God is Good.  Satan is Bad.

By William R. Cunningham

Introduction

While a man goes to his house he notices two men with signs on his lawn.  One man has a sign that reads, “I am a thief” and the other has a sign that reads, “I am a police officer.”  The man enteed his house and notices many items are missing.  He runs outside and begins to scream and holler at the police officer.  He believes that the police officer stole the items and allows the thief to go.  That sounds crazy, but that in many ways is how we approach God.  We blame God for the bad things that happen and allow Satan to wander off to steal from and destroy others.  For example, the following are things that people say about God.

  1. God gave me a sickness so that He can slow me down to talk to me
  2. God wanted me to take a vow of poverty
  3. God will heal some people and he chooses to not heal others
  4. You loved her, but God loved her more so He gave her cancer to kill her so that she would be with Him
  5. God has a purpose for the sickness

These are the types of things that Christians say about God.  Fortunately for us, the Bible paints a very different picture of God our heavenly Father.  In this lesson we are going to attempt to get you to reconsider how you perceive God and to base what you think of God on what is revealed to us in the Holy Scriptures, i.e., the Bible.

Scripture Text

  • Psalm 136:1 (NASB95) — 1 Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, For His lovingkindness is everlasting.
  • See also Psalms 106:1, 107:1, 118:1.
  • John 10:10 (NASB95) — 10 “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.
  • 1 Peter 5:8 (NASB95) — 8 Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
  • Acts 13:9–10 (NASB95) — 9 But Saul, who was also known as Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, fixed his gaze on him, 10 and said, “You who are full of all deceit and fraud, you son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, will you not cease to make crooked the straight ways of the Lord?
  • John 8:44 (NASB95) — 44 “You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

About God

God Is Holy

  • Psalm 99:9 (NASB95) — 9 Exalt the Lord our God And worship at His holy hill, For holy is the Lord our God.
  • 1 Peter 1:16 (NASB95) — 16 because it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

The word holy means sacred, regarded with or deserving of worship or veneration, revered, deserving or regarded with special reverence or respect.

God is Omnipresent

God’s presence is everywhere at all times. There is not a place that you can go in heaven or earth where God’s presence does not exist. The bible says

See Psalms 139:7-12.

Jeremiah 23:24 (NASB95) — 24 “Can a man hide himself in hiding places So I do not see him?” declares the Lord. “Do I not fill the heavens and the earth?” declares the Lord.

God Is Omniscient

God knows all things. There is nothing in the entire universe that can be known that God doesn’t know. God has all knowledge and all wisdom about all things. The bible says

Psalm 147:5 (NASB95) — 5 Great is our Lord and abundant in strength; His understanding is infinite.

God Is Omnipotent

God has all power. There is no power in heaven or earth that is greater than God. The bible says

  • Revelation 19:6 (NASB95) — 6 Then I heard something like the voice of a great multitude and like the sound of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, saying, “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns.
  • Revelation 1:8 (NASB95) — 8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”

See also Revelation 4:8, and Genesis 17:1; 25:11

The word almighty means having absolute power, omnipotent. When you see the word almighty in the bible it is usually referring to the omnipotent God. Our heavenly father has all (absolute, complete) power over all of creation.

God Is Good

What does the word good mean? The word good means of moral excellence: upright, benevolent: kind. God is kind and he looks out for his people. He desires the best for us and he wants us for himself. God is indeed good. The bible says

  • 1 Chronicles 16:34 (NASB95) — 34 O give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; For His lovingkindness is everlasting.
  • Psalm 34:8 (NASB95) — 8 O taste and see that the Lord is good; How blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!

All that is good derives from God (remember that God is the source of all). That is why Jesus said that there is only one who is good (Matthew 19:17).

A person is not good because they do good things just as a person is not righteous because they do righteous things. A person is good because the goodness of God (God himself) dwells in his heart. A good person does good things out of the goodness of his heart. God is good all of the time.

The Names of God

The Bible contains ten combinations of the word Jehovah or the names of God. These reveal the attributes and character of God.

  1. JEHOVAH-JIREH: The Lord Will Provide (Genesis 22:14) – the name memorialized by Abraham when God provided the ram to be sacrificed in place of Isaac.
  2. JEHOVAH-RAPHA: The Lord Who Heals (Exodus 15:26) – “I am Jehovah who heals you” both in body and soul. In body, by preserving from and curing diseases, and in soul, by pardoning iniquities.
  3. JEHOVAH-NISSI: The Lord Our Banner (Exodus 17:15), where banner is understood to be a rallying place. This name commemorates the desert victory over the Amalekites in Exodus 17.
  4. JEHOVAH-M’KADDESH: The Lord Who Sanctifies, Makes Holy (Leviticus 20:8; Ezekiel 37:28) – God makes it clear that He alone, not the law, can cleanse His people and make them holy.
  5. JEHOVAH-SHALOM: The Lord Our Peace (Judges 6:24) – the name given by Gideon to the altar he built after the Angel of the Lord assured him he would not die as he thought he would after seeing Him.
  6. JEHOVAH-ELOHIM: LORD God (Genesis 2:4; Psalm 59:5) – a combination of God’s unique name YHWH and the generic “Lord,” signifying that He is the Lord of Lords.
  7. JEHOVAH-TSIDKENU: The Lord Our Righteousness (Jeremiah 33:16) – As with YHWH-M’Kaddesh, it is God alone who provides righteousness to man, ultimately in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ, who became sin for us “that we might become the Righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).
  8. JEHOVAH-ROHI: The Lord Our Shepherd (Psalm 23:1) – After David pondered his relationship as a shepherd to his sheep, he realized that was exactly the relationship God had with him, and so he declares, JEHOVAH-Rohi is my Shepherd. I shall not want” (Psalm 23:1).
  9. JEHOVAH-SHAMMAH: The Lord Is There (Ezekiel 48:35) – the name ascribed to Jerusalem and the Temple there, indicating that the once-departed glory of the Lord (Ezekiel 8—11) had returned (Ezekiel 44:1-4).
  10. JEHOVAH-SABAOTH: The Lord of Hosts (Isaiah 1:24; Psalm 46:7) – Hosts means “hordes,” both of angels and of men. He is Lord of the host of heaven and of the inhabitants of the earth, of Jews and Gentiles, of rich and poor, master and slave. The name is expressive of the majesty, power, and authority of God and shows that He is able to accomplish what He determines to do.

All of these give us insight into who God is. There are other such things that we could list. Below are a few more of the revelation of who God is.

  • God is a loving God (1 John 4:8, 4:16)
  • God is our heavenly father (Matthew 6:9)
  • God is just (Psalm 7:11)
  • God is a jealous God (Exodus 20:5, 34:14; Deuteronomy 4:24, 5:9)
  • God is patient (Exodus 34:6; Numbers 14:18; Psalms 86:15)

You will notice that God does not reveal himself as “The one who makes sick” or “The one who demands poverty,” etc. Therefore, we should consider very carefully what we credit God for especially when it is not consistent with His word.

About the Devil (Satan)

  • Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible – Spirit being who opposes God and seeks to frustrate his plans and lead his people into rebellion.
  • The word Satan comes from the Hebrew word that means “accuser.”
  • The word “Devil” is the Greek translation of Satan.
  • The Lexham Bible Dictionary – The devil is the adversary of God.
  • Harper’s Bible dictionary –  the English translation of a Greek word (diabolos) meaning ‘accuser’ or ‘slanderer,’ used in the Septuagint to translate the Hebrew ‘Satan’ and in the NT as a virtual synonym for the same term. In the KJV, it is also regularly employed as a translation of another Greek word (daimōn), which, however, in the RSV is transliterated as ‘demon.’ The idea that Satan was an angel put out of heaven because of his rebellion against God and his desire to assume the prerogatives of divinity seems to be reflected in Luke 10:18. Jesus’ ability to expel the demons who were Satan’s minions was understood to be the result of his having conquered and ‘bound’ Satan (see Mark 3:27). See also Demon; Satan.

The basic idea of Satan is that he opposes what God does.  Therefore, what we know of God we can conclude that Satan will oppose and/or tempt people to rebel against God’s purposes.

Conclusion

We have to be diligent to know God’s ways and know when God is operating or Satan is operating in us or in a particular situation.  Sometimes, too many times, we ascribe to God what Satan has done.

Practical Application

Time and time again I hear people ascribe to God the sickness and death of someone.  People, in an attempt to make sense of it all, believe that God somehow made the person sick and caused their death.  However, the Bible reveals that God brings life and Satan brings death.  Satan is the source of sickness and death in this world.  So why do we not ascribe to Satan these things especially since the Bible does.

The overall premise is this:  God is Good. Satan is Bad.

After learning these things, we need to change the way we think about situations in our lives and therefore change how we respond to those situations.  When someone becomes ill then we can go to God in confidence knowing that He did not bring the sickness and that He wants life.  We can resist the devil with confidence knowing that the devil is opposing God (James 4:7).

REMEMBER:  GOOD IS GOOD.  SATAN IS BAD.