Whether it’s a simple errand that must be run, or a military operation that must be carried out with precision, every activity we participate in requires two things:  a mission and a strategy.  Even if you’re just sitting around the house, your mission is to relax and your strategy might be to sit on the couch and watch TV to help you unwind.  If your mission is to buy groceries, your strategy might be to make a list, start with the shelf-stable items, and work your way to the frozen foods.  Human beings are always looking for faster, better, or more efficient ways to accomplish the missions we set for ourselves.

Should we be surprised that things work this way in the spiritual world also?  God has a mission: to reconcile lost people to Himself.  And He employed a strategy to accomplish His mission: Jesus Christ fulfilled God’s law, set an example of faith, took our punishment, and defeated death so that whoever places their faith in Him as Lord may have abundant and eternal life. 

But God is not the only one with a mission, or a strategy to fulfill it.  We tend to find it much easier to believe in God than to believe in the devil.  Few dangers have been mocked by our society in the way Satan has.  Yet the Bible affirms that there is a real enemy at work in this world who is opposed to God, His truth, and His people.  Society paints him as a cartoon caricature in a red spandex suit with horns and a plastic pitchfork, but this feeble and harmless version of the devil plays right into Satan’s plan.  It is Satan’s mission and strategy that I want to examine.

So, what is Satan’s mission?  If we could sum it up in one word, it would be “ADORATION.”  Satan’s chief desire is to be adored through worship and sacrifice as God is.  Isaiah 14:12-15 seems to give us some insight into Satan’s original desire.  Voicing his goal, verse 14 says: “I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.”  So it seems that Satan’s original mission was to supersede God Himself and to be adored in glory.  Then he shows up in the Garden of Eden to tempt God’s human representatives – Adam and Eve – into rebellion against God.  At this point he wants to be adored by God’s children in wisdom, and he offers selfish and worldly wisdom over Heavenly wisdom.  After God punishes him for tempting the human beings, Satan seems to settle for adoration among the people of earth.  The Bible affirms that demonic power is what’s behind the worship of false gods and idols among the nations.  They were believed to control storms, rivers, the weather, the sun, the moon. According to their worshipers, these beings were the ultimate authorities in the universe. Satan wishes to be adored in power.

Today, spiritual forces are at still work in the world.  Through psychics, mediums, ghost encounters, and other spiritual phenomena, demonic forces vie for the attention and adoration of human beings.  They work to be glorified by human beings…  to be vaunted as the source of wisdom…  to be exalted for their unearthly power. 

In his 2001 book The Siren Call Of Hungry Ghosts: A Riveting Investigation Into Channeling And Spirit Guides, the late Canadian journalist Joe Fisher shares his personal story of joining a small society who used mediums to contact what they believed were the spirits of the dead to give them knowledge and heal the sick.  But the spirits began to urge the members of the group to sleep with each other as a way to share the spirits’ healing energies.  And as Joe dug further and further, a particular spirit urged him to bypass the medium and contact her directly.  (The spirit presented itself as Joe’s lover from a previous life.)  He would simply need to set aside time each day to focus his attention on that spirit and talk to her.  She promised that eventually she would manifest herself to him through voices and visions.  The spirit essentially wanted Joe to pray to it and worship it, promising him the desires of his heart.  It was at that point that Joe knew what these entities really wanted.  They were not disembodied souls that longed for their human families and their old lives.  They were spiritual entities that craved the adoration and devotion of human beings.  They wanted the worship and adoration of these unsuspecting and foolish human beings to fulfill their own desires, drive them away from God, and ultimately destroy them.

Satan’s mission is to be adored as God; and to do so at any cost.