy rags when you look at GOD. That line is originally from Isaiah 64 and is restated in Romans 10.
If you think you are serving the larger work of the Church of Christ... well, go back and find that quote from Oliver Cromwell.
And that's it.
So this is our conclusion.
YES. There Is A GOD. And there is a bad guy.
We've got to work to have a relationship with GOD, we don't have to do much of anything to have a relationship with .... ... well... the other guy. Because our innate nature is part of his home field advantage.
While the Doctrine of "original sin" is a load of hogwash (see link below for "Questions you aren't supposed to ask your Sunday School Teacher"), there is a grain of truth in that, as we saw in the passage where Paul admits he does some of the very stuff he has been saying 'we' shouldn't, and it has nothing to do with a guy in a red suit with a pitchfork.
Remember the Devil can appear as an Angel of Light! See 2 Corinthians 11. Which means he can also appear as some sort of local official who has a problem with where the people attending a church event park, or as a visitor who says or does something that causes issues, or even as member of the local church board who, perhaps, wants to "do things the way we've always done them", without considering that, perhaps, they've always been wrong.
-And-
That "man of wealth and taste", might even be in the mirror.
End --- --- --- The Bad Guy study.
Selected Resources: all links will open in new tab/page.
All were working as of date of original posting:
The Interlinear with Hebrew and English https://biblehub.com/interlinear/isaiah/14.htm
The Vulgate in Latin and English https://vulgate.org/ot/isaiah_14.htm
The Wycliffe Bible in original spelling: https://www.stepbible.org/?q=version=Wycliffe@reference=Isa.14
An Internet Archive scan of the Wycliffe Bible translated about 1390. https://archive.org/details/holybiblecontain03wycluoft
The link is to Volume 3, containing Isaiah (the other volumes are available from the source)
Individual books open as a downloadable PDF: 1560 Geneva Bible http://www.genevabible.org/geneva.html
Isaiah 1611 KJV https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/1611_Isaiah-Chapter-14/
Isaiah, NIV https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah%2014&version=NIV
-and-
II Timothy https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20Timothy%202&version=NKJV
Remember, the Apocryphal books were IN the King James Bible longer than they've been out of it!:
The Wisdom of Solomon, chapter 2 https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Wisdom-of-Solomon-Chapter-2/
-and-
https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Baruch-Chapter-4/
Revelation 20 New King James Version https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation%2020&version=NKJV
Holy Quran, Surah 7, Surah Al-A'raf https://quran.com/al-araf
Other Links in order mentioned above. mostly.
An Encyclopedia article about the artist, with some examples of his work:
Albrecht Durer https://www.britannica.com/biography/Albrecht-Durer-German-artist
-and-
Another world wide character that is, sometimes, evil: Trickster https://www.britannica.com/art/trickster-tale
The silk painting is ancient, beautiful, and fascinating: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/43/Dunhuang_Mara_Budda.jpg This image is in the public domain.
8 legendary demons from Hindu mythology https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/soul-search/8-legendary-demons-from-hindu-mythology/photostory/106113958.cms?picid=106114020
Faust's Mephistopheles https://www.faust.com/legend/mephistopheles/
"Maya gods, goddesses and deities, along with the religious beliefs attached to them, changed over the course of several millennia." https://www.mayaarchaeologist.co.uk/public-resources/maya-world/maya-gods-religious-beliefs/
Another page about the Mayan gods highlights how poor our understanding of their world is. https://www.mexicolore.co.uk/maya/home/exploring-the-maya-underworld-2
This story is from 2024, one of the signs of being a witch is having bloodshot eyes:
"Witchcraft in Malawi: A real threat for the elderly"
January 29, 2024
"The root causes of poverty are complex, but witchcraft is usually not tabled as one. However in East Africa, attacks on senior citizens accused of bringing misfortune on their communities through magic are on the rise."
https://www.dw.com/en/malawi-elderly-living-in-fear-of-being-called-witches/a-68071658
And then in Kenya from the BBC in July of 2024:
"Accused of witchcraft then murdered for land." https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4ng3z3j421o
"Malleus Maleficarum" (1486) "The Hammer of the Witches" https://www.sacred-texts.com/pag/mm/index.htm
An Encyclopedia article: "Luther's Speech at the Diet of Worms" https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1900/luthers-speech-at-the-diet-of-worms/
A good beginning page to learn about the Templars and their bad ending: "The Shocking Demise of the Knights Templar: A Cautionary Tale of Medieval Power and Persecution" https://www.historytools.org/stories/the-shocking-demise-of-the-knights-templar-a-cautionary-tale-of-medieval-power-and-persecution
"Frazzledrip: Is a Hillary Clinton 'Snuff Film' Circulating on the Dark Web?"
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/hillary-clinton-snuff-film/
(It is worth noting that various online postings were still touting this crap as authentic in the fall of 2022, four years after it had been debunked)
A page about:
"The year 2011 marked the 350th anniversary of the execution of Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of England - two and half years AFTER his death." https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/Oliver-Cromwell/
Harvey Comics:
"Imbued with a mischievous personality and able to produce fire, Hot Stuff appears as a red child devil who wears a diaper (said to be made of asbestos) ...""Hot Stuff 'the little devil'" https://leagueofcomicgeeks.com/comics/series/126741/hot-stuff-the-little-devil
"The devil made me do it." Flip Wilson (1933 - 1998) https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/biography/flip-wilson
Music Notes: (and our last bad pun for this one!)
Sympathy for the Devil Lyrics by Mick Jagger and The Rolling Stones, 1968. - https://genius.com/The-rolling-stones-sympathy-for-the-devil-lyrics
The Rolling Stones - Sympathy For The Devil (Live) - OFFICIAL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRXGsPBUV5g
Styx's Snowblind credit: Written by: Dennis DeYoung and James Young. Album: Paradise Theater, A&M records, released 1981.
The live version with the above quote as the introduction: Styx - 1996 - Snowblind (Live) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2n-GYBXqPU
Central Park Church of Christ links:
Part of the Revelation study: Witchcraft http://centralparkchurchofchrist.org/revstudy/witchcraft.htm
The Revelation Study index page.
The Genesis Study as mentioned above.
Media Desk Articles Referenced:
"Questions you ARE NOT supposed to ask your Sunday School Teacher" https://themediadesk.com/newfiles7/sundayschool1.htm
'Original Sin' is discussed in part two under "the Virgin Mary".
"Is the 'Restoration' or even the entire Protestant Reformation Still Relevant? http://themediadesk.com/newfiles6/restoration.htm
"I know you can answer this, is magic real?" http://www.themediadesk.com/files6/magic.htm
"Can you 'sell your soul to the Devil'?" https://themediadesk.com/newfiles7/sellsoul.htm
Ghosts and Spirits ... "... but are they real?" http://themediadesk.com/newfiles7/ghosts.htm
Astrology http://themediadesk.com/newfiles6/astrology.htm
NOTE: The Bible Study Lesson presented above is posted as a reference document to begin a conversation of the topic. And that's it. Please accept it at such.
http://centralparkchurchofchrist.org
With the assistance and cooperation of The Media Desk.