He drags people into sins and makes them suffer pain and degradation so they will be forever alienated towards their Creator.
1 Peter 5:8-9
2 Corinthians 2:11
Isaiah 42:22
But this is a people robbed and spoiled; they are all of them snared in holes, and they are hid in prison houses: they are for a prey, and none delivereth; for a spoil, and none saith, Restore.
"He drags people into sins" makes it sound as if people don't have a choice. Is that really the case? The biblical Job suffered tremendous pain and degradation didn't he, but isn't he an example of what is mentioned at the end of one of the passages you quoted: (1 Peter 5:8-9) "Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings.". Isn't this similar to James 4:7 "Resist the devil, and he will flee from you".
I wonder sometimes if God let Satan create Hell to punish people for blaming Satan for the evil that MEN - and women
- do! Poor fellow...can you imagine how stressful it must be to get blamed for just about all the evil in the world. I wouldn't want to be his therapist!
So here's an interesting question. We blame the evil in the world on the devil, yet what does God say in Isaiah 43:7? "I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these
things." But wait, God is saying that HE created evil and darkness! So is the Devil just God's helper - manifesting God's darkness, while the other angels manifest his light? Why would God create evil? Was it a typo in the translation? Or...is it possible that Good and Evil are like the two poles of a battery that are needed for electricity to flow.... except in this case the "electricity" is the spiritual evolution of humanity? I wonder how many of us would seek a spiritual light, if there were no darkness to stumble, fall and wander around lost in?
The fact that even Jesus Christ had to get tempted by Satan - before his death and resurrection- makes me wonder if Satan is - or is a symbol for - something a little more profound than a reason for us to blame OUR inner demons, bad luck, bad judgement, and lack of spirituality on?