What does Satan want?

He is still the same old deceiver blinding men's eyes, transforming himself oftentimes into an angel of light, but with always the same object in view — to hinder them from obtaining God's salvation and to destroy them for ever.

To malign God, and ruin man, has been his aim from the beginning, and will be to the end. In deception has been his success. See 1 Tim.2:14; Rev.20:10).

Overweening pride was his ruin (compare 1 Timothy 3:6), and “the pride of life” is his chief instrument in enslaving men’s minds. He fell, and carried with him a huge following of angelic beings, corrupted by him and partners in this rebellion, before the creation of man. His first sin was seeking to get out of a creature’s place and become as God. On these lines he provoked our first parents. “Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil” was the tempting bait. “Fall down and worship me” revealed the consuming ambition of his heart, as he urged his daring and impious claim upon the Son of God Himself (Matt. 4:9).

The third and last temptation was still bolder. Twice repulsed, like a gambler throwing the dice for higher and higher stakes, Satan comes out in his true colours. The inmost craving of his heart was that he might be worshipped. He dangled the bait, “ye shall be as gods,” before the eyes of our first parents as their reward if they would but break God’s commandment, with resulting terrible consequences to themselves and the human race.

We know that man was made upright and so long as he remained faithful to his Creator he was possessed of everything that could make his life one thrilling anthem. God beheld the work of His hand and saw that it was very good, for His noblest creature stood before Him as a well-tuned instrument of praise. But Satan succeeded in turning men from God and light and liberty and song. He looked upon that fair scene with eyes of malice, and, that he might spoil it all, lied concerning God. He maligned God's character to the woman, and thus proved his right to the title: "A liar, and the father of it" (John 8:44). His proposal was: "Break God's command, and ye shall be as gods" which meant, God is not as good as He pretends to be, listen to me, and you will do better for yourselves than God has done for you; put self first, and leave God and His will out of your reckoning. The temptation succeeded; the lie was believed; sin came in and light went out. The chord was lost, the music died out, and man, that fair instrument of praise, lay broken and spoiled in the power of the foe. It seemed as though God had met with defeat and that Satan held the field, for he made the heart of man, in which God ought to have been enshrined, his citadel, and succeeded in enlisting men in his rebellion against God; and to this day he keeps them in captivity by keeping them in darkness; for we read: "If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: in whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine to them" (2 Cor. 4:3-4). And our Lord declared: "Those by the wayside are they that hear; then comes the devil and takes away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved" (Luke 8:12). So that we see very clearly that Satan gained his power over men at the beginning by blinding them to the truth of God's character, and he keeps them in bondage in the same way.

We know that man was made upright, and so long as he remained faithful to his Creator he was possessed of everything that could make his life one thrilling anthem. God beheld the work of His hand and saw that it was very good, for His noblest creature stood before Him as a well-tuned instrument of praise. But Satan succeeded in turning men from God and light and liberty and song. He looked upon that fair scene with eyes of malice, and, that he might spoil it all, lied concerning God. He maligned God's character to the woman, and thus proved his right to the title: "A liar, and the father of it," John 8:44. His proposal was: "Break God's command, and ye shall be as gods," which meant, God is not as good as He pretends to be, listen to me, and you will do better for yourselves than God has done for you; put self first, and leave God and His will out of your reckoning. The temptation succeeded; the lie was believed; sin came in and light went out. The chord was lost, the music died out, and man, that fair instrument of praise, lay broken and spoiled in the power of the foe. It seemed as though God had met with defeat and that Satan held the field, for he made the heart of man, in which God ought to have been enshrined, his citadel, and succeeded in enlisting men in his rebellion against God; and to this day he keeps them in captivity by keeping them in darkness; for we read: "If our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost: in whom the god of this world has blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine to them," 2 Cor. 4:3-4. And our Lord declared: "Those by the wayside are they that hear; then comes the devil and takes away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved," Luke 8:12. So that we see very clearly that Satan gained his power over men at the beginning by blinding them to the truth of God's character, and he keeps them in bondage in the same way.

Satan’s dark devices are always directed against God’s bright designs for the blessing of man in any dispensation. His unvarying tactics from the beginning seem to have been to bring God’s attributes, holiness and righteousness, into antagonism with His nature, love. In this way he has aimed at making it impossible for His love to express itself without doing violence to His holiness and righteousness.

He wanted too to make them think that God was not so good to them as he would be - that God was keeping back from them the very best thing they could have. And are not men now looking to Satan for happiness, instead of believing God? Man cannot believe that it is God's mind to make him happy.

Surrounded as we are today with so many hostile, as well as subtly deceptive, viewpoints, we must always be aware that one of Satan's oldest and most diabolical strategies is to convince humans that God cannot be trusted (see Gen. 3:1-15). History is a record of how Satan has been all too successful in accomplishing his ends.

We earnestly appeal to any reader of this page, who may be sceptical as to the absolute truth of the word of God. Satan, whose very personality some would deny, whose active energy so many disbelieve, is undermining men's faith in the truth of God's word. "Hath God said?" he mutters constantly in these closing days of the world's history, even as before sin had entered the world, and death by sin, he insinuated the same doubt to Eve "Yea, hath God said?" is his prevailing suggestive enquiry in bible-reading countries, and in almost all religious circles. Before long he will say, "God hath not said"; he will turn his question into a statement, and then man will say, "There is no revelation from God, no word of God." After that Satan will say, "There is no God," and then man will worship himself, the world, and the enemy. God has not left His children in ignorance of the way in which Satan leads. Where the Scriptures are no longer recognised as authority, such as is the case in the circle of infidel christianity, these insinuations are unnecessary; in heathendom, where no authority over man's conscience exists, but merely the dread following demon worship or man adoration, Satan's suggestion has long since produced his desired result. Listening to questions as to the truth of God's word — rejecting the authority of the word over the conscience — rejecting God altogether, are the three downward steps, which so many call progress.