The following excerpt is taken from What Every Christian Should Know About Satan. Order your copy in print, Kindle, or Audible versions here.

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In Homer’s Odyssey, the sirens are three mysterious women who live on an island. When ships pass, the sirens stand on the cliffs above and sing. Their hauntingly beautiful voices lure sailors to steer their vessels closer to shore until eventually they shipwreck on the rocky coast.

Odysseus is curious to hear the sirens’ songs as well, yet he knows the dangers. He orders his men to tie him to the ship’s mast as they approach the island. Then he instructs them to plug their own ears with beeswax. 

As expected, when Odysseus hears the sirens’ call, he demands to be untied, but his shipmates obey his earlier command and bind him more tightly to the mast. Finally, they release him when the sirens’ song is no longer heard.

This ancient myth illustrates how the powerful pull of temptation is common to all people. We know all too well the perils of flirting with danger. Temptation is common to every human being. It was well-known to Jesus. Yet, despite being tempted in every way common to humanity, he emerged unscathed (Heb. 4:15).

Unlike the Son of God, we’ve all succumbed to temptation at various times and in different ways. Worse, we’ve all played the tempter, plying our seductive charms or clumsy threats – all to satisfy our selfish desires. It isn’t pretty that we act like little Satans, but it doesn’t bother him. Quite the contrary, he appears to see imitation as the highest form of flattery. 

The evil one is the ultimate siren, captivating us with his counterfeit beauty and wooing us with empty promises. Satan is the father of lies (John 8:44) and the mother of all tempters.

The New Testament calls Satan the tempter in only two places (Matt. 4:3; 1 Thess. 3:5), while depicting him as a source of temptation elsewhere (e.g., 1 Cor. 7:5). But from Genesis through Revelation, the evil one marks his territory with unrelenting attacks on everyone from Adam to the second Adam (Jesus). 

By far, Satan’s number one activity is temptation. His goal is to drive a wedge between God and human beings made in God’s image. He engineers the first recorded temptation in Scripture, enticing Eve to eat of the forbidden tree in the garden of Eden (Gen.3:1-7). He destroys Job’s family, wealth, and health in an effort to get Job to curse God (Job 1:11; 2:5). He tempts King David to take a census of Israel so David seeks security in a large potential army rather than in God (1 Chron. 21:1, 5). And he stands before a divine assembly in heaven to accuse the high priest Joshua of unrighteousness (Zech. 3:1). 

At the dawn of his public ministry, Jesus encounters Satan in the desert and faces intense temptation (Matt. 4:1-11; Mark 1:12-13; Luke 4:1-13). The evil one seeks to defeat Jesus from the outset of his earthly mission, appealing to the lust of the flesh (“tell these stones to become bread”), the lust of the eyes (“He will give his angels orders concerning you”), and the pride of life (“I will give you all these things”). As Kenneth Boa and Robert Bowman frame it, “Satan tempted Jesus to seek universal power apart from God’s purposes, which for Jesus included suffering and dying.” Later, Jesus attributes Peter’s efforts to divert Jesus’ destiny with death to none other than the evil one (Matt. 16:21-23). 

The New Testament epistles and the Book of Revelation warn about the wiles of the devil (e.g., 1 Cor. 7:5; Rev. 2:10). Satan’s counterfeit miracles aim to deceive people into believing a lie (2 Thess. 2:9-10). The evil one’s antics are so successful that the Book of Revelation describes him as one who deceives the whole world (Rev. 12:9; 20:10).

As Boa and Bowman summarize:

Whatever the Devil does … his purpose is to deceive us. His game plan is to tempt us to abandon our trust in God and to disobey him. Whenever we are tempted to turn away from God, we are listening to a diabolical lie. This is something everyone needs to know about the Devil.

Sense & Nonsense About Angels & Demons

The tempter’s limitations

While Satan is a master of temptation, God limits what he can do to harm us. First, Satan operates under the sovereignty of God and may only attack God’s people with God’s permission. Remember that Satan petitioned God for the right to come after Job (Job 1:9-11; 2:4-5). He also asked Jesus for permission to sift Peter like wheat (Luke 22:31).

Second, Satan may only tempt us up to a point. The apostle Paul assures us: “No temptation has come upon you except what is common to humanity. But God is faithful; he will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation he will also provide a way out so that you may be able to bear it” (1 Cor. 10:13).

Third, Satan can’t make us do anything against our wills. As a result, his temptations, and the temptations of evil spirits, generally appeal to our own selfish desires. James writes: “No one undergoing a trial should say, ‘I am being tempted by God,’ since God is not tempted by evil, and he himself doesn’t tempt anyone. But each person is tempted when he is drawn away and enticed by his own evil desire. Then after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and when sin is fully grown, it gives birth to death” (Jas. 1:13-15).

Fourth, Satan’s nature as a created being restricts him. He is highly intelligent, extremely powerful, and he rules a vast world system. But he does not have the qualities of God – omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, transcendence, immutability, etc. In other words, Satan prowls the earth like a lion because he has to operate that way (1 Pet. 5:8). Further, because the evil one can’t be in more than one place at a time, he must rely on an army of evil spirits, who tempt us on a regular basis.

Fifth, it’s important to keep in mind that sin is not inevitable. Satan and evil spirits carefully observe us. They know our strengths and weaknesses – through observation, not omniscience. They understand our vulnerabilities. And they attack with savage intent. But neither Satan nor demons are omniscient. They simply don’t know whether we’re going to successfully resist temptation or give in to it – until we act.

Sixth, the Lord grants us the ability to successfully fend off temptation. He has equipped us with “the full armor of God,” along with prayer (see Eph. 6:11-20). God also has granted us the indwelling Holy Spirit to comfort, protect, warn, and even chasten us when necessary for our own good. Satan and evil spirits can be defeated when we submit to God and then resist the evil one (Jas. 4:7).

Next: Satan’s temptation of Jesus