Welcome back gentle reader, glad to have you again as my guest. This week we look at all the New Testament appearances of the devil. There are a few but not all that much in which our evil little buddy does anything.

Okay here we go with Lucifer’s first look-see. (I know he is not really called Lucifer, but hey, it’s cute huh?)

Matthew 4:1-12
"1 Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil
2And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungered.
3 And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.
4 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
5 Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple,
6And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.
7 Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.
8 Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and showeth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;
9 And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.
10 Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.
11 Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him."

Okay gentle reader, we have good ole Satan’s first action in the New Testament. He tempts “god”. WOW!!! But, I know you are asking yourself the same question:

HOW CAN YOU TEMPT GOD? Okay we all know that is Jesus that is getting the treatment, but hey, most believe that Jesus was god. Notice the actions taken by Satan,

All he does is present Jesus with an opportunity to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is who he says he is, THE SON OF GOD. Also note that Satan addressed him thus: SON OF GOD, not god. I think since Satan knew god personally (just read Job), he would have recognized his buddy. I mean that like this, without god Satan would be unemployed. Thus buddy. Now since Satan was nice enough to afford Jesu

First he quoted Deut 8:3…

"And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the LORD doth man live."

Nothing-godly there, nope-just scripture. WOW!!!

So, Satan in like fashion breaks out his dictionary, and shows Jesus the words he knows, and quotes scripture too, again offering Jesus another chance to prove he is who he says he is. Satan quotes

Psalm 91:11, 12

"For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.
They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone."

And in reply Jesus yet again quotes scripture, this time using

Deut 6:16

"Ye shall not tempt the LORD your God, as ye tempted him in Massah."

HHHHMMMM as you tempted him in Massah, are we in Massah?

Next Satan takes god, errmm Jesus, to very big tall mountain, and shows him all the kingdoms of the world. He then offers them to Jesus if he would only worship Satan.
Jesus again does nothing more god-like than quote scripture. In this instance

Deut 6:13

"Thou shalt fear the LORD thy God, and serve him, and shalt swear by his name."

All I read is fear, serve, and swear by…nothing about shutting all those other gods out of the worship picture. Again we have Jesus quoting scripture instead of shutting good ole Satan up once and for all. After this the devil leaves Jesus alone. Now, was that all that evil gentle reader? I thought you would think that it was not. Heck, he was really giving Jesus the chance to prove he was god, a favor really. Evil Bad Devil!!!

Next we have just a small reference to Satan from Jesus, nothing of import, and not really an appearance of the devil, but hey, lets look:

Matt 12:26-28
" And if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself; how shall then his kingdom stand?
27 And if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your children cast them out? therefore they shall be your judges.
28 But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you."

Well nothing here to talk about. Just a reference in order to justify he was whatever. Oops, another evil bad devil episode!

Okay, well actually we do not really know if Satan possessed Peter or not, although Jesus certainly thought so.

Matt 16: 23

"But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men."

Now all Peter did was say something to Jesus, this was after he was told all the happy “I will build the church on you my rock” you know, happy stuff. Well, Peter was saying that this would not happen to you lord, (that Jesus was going to get all messed up and killed and what not). What was so evil about that? I mean, if Peter was just a normal person, without special powers and the like, then he was just being natural, and trying to deny nasty bits that he did not want to come true. And for that he was obviously possessed by Satan. Damn, another evil plot devised by the devil!!!

The next few times Satan is mentioned, it in passing only, and no actions are taken, then the other gospels just rehash the temptation story from Matthew, so we will not look into those, as all we would be doing is beating a dead horse..

The next happy thing the devil does is actually possess Judas Iscariot. We read this in:

Luke 22:3

"Then entered Satan into Judas surnamed Iscariot, being of the number of the twelve."

Hmmm well we all know that good ole Judas betrayed Jesus, and all that, so maybe this can be seen as a nasty do wrong of the devil. Hmmmm but come on, all Satan really did was possess Judas, we do not know for how long, and what EXACTLY he made Judas do. In Matthew there is no mention of Judas being possessed. Nor in Mark. Now in John Judas is possessed by Satan, so we will cover that here as well. We still don’t know what the devil made Judas do. I mean hell in Luke, it is said plainly that Judas will betray, and yet in John, they were not told it was Judas… well evil was afoot here gentle reader.

Next we see that Satan is once again referred to, and in this case slandered.

John 8:44
" Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it"

Hmmm well nothing to see here folks, move along, that’s right, no evil done here, just slander from the holy one. Nuff said huh? I guess it must be true if Jesus said it huh? God and all that important stuff. Omnimax and all that. Or maybe he was upset about Satan calling his bluff when he just recited scripture? Hmmmm….

In the book of Acts we have the following nasty things happen: Peter talks smack to poor old Ananias, telling him he lied and that Satan had possessed him. That he had lied to god, and tried to rip off the lord. Poor old Ananias was struck dead. Or at least fell down dead, and who made this happen? Well the only thought I can come to is that the “All Loving God”™ made it so. Satan did not have a hand in it. And look here, his wife knew about Ananias ripping off the lord, and god struck her dead also. Next case of “All Loving God”™ being soooo loving. Unless Satan possessed her to, but the scripture is silent about the whole thing. Oops. Unless Peter himself killed them, but he was a man of god, he would never do that. (Just forget about him lying about knowing Jesus).

Acts: 3-11
"3 But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land?
4 Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God.
5 And Ananias hearing these words fell down, and gave up the ghost: and great fear came on all them that heard these things.
6 And the young men arose, wound him up, and carried him out, and buried him.
7 And it was about the space of three hours after, when his wife, not knowing what was done, came in.
8 And Peter answered unto her, Tell me whether ye sold the land for so much? And she said, Yea, for so much.
9 >Then Peter said unto her, How is it that ye have agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord? behold, the feet of them which have buried thy husband are at the door, and shall carry thee out.
10 Then fell she down straightway at his feet, and yielded up the ghost: and the young men came in, and found her dead, and, carrying her forth, buried her by her husband.
11 And great fear came upon all the church, and upon as many as heard these things."

Next mention of the devil is in Acts 10:38, where we are told that the devil oppresses people. Hmmm, evil that huh? Even by the track record of Satan, the worst thing he has done to this point is give Job boils. Oh, and possessing Judas and all…. (Now I have a little thought here, if Satan “possessed” Judas, then Judas did not act of his own accord, so, could it be said that Judas had freewill?)

Acts 10:38
" How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him"

Next we have in Acts 13:10 another mention, but nothing more, the mans character was the nasty bit, so he was obviously of the devil. Just the verse to show you now, nothing more.

Acts 13:10
1" And said, O full of all subtlety and all mischief, thou child of the devil, thou enemy of all righteousness, wilt thou not cease to pervert the right ways of the Lord?"

Next action taken by Satan is his hindrance of Paul. Why not just kill him off? Give him boils, or make god move against Paul?? Real evil here gentle reader. Wow!!

I Thess 2:17
"Wherefore we would have come unto you, even I Paul, once and again; but Satan hindered us."

The remainder of the verses are not direct actions, or appearances of Satan. They, mention the devil in passing, associate something with Luci, or just blast old Luci for whatever reason they may find. In the book of Revelation, he is there, cast into a lake of fire, loosed for a time, exalted on earth, having fun, making B-B-Q chicken or something. The verses are all listed here after the I Thess verse, you can read them yourself and determine what is up here gentle reader, I think I have done my job in showing you all how Lucifer has gotten a bad rap from people who do not read the bible, and just quote what ever Pastor Bob says in church on Sundays.

The list:
II Thess 2:9
I Tim 1:20
I Tim 3:6-7
I Tim 5:15
II Tim 2:26
Heb 2:14
James 4:7
I Peter 5:8 (implied actions here, how does Peter “know”?)
I John 3:8-10
Jude verse 9
Rev chapter 2 many verses
Rev 3:9
Rev 12:9-15
Rev 20:2, 7, 10