Why Does Satan Hate Holiness?

[JohnD]

According to the Bible, Satan is the personification of human nature.

Matthew 16:23 (AV)
23 But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.

The fear of the BIBLICAL study of Satan is the fear of studying self: what makes us tick, the answer to "why did I do this?" 

Usually responded to by "I don't know..."

Human nature is satanic insanity.  And IMHO this is the big bug-a-boo as to why people fear

it... it means facing that which we are in self denial about.

 

[JohnD]

Satan hates holiness because it is what he fell from.

Ezekiel 28 (AV)
1 The word of the LORD came again unto me, saying,
2 Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyrus, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said, I am a God, I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas; yet thou art a man, and not God, though thou set thine heart as the heart of God:
3 Behold, thou art wiser than Daniel; there is no secret that they can hide from thee:
4 With thy wisdom and with thine understanding thou hast gotten thee riches, and hast gotten gold and silver into thy treasures:
5 By thy great wisdom and by thy traffick hast thou increased thy riches, and thine heart is lifted up because of thy riches:
6 Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thou hast set thine heart as the heart of God;
7 Behold, therefore I will bring strangers upon thee, the terrible of the nations: and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of thy wisdom, and they shall defile thy brightness.
8 They shall bring thee down to the pit, and thou shalt die the deaths of them that are slain in the midst of the seas.
9 Wilt thou yet say before him that slayeth thee, I am God? but thou shalt be a man, and no God, in the hand of him that slayeth thee.
10 Thou shalt die the deaths of the uncircumcised by the hand of strangers: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD.
11 Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,

12 Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.
13 Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.
14 Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.
15 Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.
16 By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.
17 Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee.
18 Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffick; therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee.
19 All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more.
20 Again the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
 

Isaiah 14 (AV)
1 For the LORD will have mercy on Jacob, and will yet choose Israel, and set them in their own land: and the strangers shall be joined with them, and they shall cleave to the house of Jacob.
2 And the people shall take them, and bring them to their place: and the house of Israel shall possess them in the land of the LORD for servants and handmaids: and they shall take them captives, whose captives they were; and they shall rule over their oppressors.
3 And it shall come to pass in the day that the LORD shall give thee rest from thy sorrow, and from thy fear, and from the hard bondage wherein thou wast made to serve,
4 That thou shalt take up this proverb against the king of Babylon, and say, How hath the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased!
5 The LORD hath broken the staff of the wicked, and the sceptre of the rulers.
6 He who smote the people in wrath with a continual stroke, he that ruled the nations in anger, is persecuted, and none hindereth.
7 The whole earth is at rest, and is quiet: they break forth into singing.
8 Yea, the fir trees rejoice at thee, and the cedars of Lebanon, saying, Since thou art laid down, no feller is come up against us.
9 Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming: it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations.
10 All they shall speak and say unto thee, Art thou also become weak as we? art thou become like unto us?
11 Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols: the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee.

12 How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!
13 For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:
14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.
15 Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.
16 They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms;
17 That made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof; that opened not the house of his prisoners?
18 All the kings of the nations, even all of them, lie in glory, every one in his own house.
19 But thou art cast out of thy grave like an abominable branch, and as the raiment of those that are slain, thrust through with a sword, that go down to the stones of the pit; as a carcase trodden under feet.
20 Thou shalt not be joined with them in burial, because thou hast destroyed thy land, and slain thy people: the seed of evildoers shall never be renowned.
21 Prepare slaughter for his children for the iniquity of their fathers; that they do not rise, nor possess the land, nor fill the face of the world with cities.
22 For I will rise up against them, saith the LORD of hosts, and cut off from Babylon the name, and remnant, and son, and nephew, saith the LORD.
23 I will also make it a possession for the bittern, and pools of water: and I will sweep it with the besom of destruction, saith the LORD of hosts.
24 The LORD of hosts hath sworn, saying, Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand:
25 That I will break the Assyrian in my land, and upon my mountains tread him under foot: then shall his yoke depart from off them, and his burden depart from off their shoulders.
26 This is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole earth: and this is the hand that is stretched out upon all the nations.
27 For the LORD of hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it? and his hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back?
28 In the year that king Ahaz died was this burden.
29 Rejoice not thou, whole Palestina, because the rod of him that smote thee is broken: for out of the serpent’s root shall come forth a cockatrice, and his fruit shall be a fiery flying serpent.
30 And the firstborn of the poor shall feed, and the needy shall lie down in safety: and I will kill thy root with famine, and he shall slay thy remnant.
31 Howl, O gate; cry, O city; thou, whole Palestina, art dissolved: for there shall come from the north a smoke, and none shall be alone in his appointed times.
32 What shall one then answer the messengers of the nation? That the LORD hath founded Zion, and the poor of his people shall trust in it.

 

[JohnD]

Know thy enemy as thine enemy knoweth thee!

[Michael37]

1 hour ago, JohnD said:

According to the Bible, Satan is the personification of human nature.

Matthew 16:23 (AV)
23 But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.

The fear of the BIBLICAL study of Satan is the fear of studying self: what makes us tick, the answer to "why did I do this?" 

Usually responded to by "I don't know..."

Human nature is satanic insanity.  And IMHO this is the big bug-a-boo as to why people fear

it... it means facing that which we are in self denial about.

Yes, John. Thy will not mine be done, comes to mind. God's Will and Satan's will are in conflict so that unregenerate humanity is not inclined to align with God's Will. Of course God is well able to induce anyone to do His Will as we see in Revelation 17:17 (easy reference to remember)

Rev 17:17  For God has put in their hearts to fulfil his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled.
 

[Duck]

Submit to God, resist the devil and he will flee

[JTC]

On 5/12/2020 at 8:54 PM, Michael37 said:

Firstly can I establish whether we should discuss the hatred Satan has for all things holy, because I have known people to become uncomfortable discussing this topic.

You see, by discussing this topic we are (almost) giving glory to satan rather than God. I know most of you don't see it like this, but you're wrong. Any time or attention spent on Satan would be better spent on God.

[other one]

On 11/28/2020 at 10:54 PM, JohnD said:

Know thy enemy as thine enemy knoweth thee!

I got myself into a lot of trouble with this philosophy in the 1970's.   Decided I needed to know him to understand and fight him more effectively.     Well as it turns out for both myself and several others that I am aware of that went down this road, turns out the more you learn about them, the more they learn and involve themselves with you...    and some moment comes by when you realize that you have no power or authority in the spirit realm and you by yourself are at their mercy (which there is none).

But to answer the question, I think Satan hates everything holy because he is not...   and why he's not is because he got full of himself (which a lot of people seem to be prone to do).    He began existence as one of Gods greatest creations and got full of himself and became an abstract failure....   and he knows he's a failure, but he's still full of himself...      People make that same mistake.

Should we discuss it....    I would not decide for others, but I would suggest if so it's done very carefully.  The dark ones perk up and pay attention when you talk about them.  JTC has a point.   I'm not sure I would use the phrase give them glory, but certainly would be giving them our attention.   And I can tell you from personal experience that they relish that.

[JTC]

10 minutes ago, other one said:

hould we discuss it....    I would not decide for others, but I would suggest if so it's done very carefully.  The dark ones perk up and pay attention when you talk about them.  JTC has a point.   I'm not sure I would use the phrase give them glory, but certainly would be giving them our attention.   And I can tell you from personal experience that they relish that.

Thank you OO, I know you and I know you know what you are saying and why you know.

When I see threads like this one I have to wonder about the motivations of who made it. Too many people just enjoy discussing evil. To be more godly rather than ask this, ask "why does God love Holiness?" If we discuss this topic we won't be giving the devils any attention. Remember, our time and attention is what our lives consist of. Life is time. God wants all our time to be focused on HIM. I have found as I've gotten older and closer to death that I want to give my time to God because I may be leaving here very soon. I know it's hard to understand this when you're young and death seems far off. But this is why we ought not to spend much time learning about the evil.

[GandalfTheWise]

On 5/12/2020 at 7:54 PM, Michael37 said:

What do you think...discuss why Satan hates holiness or leave it alone?

I think we need to carefully define what we mean by holiness in a practical way.  Many Christians ultimately define holiness by various forms of legalism whereby external behaviors (not eating/drinking certain things, not doing certain activities, going to church enough hours per week, praying/reading Bible enough minutes or hours per day, not sinning in particular ways, putting in enough time doing ministry work, believing "correct" doctrine in labyrinthian detail etc.)   define how separated we are from the world and toward God.   In contrast, there is the resulting fruit of the Spirit as we are transformed as new creations in Christ which is in essence holy behavior by which our hearts and being is separated from the world.   In other words, do we define holiness by how much of a series of rules we keep or as the natural change in our affections and behavior which comes from being changed by God as we spiritually grow and mature?  

I think that the enemy attacks the work of God that goes on in our hearts.  "The thief comes to steal and kill and destroy."  Anything that takes our attention away from God, causes us to step away from other Christians and be alone, and is unhealthy for us spiritually is probably encouraged by the enemy.  My observation is that there are times seemingly holy things (which are external behaviors) can become idols we worship.   I've seen Christians turn proclaiming "correct" doctrine and correcting "false" doctrine into an idol.  I've seen Christians turn counting the number of hours per week they are in church (or doing other activities) into an idol.  I've seen Christians turn a lot of good things into idols that occupy more of their attention than God Himself.  I've done it myself and I think we all have to some degree in a lot of things which are good in themselves.  I think there is a useful discussion to be had on what constitutes real holiness which is what the enemy really hates versus religiosity which distracts from real holiness.

To what was asked in the OP, I'd answer by saying I see little point in discussing *why* Satan hates holiness.  I think we can take it as a given that he does.  I'm not sure that trying to dig into motives is helpful or healthy.  I'm as curious about various things as the next person, but there are some things I keep my hands off of and my eyes away from because little is gained from digging deeper.  I'll try to understand the motives of a human adversary because it makes communication and reconciliation possible.  However, I don't think that applies here.   I see little in the NT writings to suggest that the early church ever worried about this very much but simply took the existence of an irreconcilable spiritual enemy as a fact of life and worried more about *how* he attacked than *why*.

Having said that, I think discussing what holiness really is (external vs. internal as I alluded to above) and how it can be attacked or undermined is a helpful discussion.  I'm not convinced a discussion about why the enemy does things really gains us much.  The Bible speaks little of this and pretty much anything we try to discuss on this topic will probably rapidly start to fall into the realm of conjecture.   Though, I'm open to change my mind if I see some scriptural references or good expositions I've not see before.    I don't see this discussion as wrong or a serious problem, but just potentially a distraction.

 

[Speks]

There is a scripturally right way and an inquisitive wrong way to draw attention to the powers of darkness. Scripture has plenty to say, but always in the authority of Christ and in the context of His people being spiritually equipped to overcome.

For example, in James 4:7, 8 successfully resisting the devil is sandwiched between submitting to God and drawing near to Him.