My beloved spiritual children in Christ Our Only True God and Our Only True Savior,
CHRIST IS IN OUR MIDST! HE WAS, IS, AND EVER SHALL BE. Ο ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΕΝ ΤΩ ΜΕΣΩ ΗΜΩΝ! ΚΑΙ ΗΝ ΚΑΙ ΕΣΤΙ ΚΑΙ ΕΣΤΑΙ.
SATAN AND DEMONS
"How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, who rose up in the morning! He who sends for all the nations is crushed to the earth. For you said in your mind, ' I will ascend into heaven; I will place my throne above the stars of heaven. I will sit on a lofty mountain, on the lofty mountains toward the north. I will ascend above the clouds; I will be like the Most High.' But now you shall descend to Hades, to the roundations of the earth..." (Isaiah 14: 12-15).
[Note the five "I wills" in the above passage. Because he pursued his own will, Satan is both fallen from heaven, and he is defeated and dethroned from his demonic lordship over the world by the ministry of Christ and His disciples: "Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy (Satan), and nothing shall by any means hurt you" (v. 19).]
"And He (Jesus) said to them, "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven". (St. Luke 10:18)
"Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world" (1 Peter 5:8, 9).
(The devil and his angels (demons) explore us individually, looking for our weaknesses. The enemy offers appealing visions to our eyes, music to our ears, to each of our senses setting forth whatever might tempt us to sin. He arouses our tongues to speak evil about others, and urges our hands to injure them. He sets forth profits to be earned by shady and immoral means, and holds out earthly honors and false values to be preferred to heavenly ones. When he is unable to tempt us, he brings forth a threat of persecution so that fear may cause us to betray the faith. Thus we must always be alert for his many-faceted attacks, ready to resist him at every turn." (Source: Orthodox Study Bible, p. 558)
"Finally will come the consummation of the present world; that is, its "regeneration" and transformation by means of a change in form and composition, its beautification, reformation and transfiguration. Thus we "look for new heavens and a new earth," by the action of Him Who said "Behold, I make all things new." According to Saint John Chrysostom, the world will be transformed for the better...corruption will disappear from the bottom up, and incorruptible glory will prevail everywhere, evil being destroyed along with its instruments. Then shall follow a new and glorified world, in which cosmic order and harmony will be restored, that which was disturbed and overthrown by ancestral (original) sin, and the vanity of the world will be subject to the Lord..." (Source: Synopsis of the Dogmatic Theology on Eschatology [Last Things], p. 117)
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The Holy Scripture and the lives of God's Saints bear witness to the existence of the devil. The devil is a fallen bodiless spirit, an angel created by God for His service and praise. Together with the devil, are his hosts of wicked angelic powers who have rebelled against the goodness of God and seek to pervert and destroy God's good creation.
[How are you fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, Day Star, son of Dawn! And the angels which did not keep their own position but left their proper dwelling have been kept by him in eternal chains in the nether gloom until the judgment of the great day...(Jude 6, Cf. 2 Peter 2:4)...the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the world--he was thrown down to earth, and his angels were thrown down with him (Revelation 12:9). ]
In the New Testament the Lord Jesus speaks of the devil whom He called him "prince of this world" (St. John 12:31, 14:30, 16:11) in this way:
"He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the Truth because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies" (St. John 8:44).
The devil and his multitude of evil spirits, "the principalities...the power...the world rulers of this present darkness...the spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places" (Ephesians 6:12) war against man seeking to destroy him by ensnaring him in sin.
Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ has destroyed the power of the devil. He came into the world precisely for this reason. If one is "in Christ" he is led out of temptation and delivered from the evil one. If one is in Christ, the evil, who is also called Satan, which means the Adversary who "disguises himself as an angel of light" (2 Corinthians 11:14) cannot deceive or harm him. To be victorious over the alluring and deceiving temptations of the devil is the goal of spiritual life. (Orthodox Church in America)
"Even on the holy Icon of the Resurrection of the Lord, Christ is shown destroying death, which comes through the power of the devil, through sin. And then it shows Him binding up the devil in the dark pit of Gehenna, in the pit of Sheol, where the demons are held and where those who are with him end up. "Then He will also say to those on the left hand, 'Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels...And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life" (St. Matthew 25:41-46). God creates everything good. All things are good from the Hand of God.
But good things become wicked when they misuse and abuse their powers, when they refuse to obey God Who created them. The ultimate definition of sin is rebelling against God's will. "God is love, and He creates every possible form of being that can exist." God creates everything, even if He knows that creature will rebel against Him. God still creates them and loves them and brings His love to them.
The devil, diavolos, it means the one who divides, the one who separates and distorts. The word Diavolos is the opposite, etymologically, of the word symvolon, a symbol. A symbol brings everything together in harmony. That is why we call the Creed, a symbol of faith. A symbol is something that brings together realities in harmony and unity, diavolos,, devil, is that which divides and separates.
One of the Holy Fathers said: "If you want to know if the demons exist, just try to pray." Try to focus and pray. He says: "Come when a person stands up to pray, every dark and evil power in Hell tries to get him not to pray." And they will always lie. They will always accuse. They will say: "Oh, you don't need to pray or anything good. They will say that there is no God. You are a good person and there is no reason to repent. And when you sin, they say: "You are an evil person. You are going to burn in Hell. You are going to be with us. Ha! Ha! We got you!"
No, Satan cannot be saved. In order for him to be forgiven he must repent and be obedient to the Almighty God, which, of course, he will never do. He is pure evil! One fact that "complicates" this issue is that Satan is not a man--Satan is an angelic being. We do not really know anything about the angels or their ability (or inability) to repent and so whenever we talk about Satan repenting, we are really anthropomorphizing Satan and thinking of him as a man like us (which he is not).
It is said that Saint Paisios used to pray for the Devil, until one day Saint Paisios saw him laughing in a distance from his cell and I think ridiculing the Geronda (Elder). From that day Saint Paisios stopped praying for the repentance of the Devil, since he understood that it was futile.
What does Holy Scripture say is the end of the devil and his minions? Is it not clear? Is there not a place that has been prepared for the devil and his angels or is the Holy Bible just a fairy tale? This nonsense of praying for Satan is just nonsense. Only the Satanists (the disciples of Satan) pray to the devil. Our Lord Jesus Christ, Who could have prayed for the devil, Whose prayers God the Father would have most certainly heard, did not pray for the devil. Nor did our Lord Jesus Christ instruct His disciples or Apostles to pray for the devil or his salvation. Nor do we when we assemble at our most Holy church and house of God, to worship Our Savior and God, pray for the devil and his demons. We should not contemplate or ever consider praying for the devil and his demons. To suggest such, to plant such erroneous concept into the mind of a believer in Jesus Christ whose enemy is the very devil himself, (meaning the devil is our Lord's enemy as well as ours), or to even subtly imply that the matter of the fate of the arch-enemy of Our Lord Jesus is still somehow uncertain, is misleading and deceptive.
Metropolitan Kallistos Ware of Diokleia relates a story about having to go on a long journey with a bishop, many years ago before he was ordained. He decided to stimulate debate and conversation for the journey by asking the bishop what he thought about the idea of Satan's restoration: could Satan be saved?
As the journey started, the young Kallistos asked his question: "Could Satan be saved?" The bishop replied without hesitation: "Mind your own business."
God became man, so that man could become God. Our salvation, and so the restoration of the natural world, is dependent upon Our Lord Jesus Christ. Satan is not human, his fall was separate and before Adam's, and so his restoration and relationship with God is not really our concern, being more than likely beyond our ken. Satan's relationship with us is more important, and in that he is our oppressor and opponent.
"...and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one..." (The Lord's Prayer)
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MY BLESSING TO ALL OF YOU
The Grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God and Father, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
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Glory Be To GOD For All Things!
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With sincere agape in His Holy Diakonia,
The sinner and unworthy servant of God
+Father George