Why Does Satan Tempt Us?

Life is rough. And a big reason for that is Satan, the one who tempts us to sin, encourages pain and suffering, and opposes God’s eternal plan. Even though Satan is real and does try to bring us down, God is real too. And He does the opposite of Satan – loves us, encourages us, and guides us.

That’s a little more hopeful, right?

God vs. Satan

Now, we have two powerful beings here, so let’s straighten out why God is God and Satan isn’t: God is all powerful, all knowing, perfect in body and spirit. He is the creator of all things. Satan, on the other hand, is a fallen spirit son of God. He holds only the power to oppose God.

Satan is definitely a lesser being than God. He does not have the power, the capacity to love, or the level of progression that God has. That doesn’t mean he has zero power though. We’ve all experienced Satan’s power (whether we were aware of it or not) when we’ve been tempted to do things that are wrong.

Satan can also inspire doubt. This is one significant way I’ve noticed Satan work on me. Look, I’ve been raised a Christian my whole life. I believe that Jesus Christ is my Savior.

But sometimes little questions sneak in. “What if it isn’t true?” “What if it’s all just a story, like old myths?” “Am I really saved if I can mess up so badly?”

These are the kinds of questions that hit me. At this point, I’ve heard these thoughts so many times that I can usually brush them off, but there are times when that. Is. So. Tough.

You get it. I’m sure you’ve experienced something similar. You’ve probably also experienced some of Satan’s other influences:

• Fear
• Contention
• Division
• Confusion

We could probably list more than this, but we don’t really need more specifics.

So yes, Satan definitely has power. But God’s power is 100% more powerful. Because He can do anything. Literally. In fact, the only reason Satan even has power is that God allows him to have it and use it.

But wait! Are you wondering now why God would let Satan tempt us?

Well, great question. I’ve wondered that a lot too.

Why Does God Let Satan Tempt Us?

Here’s what I understand: God gave us agency, or a will so that we could make choices on our own. That way we aren’t just marionettes bouncing around on strings whenever God wants us to with no say about anything that happens in our lives.

God gave us a will because He loves us and wants us to progress like He has. I’m not going to get too in-depth here, but He loves us and wants this for us because He is our Father. We are everything to Him. (I’ve already written a post about this relationship, so if you are interested in it, click here.)

But if God wants us to make choices, then there has to be a choice between following Him and not following Him.

That’s where Satan comes in. Now, I have no idea if Satan realizes that he fits in God’s plan like this, or how much he realizes it. But it seems like he might not get the big picture, and I’ll get into why I think that in a bit.

Satan’s goal is to take us as far from God as he can. He tempts us, gets us to sin, and pulls us away from God. But God, because He’s more powerful, sent Jesus Christ as our Savior to help us come back to God.

Now we have this push-and-pull, tug-of-war relationship going on. And because God trusts us and loves us, He lets us choose which side of the rope we want to yank on.

And because Satan exists and can tempt us, we actually do have options to choose from.

Satan’s Lies and Self-Deception

Now here’s where I want to talk about why Satan might not totally get what God’s plan is.

If Satan is God’s enemy, but by existing and fighting against God he’s actually helping God’s plan (which is for us to choose between right and wrong, but still have a way to come back to God)… then why doesn’t he just stop fighting against God? I mean, he’s literally fighting against the Being that created him. There’s no way he can win.

Seems like a waste of time and effort.

This is a question I’ve thought about for, no joke, almost my entire life. Maybe you guys have more ideas on this, and if you do, please share them. I’d love to hear what you think.

But here are my thoughts so far.

I did mention before that Satan existing and fighting against God is part of God’s plan. It’s what gives us options to choose between.

But why does Satan want to fight God so badly?

The explanation that makes the most sense to me is that Satan is a liar. Might seem obvious, but hang on with me for a second here.

Satan lies to us. Sure. He tells us God isn’t real, that even he, the devil, isn’t real because, if that’s true, then we have no choices and no consequences. Sometimes Satan uses truth to lie, just twists it a bit. “Yeah, sin is real, but God will forgive us no matter what. So we should do whatever sin we want because we’ll be forgiven anyway.”

(Scary. Because sin is kind of a big deal, and there are serious consequences to it.)

But now to my point: For Satan to fight against God when he’s actually helping God’s plan, not hindering it, Satan would have to believe that he could beat God.

In other words, Satan believes that he can win a war against the all-powerful, all-knowing, perfect Creator of the entire Universe. Who is the only reason Satan has any power at all. And the only reason that Satan exists.

For Satan to believe this, he’d have to be a liar.

To himself.

He lies to us, yes. But Satan deceives himself even more than he does us.

Is this making sense? I hope so. I think it’s essential to understand these kinds of things about Satan. ‘Know your enemy’ and all that.

In case this isn’t clear, let’s get into an example from the scriptures. One of Satan’s biggest lies to himself is what power is, and that’s made clear in the following New Testament story.

In Matthew 4 and Luke 4, when Satan is tempting Jesus in the wilderness, he offers Jesus all the power of the world – power of kingdoms, land, and mortal glory. The price for all this “generosity”? That Jesus, the literal Son of God, worship Satan. Then Jesus can have all the glory and riches He’s ever wanted.

Obviously, Jesus doesn’t even give this temptation the time of day. He knows that what God offers is so great that it can’t compare with Satan’s offer and that to worship Satan would be to deny His own divinity.

In this situation, Satan had convinced himself that the power of the world – of manmade, corruptible, and temporary things – could be great enough to tempt the Son of God to deny His true identity and forget the glory of God. And even if Satan knew this would never work, he still convinced himself of it enough to try it.

It sounds kind of ridiculous to think that Satan even might have thought this could work to destroy Jesus. What’s even worse is that Satan – who must have experienced or seen the power of God when he was cast out of heaven, if not before – has managed to convince himself that worldly riches compare in any way to the power of God. Knowing something firsthand and still convincing yourself it isn’t true. It’s difficult to imagine that level of self-deception.

In another example, this time from the Pearl of Great Price, Satan approached Moses much like he did Jesus (Moses 1:10-22). Before Satan’s appearance to Moses, God reveals Himself to Moses in the burning bush, teaches Moses all about His plan for us, and calls Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt.

After God leaves, Satan shows up, thinking that just his appearance would show Moses how powerful he is and impress Moses to the point of compliance.

Unfortunately for Satan, Moses has a great response to Satan’s less-than-impressive appearance here:

“And it came to pass that Moses looked upon Satan and said: Who art thou? For behold, I am a son of God, in the similitude of his Only Begotten; and where is thy glory that I should worship thee?… For it is darkness unto me… Get thee hence, Satan; deceive me not.”

Moses 1:13-16

Moses can immediately tell the difference between Satan’s power and God’s power just by looking at the devil.

Here, Satan had convinced himself that his own power was incredibly grandiose. There seems to be no doubt in his mind that just showing up and talking to Moses for a minute would somehow blow Moses’s mind. However, if Satan really wanted to impress Moses with his power, he probably shouldn’t have shown up immediately after God had shown His power to Moses.

Satan has power. No doubt of that. But he’s nothing compared to God.

He proves that to Moses when, after Moses refuses to worship him, he throws an actual tantrum (Moses 1:19-22). A being worthy of worship does not throw temper tantrums to get what he wants.

I don’t know about you, but I’d rather worship a Being that inspires respect.

How God and Satan Impact Us

So, now that we’ve talked about God vs. Satan and why Satan thinks he can fight God, where do we fit into all of this?

Here are a few thoughts:

• We are God’s children and He wants us to choose to follow Him, rather than forcing us back to Him. Satan exists because we need to be able to choose whether or not we actually want to follow God.
• Satan thinks that tempting us will damage God’s plan. So we are his targets.
• As children of God, we have God on our side any time we choose to follow Him instead of Satan. We don’t have to lose to Satan.
• We are offered a chance to let go of our sins, mistakes, etc., because of Jesus Christ. And this offer comes over and over and over again as long as we are willing to take it.
• The battle between God and Satan is based around us. God does everything for us and Satan tries to use us to help himself.

The conflict between God and Satan established the world and our lives as we know them. Almost everything comes back to it.

Here’s my last question, and it’s one I think we can all answer in our own lives: What can we do to overcome Satan’s temptations?

I don’t think there’s a single right answer to this, so please comment below with your answers. We can all learn from each other on this. I look forward to hearing what you think!

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