the sovereignty of satan

I'm increasingly distressed by the power that many Christians are willing to attribute to Satan. It's shocking, quite frankly. I frequently hear things like the following:

"Satan is out to get me. He doesn't like that I'm having regular quiet times, and so he's attacking me."
"Satan knows my weak points and he goes after them all the time."
"I had a really tough week; Satan was really attacking me."
"As soon as I decided to serve in that role in the church, Satan began attacking - I even had some tests done this week to see whether or not I have cancer."

Um...when did Satan take control of who gets cancer?

If you are an American, evangelical Christian and haven't been living in a cave for the last 20 years, you've probably heard similar statements. And I think we're giving Satan way too much credit. A whole book could be written on this issue, but let me point you to one simple passage that tears down all this nonsense. In Job 1, God allows Satan to take everything away from him - his house, his wealth, and his children. Everything except his miserable wife. Job responds by saying,

"Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will leave this life.
The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away. Praise the Name of the Lord."

Now, if we were to believe the common theology, that Satan is the root of all evil and all bad things that happen to us, and he's always "attacking" us and can do whatever he wants to sabotage our Christian lives, we would respond to Job by saying: "Now Job, you know God would never do that to you. Satan is attacking you. Don't let him win!" That's how many Christians respond when bad stuff happens. They would tell Job his words were wrong, and that Satan was just attacking him.

Now, read the following verse in Chapter 1 of Job: "Throughout all this Job did not sin or blame God for anything."

Wow. Satan took away all Job had. Job attributed what had happened to God. And Job was right. Because Satan is not simply the evil, slightly less powerful version of God. He is absolutely subservient to God, and can only do what God permits him to do. Job challenges his whining wife with a powerful question after God lets Satan take Job's health away as well: "Shall we accept good from God and not adversity?"

For far too long we've allowed ourselves to believe that Satan is sovereign - that he has free reign to attack Christians all he wants. Aside from the fact that Satan can't be everywhere at once and probably has never come anywhere near you or me personally, this belief in Satan's sovereignty is simply not true. It encourages nothing but fear, and totally ignores and distorts both the sovereignty of God and the powerful, Satan-defeating death of Jesus Christ.