Transcript: How did Satan become the god of this world and why did God allow him to reign? Well, we can piece together a couple of things in the scriptures. One of them is that I do believe Satan is the one who’s behind the temptation in the Garden of Eden, okay, that he’s that Serpent of old. So I take that Revelation statement that Serpent of old, he’s the tempter, he’s the adversary, he’s these things. I do think he’s there in the garden. When Eve listened to the serpent, that was the one who they were obeying, it was ultimately Satan that may have had some impact on our relationship with Satan. That’s one aspect of it.

Another aspect is, well, let’s think about what happens when there’s a rebellion. Like think about even anarchists. Even anarchists have leaders; well, even if they don’t want them, they get them anyway, because when there’s a rebellion, you break away from the proper order and the proper authority. There will always, it seems, rise up some authority within the group, and it’s usually the biggest, the strongest, the smartest, the people who are best at controlling others. It seems that Satan is the one who initiated the breakaway. That’s why it’s called the devil and his angels in Revelation. He’s the one who is sort of coordinating and organizing the rebellion against God. He is, it seems, the first one of the angelic host to break away from God. So you’ve got him as, in the spiritual world, the leader of the opposition, and then in the human world, the representative of the opposition. So yeah, it just seems like it’s natural out of that environment where he’s ruling these fallen leaders, fallen angels, and then he’s also active in the space where God is not sovereign over people’s lives, and so he swoops in. The Bible describes it kind of like he’s the puppet master of the world, so that he’s the prince of the power of the air. The whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one. It doesn’t exactly say that people are like Satanists, like they’re happily and openly trying to obey and follow Satan, but rather they’re under his sway because they’re not under the sway of God. I think that in that environment, it’s only natural that Satan becomes the preeminent one among the rebellion.

Why did God allow him to reign? This is connected to a bigger question of why does God allow any rebellion against him of any kind. I think you’d have to trace it back. If I said, “Oh yeah, let’s say God didn’t allow Satan to reign,” well, he’s still allowing massive rebellion against him, and so we really don’t talk about Satan more, but we still have the same problem: scattered rebellion that maybe is leaderless that is still against God. Why does God allow rebellion against him, though? It seems to me that this is all part of a larger plan. My personal opinion here, because this is my personal opinion, you do not need to agree with me to be a Christian or to be a Bible-believing Christian, is that it’s all part of a larger story that God is telling that involves giving humankind free will and even angelic beings free will in choosing to follow him. So that when we’re in eternity, all those who follow God were not only made by him but have also chosen him so that they follow him in love. By allowing people to choose love, and to let love be the unity of heaven and the unity of eternity, is love. For that to be the case, choice had to be involved, and so allowing a rebellion at all is allowing love at all. I think that’s a big part of it.

Anyway, there’s probably more that can be said on that, Jackie. Other reasons: God will also—Romans tells us he’ll show his glory even in how he judges the sin that’s there. It’ll teach us things, like we will see with our own eyes as we zoom out and look at the story of creation to ultimate consummation, from the garden to heaven and earth meeting in Revelation. When we see all this from hindsight, we’ll look back and see how God was right, man was wrong, Satan was wrong, rebellion against him is bad, is evil, how dark sin is, how punished it is, how good the righteousness of God and the goodness of God are. So we’re learning all these things we’ll carry with us into eternity. Those things are valuable too, and God himself will be glorified even in those who rebel.

See original video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvcaU6mHnqY