18.
Jonathan shuffled in his seat, sitting for so long had made his bum a little numb and during the movement, he happen to look at the large studio clock. Time had pressed on speedily, six o’clock was rapidly approaching. Satan too looked at the clock and grunted.
‘There was so much more I wanted to tell you but now I will have to push on. So let me get to the interesting part. Throughout the years, I kept on with my war against all that were good and righteous, many times I was so close to destroying everything when God whipped it out from under me again. But God grew weary of His people that continually disobeyed Him all because of me, and He knew it was time to bring the change that would save all of mankind. The old laws were not sufficient and to save them.’
Jonathan sat up with interest quickly gulping down more water.
‘Jesus was born. For thirty-three years, he roamed around just like any other boy and man, but he was blameless and a really good man.’ Satan paused in thought for a few seconds.
‘At the time of the Passover feast Jesus began teaching in the synagogues and temples, the people were astounded at His wisdom. He was just a boy then, but I had to make sure everyone knew that he was simply a carpenter’s son and not the Messiah they were all promised.
When the time was right for Jesus’ ministry to begin He went to the wilderness for forty days. Surely I could tempt Him there while He was hungry and alone. Not Jesus - No! He sent me packing. A lot of Jews believed me. However, as you know, Jesus found His disciples, and they spread the word throughout the world that He had come to save them. Now remember they did not have the Bible then, and it was difficult to get people to believe Him until he started with all those miracles. Jeepers how do you not believe when you see a blind man see for the first time in his life or a man’s disease leave him or – and the best – make a dead man alive again. Those were powerful things Jesus performed, and it was incredulous to behold. I was madly jealous, but I was able to keep still some people disbelieving. I was lucky enough to take hold of the Pharisees, Sadducees and the likes of them and when I got Jesus arrested and they way the treated Him by flogging Him and beating Him till His flesh tore I was well pleased with myself. With regards to the flogging, do you know they only flogged Him thirty-nine times and not forty. In doing so, they kept the law rather than honouring the Messiah, who was in their presence, thirty-nine times was supposedly a merciful flogging cause the Romans said that if you flogged a man forty times, he would die, but Jesus had to get crucified. I tell you I got so much pleasure watching Him being beaten up. I had the mob so energized it was just too easy. Can you believe they let that Barabbas man, a barbaric murderer, go free?’ Satan burst out in a loud laugh causing Jonathan to close his ears for fear they would burst.
‘Then Jesus with His beautiful crown of thorns on His head was made to carry His cross all the way to Golgotha, but they had to get that other fellow Simon to help. When Jesus hung on the cross, I relished every second. You must realize, I was trying to force Jesus to use the ten thousand angels at His disposal to destroy the world. In doing so I’d make God out to be a liar, and that would cause all creation; Hell and Earth to cease to exist and then I’d get spared the pain and misery.
I watched as the air deflated from His lungs and He had to struggle to breathe. How the pain of trying to hold Himself up was too unbearable and the blood poured from His wounds was like sweet nectar to my thoughts. I thought I had won and had finally defeated God. Jesus could have called twelve legions to take Him off that cross and destroy the world, but He hung there between two criminals. I stood by with my fingers crossed waiting for my chance to rule the universe because God would be the liar as He would not have fulfilled His promise and the universe would disintegrate and become null and void, and I would rather have had that than to spend eternity in Hell. But I failed once more, at the ultimate defeat of God. God fulfilled every promise and raised Jesus, and He reigns with Him in Heaven, interceding for all of those who truly believe in Him.’
Jonathan sat glued to his seat; his eyes were wide as saucers.
‘I was not going to stop there, as long as I had time to walk among the living on earth I could still dethrone God. I believed it. I started my new plan because God was so specific about eternal salvation and how to obtain it that I used that.’
Jonathan quickly interrupted him ‘Which is?’
‘Confess, repent, and be baptized. Let me explain; Confess Jesus as the Saviour and the Son of God, repent of your sins and be Baptized into Jesus and be reborn a new person free from sin. You see Jesus died for your sins, He was the sacrifice. In the Old Testament law, they had to sacrifice every year, and it was a lamb, but how can a lamb wash away sins, so Jesus became the Lamb to die for your sins. Then when you come out of the water of baptism, you are too resurrected into a new life with Jesus just as the resurrection of Jesus out of the grave. Simple hey! I had to react to this hastily, so I told the guards at Jesus’ grave to tell the Jews He had not risen. At least, I managed to rob hundreds of people the true knowledge that Jesus had risen and that He is the Messiah. Now I had to dilute the command of baptism. I let them believe the sprinkling of water on a baby’s head was sufficient, in fact, sprinkle does separate you from Jesus and the death, burial and the resurrection. How can a six-month-old baby repent?’ Satan let out a raucous laugh.
‘I put in the minds of people and in today’s world - it is not that difficult - that if they touched the TV, they would be saved, or you just had to pray or say you believed, and you would have eternal life. I made the two most profitable businesses mine; the first was drug dealers and the second was the preachers of my church. You see many people and perhaps even the preachers themselves believe they are in God’s church but, in fact, they are in mine. I have caused all these things to draw people away from serving God; like – greediness over money amongst those in the leadership of the Church, abuse of God’s name, woman are meant to be silent in God’s worship service, and now you have them even preaching. The use of musical instruments during worship service; oh my, the young are so influential it was so easy to change a church service into a rock concert, and they all think it is called worshipping – it’s hilarious.’ Satan giggled as far as he could giggle.
‘I created havoc in the world too so as to keep people from believing the word of God. I set it into the minds of humans that the constitutions were more important than the word of God. Brutal punishments for Christians in certain parts of the world, I lured people away from thinking that baptism is the only way to Heaven, you will believe this lie because you did not heed the Word, which is the Bible – and it is the only way by the way. I split congregations and caused mankind to create all these different denominations, and the best of all was to play around with the matter of human rights and same sex marriages. I mean that is an abomination to God, and yet you all fell for it because I whispered into a few influential people's ears that it is acceptable. And don’t forget those influential people had a whack load of money to buy their way into the leaders of the world. There were just too few good people that did nothing for a lot of bad people. Now there is nothing wrong with being wealthy, but the wealthy are supposed to support the poor but I let them think they should rather want more wealth, and now they revel in their wealth only wanting more and more, and the poor remain destitute.’ Satan paused a second for recollection.
‘I loved placing it into people’s minds that the Bible is not the word of God but in fact just a book somebody wrote.’
‘Is it?’ Jonathan, realizing that he would require baptism interrupted Satan.
‘Oh, it is truly the word of God, and should be revered without a doubt.’ Satan smiled.
‘But I tempt, ensnare, devour, take captive, hinder, I am the father of liars, I oppress, and I fill man’ heart with hatred.’ Satan sat in silent contemplation for a few moments. His face changed into anger when he remembered the next tidbit he wanted to share.
‘I was enraged when they changed the paganistic festival to 25th December, Christmas day. My festival! My festival! My!’ Satan slammed his fist down on the arm of the chair breaking it into splinters. He watched in amusement as Jonathan’s arm flew up to cover and protects his face.