I don't want to argue.
Because I see your heart is soft and moldable toward God.
But man was made a little lower than the angels.
You are correct that the only power the enemy has is deception.
But the devices he uses are unwitting to us.
Satan is Lucifer, and the fallen angel.
And it is not hard for him to entice/deceive us.
Seeing as he is supernatural.
Many of the breakthroughs in technology were given by him.
After all, he is the sum of all knowledge.
He didn't make it but he knows it.
He can't create but he can relate....the knowledge he's privy to.
And it is alot.
The worst thing you can do is say he is powerless. - Then he's got you, because there is pride in that attitude.
Infact, he'd rather you think that. Much easier to cajole and control.
Man was made lower than the angels for a purpose.
So he would have to rely on God and his wife, and his neighbor. -
-And so love would abound between them. - Man, his wife(eros),his neighbor(philos), and God(Agape).
Bam, Boom, Bang........So it is.
NOt splitting hairs here, but, Satan does not even have the power of deception over us, IF we believe in Christ, there is NO power in Satan over us. Now, yes, God can allow Him to work on us, and, hurt us (but not more than we can bear
) , but IF we are with Christ we can choose NOT to be deceived, for Scripture 1 Cor. 2 is clear, we 'have the minds of Christ.' Someone with the 'mind of Christ,' has the ability to feign ALL of Satan's attacks.
So, even though Satan is 'the father of lies,' and, he does deceive Christ's own, it is because their human response IS to give in to the deception and NOT be allowing the Lord to lead his/her life. The Lord leads, Rickshafe
And, it is excellent to say that we should NOT say Satan is powerless, we should instead say that God has ALL power over Satan, just as JOhn 4:4 ? says, "Greater is He who is in me than he (Satan) who is in the world."
Satan CAN only touch us IF we put our trust in his power for our life, otherwise, Satan can't do anything to us as we are UNDER Christ's wing, in His sheltering wings
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Post #28 is good, enlightening for some, I 'm sure. There will be a lawless one, who will bring on doom. WHO is this person? That is ALL I got at the moment, but, I like what cookieprincess says, she's a monster, imho, when it comes to speaking The Word. I think, as enlighteningU said, from Thessalonians 2 ? , that The Lawless One IS real, and, someone is going to be in control of the horrible happenings, the beast, or ??/ I don't know. But, the Lawless One is NOT here yet but the time will come when he is here, and, Rickbuddyshafe, I don't think that Lucifer is 'the Lawless One,' I think it's a man, who will rise to great power. Could be a president or another person of great power, like a teleevangelist. I don't mean to speculate toooo miuch but that 2 Thess. verse of 'the Lawless One' speaks of someone yet to come who is going bring doom and destruction, which has NOT happened yet. God is not the author of confusion and when he says there will be a LAWLESS ONE, this is a TITLE of someone, so, EXPECT someone who practices lawlessness and also is a powerful presence in the world, NOT just the USA will follow this guy. And, 'doom and destruction' will come too and that is very difficult to say has happened yet. I say 'no,' it's going to be war, like maybe...
...psalms speaks symbollically in its Scripture of a FIRST war coming, like Damascus going to be destroyed (80,000 people) by someone , like by Syria , or, some say, Israel will do that?. Or, maybe those suni and shiiites of Islam will destroy each other now and trigger something else. I am speculating, but the Psalm referring to Damascus is not speculation, nor, exaggeration. The START will be Damascus of the doom and destruction , I don't know. , Anyway, and, then, Iran will enter, and, then China, Japan, and everyone else will be in the third war, which would be a world war so USA will be involved too. This would constitute 'doom and destruction' to me, because billions will die. There are 9 billion on the planet now, go figure
