Editorial September 21, 1981 Issue

What to do about the devil

NATHAN A. TALBOT

While some people write off the devil as an irrelevant religious superstition, others have a vivid impression of Satan as a tremendously powerful force for evil. But neither view really comes to grips with just what's involved here. The reason people generally haven't dealt very effectively with the devil is that they really haven't understood it.

The Bible tells of several brothers who were practicing exorcism—the art of freeing someone who is supposed to be possessed by the devil. But they were in over their heads; they ran into some big difficulties because they didn't comprehend the devil they were attempting to conquer. One particular effort to exorcise a man who had an "evil spirit" ended in disaster for the brothers. We read in Acts, "And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, and overcame them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded." ^{Acts 19:16.}

Christ Jesus healed decisively. Time and again he was able to liberate those who appeared to be possessed by various evils. He succeeded in healing because he understood God's supremacy, His allness. Jesus wasn't fooled by Satan. The Master described with concrete clarity the nature of the devil: "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." ^{John 8:44.} Such a statement pulls no punches. The devil is a lie; the projection of gross mortal ignorance; a horrible mistake; an illusion. It is absolutely nothing.