Friend, only a fool dismisses the subtle effectiveness of Satan.
His tactics are hard to see when one's judgement is clouded by emotion and not grounded in the Word. I wish you were more compassionate toward those who fall prey to Lucifer's machinations.
No - you have got it wrong about a fool! At least a fool how gets to know the Lord!!
When you actually get to know the Lord you will realize that you are the fool, compared to the Lord!!
It should not even be hard to understand for anyone, even if they don't know God!!
After all - can you create the universe?? Of course not, so speaking to the Lord our God Jesus Christ, through whom all things were created, means speaking to someone sooooooooooooooooooo wise that you can only be compared to being a fool relative to Him!!
I know. I listen to Him. So I know that no man compares to Him. I even know angels that He sends to me, and they don't even believe any angel or heavenly host is close to being comparable to Him. That includes Satan!!!!
So a fool, like I am, understand that Satan is nothing, if not a fool, compared to the Lord my God Jesus Christ!!!
That does not mean that I dismiss Satan, but it means I fear God!!!!! And that is where you have it ALL WRONG!!!
The statement you made above implies, whether you realize is or not, that you are fearing Satan as opposed to seeking Jesus Christ the Lord our God!!! You are seeing the imminence (the impending evil and danger) with Satan, but are failing to see the eminence (superiority) with God!!! You can read that the government will rest on His shoulders, but you don't comprehend what that means!!!!
In Revelation we find that Lord just tells another angel to just go pick up Satan, and that single angel goes and does it when asked by the Lord. Do you not understand that?????????
In Job, that sad figure of a being, Satan, has to go a plead with God to get him permission to get at Job. Did you not read that????
Yeah the Lord, as our Teacher, show us things about Satan, including his words and how he uses them, because the Lord our God and Teacher, wants to improve us and thus our thinking, however that does not mean that Satan can just what he wants unseen. The Lord knows ever move Satan makes, even before he makes it!! That foolish snake never had a chance of defeating God. He was foolish the think he could.
And so the person who is a real fool, is the one who thinks that leaning on there understanding instead of seeking Jesus Christ, is what keeps Satan from getting at them!!! That is the real fool of a person!! That is the unbeliever, even if they say they are a believer in Jesus Christ!! And that is why I wrote:
So it is amazing that people who supposedly know the Lord and converse back and forth with Him, as Christians are supposed to, don't see it!
How can that be?
Well there is one way that can be!!
They don't see it because they don't converse back and forth with the Lord our God whose name is called The Word of God because He will converse back and forth with us - if only we believe in Him as the omni-present, all-powerful, eminent God who is obviously above and superior to all others!!!
If you believe in Jesus Christ you will be taking the thoughts you have to Him. The more you believe He is there for you, the more you will take you thoughts captive to Him. Yet let me give you a chicken joke He once gave to me. It might help you understand:
In the barnyard there were 2 chickens. A big plump chicken. A medium sized chicken, and a little bitty chicken. Which one did the fox for for???
The answer is: The one farthest from the dog of course!!
And in case that parable has to be explained to you - it means this:
There are big fat looking Christians, and medium sized looking Christians, and little bitty new looking Christians, and the fox is always going for the one farthest from God!
So like I have said, and keeps getting dismissed - the very first thing we need to know when it come to Satan, is that we need to seek first the King, the KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORD, and stay under Him, otherwise we expose ourselves to that fox and snake Satan!! To stay close to the Lord we need to seek Him and listen to Him, on those days called "TODAY".
That is what it means to fear God! The real fool goes back to leaning on their own ways!! So make your way about seeking Him and listening to Him, and stop making strawmen.