What about the “fierce gale” that assailed Jesus and His disciples when they were once boating across the Sea of Galilee? Surely it must have been Satan who caused that storm, as God would never send a wind that would capsize a boat that contained His own Son. “A kingdom divided against itself will fall,” and so why would God ever send a wind that could potentially harm Jesus and the twelve disciples?

These are good arguments, but let us stop and think for a moment. If God didn’t send the storm and Satan did, then we still must admit that God allowed Satan to send it. So the same question must still be answered: Why would God allow Satan to send a storm that might potentially harm Jesus and the twelve?

Is there an answer? Perhaps God was teaching the disciples something about faith. Perhaps He was testing them. Perhaps He was testing Jesus, who had to be “tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15). To be fully tested, Jesus had to have an opportunity to be tempted to fear. Perhaps God wanted to glorify Jesus. Perhaps He wanted to do all of the above.

God led the children of Israel to the edge of the Red Sea knowing full well that they were trapped by Pharaoh’s advancing army. But wasn’t God delivering the Israelites? Then was He not working against Himself by leading them to a place where they would be massacred? Is this not an example of a “kingdom divided against itself”?

No, because God had no intention of letting the Israelites be massacred. And He had no intention, in either sending or allowing Satan to cause a gale on the Sea of Galilee, of letting Jesus and the twelve be drowned.

Regardless, the Bible doesn’t say that Satan sent that gale on the Sea of Galilee, and it doesn’t say God did either. Some say it had to be Satan because Jesus rebuked it. Perhaps, but that is not a watertight argument. Jesus didn’t rebuke God—He rebuked the wind. God the Father could have done the same thing. That is, He could have stirred up the wind with a word, and then calmed it by rebuking it. Just because Jesus rebuked the gale is no proof that Satan caused it.

Again, we shouldn’t base our entire theology on one verse that really proves nothing. I have already made reference to scores of scriptures that prove God is sovereignly in control of the wind, and He is most often given credit for sending it. My main point is that Satan, even though he is “god of this world,” definitely does not have independent control over the wind or the right to cause a hurricane anytime or anywhere he desires.

Therefore, when hurricanes occur, we should not view it as something that is beyond God’s control, something He would like to stop but can’t. Jesus’ rebuke of the gale on the Sea of Galilee should be proof enough that God can stop a hurricane if He desires.

And if God is sending (or allowing) a hurricane, then He must have some reason, and the most intelligent answer why He would send or allow a storm that causes widespread catastrophic devastation is that He is warning and judging disobedient people.

Whether unsaved people realize it or not, they are following Satan and are his subjects in the kingdom of darkness. They have his evil, selfish nature residing in their spiritually-dead spirits. Satan is actually their spiritual lord and father. That is why Jesus once said to some unsaved religious leaders: “You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father” (John 8:44).

This is the bleak picture of the person who has not been born again! He is walking through life spiritually dead, full of Satan’s nature, heading for an inevitable physical death that he greatly fears; and whether he realizes it or not, he will one day experience the worst death of all, eternal death, as he is cast into the lake of fire.

It is extremely important that we understand that spiritual, physical, and eternal death are all manifestations of God’s wrath upon sinful humanity and that Satan has a part in all of it. God has permitted Satan to rule over the kingdom of darkness and over all those who “love the darkness” (John 3:19). In effect, God said to Satan, “You may hold in captivity through your power those who are not submitted to Me.” Satan became a subordinate instrument of God’s wrath upon human rebels. Because all have sinned, all are under Satan’s power, filled with his nature in their spirits and held captive to do his will (see 2 Tim. 2:26).

What, specifically, does Scripture say about “natural disasters”? Does the Bible say that God or the devil causes them? Let’s look at earthquakes first because the Bible speaks of many.

According to Scripture, earthquakes might occur due to God’s judgment upon deserving sinners. We read in Jeremiah: “At His [God’s] wrath the earth quakes, and the nations cannot endure His indignation” (Jer. 10:10, emphasis added).

Isaiah warns,

From the Lord of hosts you will be punished with thunder and earthquake and loud noise, with whirlwind and tempest and the flame of a consuming fire (Is. 29:6, emphasis added).

You may recall that during the days of Moses, the earth opened up and swallowed Korah and his rebellious followers (see Num. 16:23-34). This was clearly an act of God’s judgment. Other examples of God’s judgment by earthquakes can be found in Ezek. 38:19; Ps. 18:7; 77:18; Hag. 2:6; Luke 21:11; Rev. 6:12; 8:5; 11:13; 16:18.

Some earthquakes that are recorded in Scripture are not necessarily acts of God’s judgment, but nevertheless, were caused by God. For example, according to the Gospel of Matthew, there was an earthquake when Jesus died (Matt. 27:51,54), and one when He was resurrected (Matt. 28:2). Did Satan cause those?

When Paul and Silas were singing praises to God at midnight in a Philippian jail, “suddenly there came a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison house were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened, and everyone’s chains were unfastened” (Acts 16:26, emphasis added). Did Satan cause that earthquake? I don’t think so! Even the jailer was saved after he witnessed God’s power. And that is not the only God-caused earthquake in the book of Acts (see Acts 4:31).

I recently read of some well-meaning Christians who, upon hearing of a prediction of an earthquake in a certain area, traveled to the site to do “spiritual warfare” against the devil. Can you see the error in their assumption? It would have been scriptural for them to pray to God for His mercy upon the people who lived in that area. And if they had done that, there would have been no need to waste their time and money traveling to the potential earthquake site—they could have prayed to God right where they lived. But to battle the devil in order to stop an earthquake is unscriptural.

As we close our study of this particular myth, one final scriptural example to consider is the story of the Gadarene demoniacs:

And when He [Jesus] had come to the other side into the country of the Gadarenes, two men who were demon-possessed met Him as they were coming out of the tombs; they were so exceedingly violent that no one could pass by that road. And behold, they cried out, saying, “What do we have to do with You, Son of God? Have You come here to torment us before the time?” (Matt. 8:28-29, emphasis added).

This story is often used by the proponents of the Satan-Gained theory to support their ideas. They say, “Those demons appealed to Jesus’ justice. They knew He had no right to torment them before the time when Adam’s lease expires, the time when they and Satan will be cast into the lake of fire to be tormented day and night forever.”

But actually just the opposite is true. They knew Jesus had the power and every right to torment them any time He desired, which is why they begged Him for mercy. They obviously were very afraid that the Son of God might send them to be tormented much sooner. Luke tells us they entreated Him “not to command them to depart to the abyss” (Luke 8:31). If Jesus didn’t have that right because of some supposed legal right of the devil, they wouldn’t have been concerned at all.

Those demons knew they were completely at the mercy of Jesus, as illustrated by their plea not to be sent out of the country (Mark 5:10), their entreaty to be permitted to enter the nearby herd of pigs (Mark 5:12), their begging to not be cast into “the abyss” (Luke 8:31), and their imploring Christ not to be tormented before “the time.”

When we read of the binding of Satan by one angel in Revelation 20, there is no mention of Adam’s lease expiring. The reason given for his incarceration is simply “that he should not deceive the nations any longer” (Rev. 20:3).

Interestingly, after Satan is imprisoned for 1,000 years, he will be released and “will come out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth” (Rev. 20:8). Those deceived nations will then muster their armies to attack Jerusalem, where Jesus will be ruling. When they have surrounded the city, fire will come down from heaven and “devour them” (Rev. 20:9).

Would anyone be so foolish as to say that Adam’s lease included one final short period of time after those 1,000 years, and so God was obligated to release Satan for that reason? Such an idea is absurd.

No, what we learn once more from this section of Scripture is that God has complete control of the devil and permits him to work his deception only to fulfill His own divine purposes.

During the future thousand-year rule of Jesus, Satan will be out of operation, unable to deceive anyone. There will be, however, people on the earth who are only outwardly obedient to Christ’s rule, but who inwardly would love to see Him overthrown. Yet they will not attempt a coup knowing that they have no chance to overthrow the one who will “rule with a rod of iron” (Rev. 19:15).

But when Satan is released, he will be able to deceive those who, in their hearts, hate Christ, and they will foolishly attempt the impossible. As Satan is permitted to deceive potential rebels, the condition of people’s hearts will be revealed, and then God will righteously judge those who are unfit to live in His kingdom.

That, of course, is one of the reasons God permits Satan to deceive people today. We will later investigate God’s fuller purposes for Satan, but suffice it for now to say that God does not want anyone to remain deceived. He does, however, want to know what is in people’s hearts. Satan can’t deceive those who know and believe the truth. But God allows the devil to deceive those who, because of their callous hearts, reject the truth.

Speaking of the time of the antichrist, Paul wrote;

And then that lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming; that is, the one whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, with all power and signs and false wonders, and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. And for this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they might believe what is false, in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness (2 Thes. 2:8-12, emphasis added).

Notice that God is the one given the credit for sending a “deluding influence so that they might believe what is false.” But also notice that these people who will be deluded are people who “did not believe the truth,” indicating they had an opportunity, but still rejected the gospel. God will allow Satan to empower the antichrist with false signs and wonders so that Christ-rejecters will be deceived, and God’s ultimate purpose is that “they may all be judged.” For that same reason, God permits Satan to deceive people today.

If God had no reason to permit Satan to operate on the earth, He could have easily banished him to some other place in the universe when he fell. We are told in 2 Peter 2:4 that there are certain sinful angels whom God has already cast into hell and committed “to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment.” Our omnipotent God could have done the same thing to Satan and to any of his angels if it suited His divine purposes. But for a while longer, God has good reasons to permit Satan and his angels to operate on the earth.

There are several examples of God using Satan’s evil spirits as agents of His wrath in the Old Testament. We read in 1 Samuel 16:14: “Now the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord terrorized him.” This situation obviously occurred because of God’s discipline upon disobedient King Saul.

The question is, what is meant by the phrase “an evil spirit from God”? Does it mean that God sent an evil spirit who lived with Him in heaven, or does it mean that God sovereignly permitted one of Satan’s evil spirits to afflict Saul? I think that most Christians would tend to accept the second possibility in light of the rest of what the Bible teaches. The reason the scripture says that the evil spirit was “from God” was because that evil spirit’s harassment was a direct result of God’s divine discipline of Saul. Thus we see that evil spirits are under God’s sovereign control.

In Judges 9:23 we read, “God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the men of Shechem,” in order that divine judgment might come upon them for their wicked deeds. Again, this evil spirit was not from God’s heaven, but from Satan’s realm, and was divinely permitted to work evil plans against certain deserving persons. Evil spirits cannot successfully work their evil plans against anyone without God’s permission. If that is not true, then God is not all-powerful. Thus we can once more safely conclude that when Adam fell, Satan did not gain authority that was beyond God’s control.

This distinction between the earth and the world is also helpful in understanding Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. There Satan showed Jesus “all the kingdoms of the world in a moment’s time.” Satan could not have been offering Jesus a political position over earthly human governments, what we might call a president or prime minister. Satan is not the one who exalts and humbles earthly human rulers—God is.

Rather, Satan must have shown Jesus all the sub-kingdoms of his worldwide kingdom of darkness. He showed Jesus the hierarchy of evil spirits who, in their respective territories, reign over the kingdom of darkness, as well as the rebel humans who are their subjects. Satan offered Jesus control over his domain—if Jesus would join Satan’s rebellion against God. Jesus would then have become second-in-command over the kingdom of darkness.

Much of the Satan-Gained theory is built upon the story of Satan’s temptation of Jesus in the wilderness, recorded by Matthew and Luke. Let’s examine Luke’s account to see what we can learn:

And he [Satan] led Him [Jesus] up and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said to Him, “I will give You all this domain and its glory; for it has been handed over to me, and I give it to whomever I wish. Therefore if You worship before me, it shall all be Yours.” And Jesus answered and said to him, “It is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and serve Him only'” (Luke 4:5-8).

Does this incident prove that Satan has control over everything in the world, or that Adam handed it over to him, or that God is powerless to stop the devil? No, and for a number of good reasons.

First, we should be careful basing our theology on a statement made by someone whom Jesus called “the father of lies” (John 8:44). Satan sometimes does tell the truth, but in this case, our warning flag should be waving furiously, because what Satan said apparently contradicts something that God has said.

In the fourth chapter of the book of Daniel, we find the story of King Nebuchadnezzar’s humiliation. Nebuchadnezzar, full of pride over his position and accomplishments, was told by the prophet Daniel that he would be given the mind of an animal until he recognized that “the Most High is ruler over the realm of mankind, and bestows it on whomever He wishes” (Dan. 4:25, emphasis added). Four times this same declaration is made in connection with this story, underscoring its importance (see Dan. 4:17, 25, 32; 5:21).

Notice that Daniel said, “the Most High is ruler over the realm of mankind.” That indicates God has some control on the earth, doesn’t it?

Notice also that Daniel’s claim seems to be a direct contradiction of what Satan said to Jesus. Daniel said God “bestows it on whomever He wishes,” and Satan said, “I give it to whomever I wish” (Luke 4:6).

So who are you going to believe? Personally, I’m going to believe Daniel.

There is, however, a possibility that Satan was telling the truth—if we look at what he said from a different angle.

Satan is “the god of this world,” which, as I have already stated, means that he is ruling over the kingdom of darkness, which includes people in every nation who are in rebellion against God. The Bible states that “the whole world lies in the power of the evil one” (1 John 5:19). When Satan claimed he could give authority over the kingdoms of the earth to whomever he wished, he could very well have been speaking only of his own domain, the kingdom of darkness, which is made up of sub-kingdoms that roughly correspond to geopolitical kingdoms. We are informed by Scripture that Satan has several ranks of evil spirits through which he rules his kingdom (see Eph. 6:12), and could assume that he is the one who promotes or demotes those spirits within his ranks, as he is the chief. In that case, Satan was legitimately offering Jesus the position of number two evil spirit—after himself—to help him rule his dark kingdom. All Jesus had to do was fall before Satan and worship him. Thankfully, Jesus passed that opportunity for “advancement.”

Second, we should be obedient and use godly wisdom to avoid being caught in any of God’s wrath that is aimed at the world. Noah had to build his ark, Lot had to head for the hills, the Jerusalem Christians had to flee from their city; all of these had to obey God in order to avoid getting caught in His judgment upon the wicked.

If I lived in a hurricane zone, I’d build a strong house that could not be blown down or a cheap house that could easily be replaced! And I’d pray. Every Christian should pray and remain sensitive to the One whom Jesus promised would “disclose to you what is to come” (John 16:13) so that he can avoid God’s wrath upon the world.

We read in Acts 11 of the prophet Agabus who warned of an impending famine that could have been potentially disastrous to Christians living in Judea. Consequently, an offering was received by Paul and Barnabas for their relief (see Acts 11:28-30).

Can such things happen today? Certainly, because the Holy Spirit hasn’t changed, nor has God’s love waned. It is unfortunate, however, that some in the body of Christ are not open to such gifts and manifestations of the Holy Spirit, and thus, because they “quench the Spirit” (1 Thes. 5:19) miss out on some of God’s best.

In his autobiography, the late president and founder of the Full Gospel Businessmen, Demos Shakarian, recounts how God spoke through an illiterate boy-prophet to the Christians living in Armenia in the late 1800’s. He warned them of an impending holocaust, and as a result, thousands of Pentecostal Christians who believed in such supernatural manifestations fled the country, including Shakarian’s own grandparents. Shortly thereafter, a Turkish invasion of Armenia resulted in the slaughter of over a million Armenians, including those Christians who refused to heed God’s warning.

We would be wise to remain open to the Holy Spirit and be obedient to God, or else it is quite possible that we might experience a dose of God’s wrath that He really doesn’t want us to experience. Elisha once instructed a woman: “Arise and go with your household, and sojourn wherever you can sojourn; for the Lord has called for a famine, and it shall even come on the land for seven years” (2 Kin. 8:1). What if that woman hadn’t listened to the prophet?

In the book of Revelation we read an interesting warning to God’s people to come out of “Babylon” lest they be caught in God’s judgment upon her:

And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, “Come out of her [Babylon], my people, that you may not participate in her sins and that you may not receive of her plagues; for her sins have piled up as high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities….For this reason in one day her plagues will come, pestilence and mourning and famine, and she will be burned up with fire; for the Lord God who judges her is strong” (Rev. 18:4-5,8, emphasis added).

In summary, God is sovereign over the weather and natural disasters. God has repeatedly proven Himself as Lord over nature in the Bible, from His causing forty days of rain during Noah’s day, to His raining hailstones as well as sending other natural plagues upon Israel’s enemies, to His stirring up the wind against Jonah’s boat, to His rebuking the storm in the Sea of Galilee. He is, as Jesus said, “Lord of heaven and earth” (Matt. 11:25). For additional specific scriptural proof of God’s lordship over nature, see Josh. 10:11; Job 38:22-38; Jer. 5:24; 10:13; 31:35; Ps. 78:45-49; 105:16; 107:33-37; 135:6-7; 147:7-8,15-18; Matt. 5:45; Acts 14:17.

We may ask “Why didn’t God send Michael with the message for Daniel in the first place so that there would not have been a three-week delay?” The fact is that the Bible doesn’t tell us why God sent an angel whom He undoubtedly knew would not be able to break past the “prince of Persia” without the help of Michael. In fact, we have no idea why God would use any angel to deliver a message to someone! Why didn’t He go personally, or speak to Daniel audibly, or bring Daniel temporarily to heaven to tell him? We just don’t know.

But does this passage prove that there are constant battles in the spiritual realm between God’s angels and Satan’s angels? No, it only proves that, several thousand years ago, there was one three-week struggle between one of God’s weaker angels and one of Satan’s angels named “the prince of Persia,” a battle, which, if God had so willed, would never have occurred. The only other angelic battle mentioned in the entire Bible is the one future war in heaven, recorded in the book of Revelation. That’s it. There may have been other angelic battles that have occurred, but it would be an assumption on our part to so conclude.