In a world where almost every week I think things cannot get more bizarre, The Satanic Temple of Idaho has posted on Facebook at the end of a longer message “Just know that Satan loves you for you!”
This strikes me as an utterly incredible statement. I understand that many people in the world don’t believe in God, and even some of those that do, don’t believe in the antithesis of God – the devil. But I would have thought that surely those of us who believed in Satan were at least all agreed as to his character! And I would have assumed that people turned to Satanism out of a desire for power, certainly not out of a desire for love and acceptance.
If someone was out looking for a god to love them, why on earth would they choose Satan?! Where do they get their information about Satan from? The Christian Bible is the only source I know.
One the one hand you have Jesus, who demonstrated His love by walking among us, healing and doing kind deeds, and then dying on the cross to pay our sin-debt to God; on the other you have Satan who, what? Brought all the trouble into the world by tempting Eve and causing The Fall. What loving act of Satan do Satanists use to prove his great love for humanity?
Satan absolutely hates us. He is the enemy of God the Father and all He stands for, Satan CAN’T love because God IS love. The Bible calls him the old serpent and the father of lies. Satan is bent on humanity’s destruction. He is trying to deceive as many people as possible to spend eternity in damnation with him in the place that God created specifically to punish him and his evil angels. He hates that God loves us and offers us redemption. He hates playing second fiddle to God and wants to be worshipped as god.
That statement on the post might have had a slightly different meaning in its context, which was as part of a post about a gay pride march; maybe it was meant to mean that Satan loves what you are doing and never expects you to change your sexual behaviour or proclivities. However, that is a lie too. Satan loves sin because it destroys us. He encourages people to sin and to get deeper and deeper into sin until they are enslaved and destroyed. Whatever your sexual appetites are, he will warp and change and pervert them to more animal lust and less emotional fulfilment. If Satan approves of some behaviour, you can know it is because it leads to death.
Don’t believe the lie that Satan will leave you as you are. God will accept you as you are and then raise you up to be holy and pure and clean, as He is. Satan will accept you as you are and then drag you down the depths of depravity with him. Sin will always take you further and cost you more than you imagined. God’s path will make you the best human being and ‘a little lower than the angels’, Satan’s will make you little better than a beast.
Don’t be fooled, Satan does not love you, he hates your guts. He is the enemy of God and all His good creation – which includes you.