Bible Commentaries

Revelation 16:17

Satanic Influence.

I. We know it to have been a prevalent opinion among the Jews that fallen angels had their residence in the air, filling that region which extends between the earth and the firmament. We can hardly say whence the opinion was derived, nor on what sufficient reasons it can be supported. But when St. Paul calls the devil "the prince of the power of the air," he may be said to favour the opinion and almost to give it the sanction of his authority. It is, however, of little importance that we determine where fallen angels have their habitations; and perhaps the associating the devil with the air is not so much for the purpose of defining the residence of Satan as to give us information as to the nature of his dominion. We mean that probably we are not hereby taught that the devil dwells in the air—though that also may be the meaning—but rather that he has at his disposal the power of the air, so that he can employ this element in his operations on mankind. And we know of no reason why the power of the devil should be regarded as confined to what we are wont to call spiritual agency, so as never to be employed in the production of physical evil, why the souls, and not also the bodies, of men should be considered as objects of his attack. If we believe, as we do believe, that ever since his first success Satan has been unwearied in his endeavours to follow up his victory, as far as the soul is concerned, by instigating to sin, plying with temptations, and throwing obstacles in the way of piety, why should we not also believe that he has continued his assaults on the body, wasting it with sickness, racking it with pain, and thus making it a vast encumbrance to the soul in her strivings after righteousness? Indeed, if it could even be supposed that, engaged in attempting the destruction of our immortal part, the devil would care nothing for our mortal, knowing it already doomed to death and therefore not worth his malice, yet, when you remembered how the mind may be acted on through the body, how difficult and almost impossible it is to turn the thoughts on solemn and deep inquiries where there is great suffering in the flesh, you would conclude it probable that the body as well as the soul would be assailed and harassed by Satan and his angels.

II. We are indeed well aware that it is not the devil who destroys man. It must be man who destroys himself. The devil can do nothing against us except as we afford him opportunity, yielding ourselves to his suggestions and allowing him to lead us captive at his will. But it may at length come to pass, if we persist in walking as children of disobedience, that we quite expel from our breast the Spirit of God, whose strivings have been resisted, and whose admonitions have been despised, and enthrone in his stead that spirit of evil whose longing and whose labour it is to make us share his own ruin. And then is there as clear a demoniacal possession as when the man was cast into the fire or water through the fearful energies of the indwelling fiend. Let us not too hastily conclude that there is nothing in our days at all analogous to those demoniacal possessions of which so frequent mention is made in the Gospel. When the Apostle speaks of the devil as "working in the children of disobedience," he uses the same word which is elsewhere used of the operations of the Holy Ghost, that Divine Agent who dwelleth in believers, residing in them as a permanent monitor, renewing their nature, and preparing them for glory. So that St. Paul ascribes to the devil, as acting in the children of disobedience, that very same energy which he ascribes to God's Spirit as acting in the disciples of Jesus. And whatever, therefore, the degree in which we consider good men as possessed by the Holy Ghost, in that very same degree must we consider abandoned and reprobate men as possessed by Satan and his angels. There must be as much of direct influence, as much of the surrender of the man to the dominion set up within himself, in the one case as in the other. In neither have we right to say that free agency is interfered with, much less destroyed; but in both there is the willing submission to the dictates of another, and that other so identified with the man himself that he is actually bound by the being obeyed. There is, then, no doubt that the devil is an enemy to be dreaded and resisted; but we thank God for the assertion that there is to break a day on our creation when the malignant adversary shall be bound and spoiled of his power to assail.

H. Melvill, Fenny Pulpit, No. 1838.

References: Revelation 18:2.—Homiletic Magazine, vol. viii., p. 99. Revelation 18:4.—G. Carlyle, Christian World Pulpit, vol. iii., p. 168. Revelation 18:10.—F. W. Farrar, Ibid., vol. xxxiii., p. 312. Revelation 19:1.—Preacher's Monthly, vol. ii., p. 262. Revelation 19:3.—G. Calthrop, Words Spoken to My Friends, p. 358.